Sensory detail
Vincent

The moonlight is giving a jaundiced reflection to the white stone staircase that leads to the Amphitheater. The silent streets are waiting for the wind to pass through them with a screech while the houses stretch tall next to each other, rattling in the cold. Behind the windows of bright rooms, a passing face might stop and exchange an audacious look with the thick indigo of the darkness outside. The stars pulsating like lemon seeds in the sky are only visible to the wanderers the night has long incubated.

Tonight one wanderer is passing through the streets, noticing details from every lit interior: curtains of emeralds and burgundies, sombre book shelves, tattered armchairs. He reaches into these private worlds and looks at the people momentarily halted at their windows, who cannot look back, observing them in their reverie as he walks. His bag clunks awkwardly with each one of his steps. In long-legged strides he soon reaches the edge of the town.

As the town falls asleep he frenetically starts setting up his easel, as if suddenly aware that death might come calling at any moment. His blue eyes are digging their way into his face with concentration. With the back of his hands he wipes the strands of strawberry blonde hair that keep getting stuck to his sweaty forehead.

The cat-eyed moon above is staring at the top of his head with a low hum, waiting for him to reveal signs of madness. The hills watch the frenzied staccato movements of his paint brush. A breeze softly curls in the air around him, twirling the tree tops on its way. A masterpiece is under way but he doesn’t know it, nor will he ever find out.

Unexpected detail
Ghost

I was ten when I disappeared.

It was on a Thursday night. Mum was making sweet potato soup. I was watching her back move as she chopped vegetables and dropped them into the saucepan. It looked complicated to me but she knew exactly what she was doing. It looked like she was repeating a well rehearsed dance.
I was telling her about Ancient Egypt, which we’d been learning about in school that day.

“And the weirdest part is that when a person dies, they keep their organs in small jars! Canapé jars they’re called. It’s so disgusting.”

Mum laughed. “Canopic jars darling. They did it because they thought the person would need their organs in the after life. It’s quite a lovely thought, really.”

I said nothing and pondered this.

The kitchen smelled safe and familiar. The warmth of the soup enveloped me. Mum called my sisters down to dinner and we were all served a bowl. I remember the feeling of the hot smooth liquid going down my throat.
I was wearing a yellow jumper and when I spilled a spoonful down the front, I got told off while my sisters snickered.

After dinner, I walked up the stairs and went to open the door to my room but it wasn’t there.

I paused, took a step back and stared. The blank wall stared right back at me. I closed my eyes hard, counted to ten and reopened them. I wondered if I was asleep. I pretended to walk away then turned back to see if my door would be there, but nothing worked.

The thing I remember the most was my heartbeat in my ears. I ran down the stairs shouting at my mum to come, come and look at my bedroom, it’s gone! But there was nobody downstairs and the kitchen was empty. No saucepan on the stove, the soup bowls were gone. My legs ran from room to room. No sign of my mum or sisters. I caught my sleeve on one of the door handles and heard it tear but kept going. I stopped in front of the fridge, where Mum’s framed magnets showed baby pictures of the three of us. The picture of me that was usually in the middle was gone.
After a while I gave up screaming and sat on the kitchen floor, defeated.

I don’t know how long I was there for. Just as it hit me that I somehow inexplicably had stopped existing, time stopped feeling real too. I was faced with nothing but the silence of this strange room that was pretending to be my kitchen. I felt heavy.

My body was being shaken and I woke up with a start.

“Why on earth are you sleeping on the kitchen floor?”

I looked at a face that seemed familiar and strange all at once. Mum was standing over me.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere.” She looked at me with confusion, then her eyes settled on my arm. “And how did you manage to rip that lovely jumper?” she moaned.

I never found out what happened that night and the strangeness of it never left me. Sometimes on particularly quiet evenings when everything is still, a surge of panic that I might be disappearing comes over me and I have to count down every door in my house to check they are all still there.

Clarisse Hassan

Illustrator

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