Photo by Johnny McClung on Unsplash
by Alison Wassell
They call her Clam and the name sticks, like a mollusc to a rock. Seldom speaking, seldom smiling, Clam burrows dusty volumes deep in libraries, seeks shelter in lecture halls, shuns attention, craves quietness.
“Come out of your shell, Clam,” they cry, and when she demurs they wound with words that breach her calcium carbonate exterior and lodge in her softness.
Taciturn, dull, stupid, slow, the insults irritate like grains of sand.
Tissue trapped, nacre coated, layers slowly harden, and iridescent polished pearls of poems are formed. Abductor muscles clenched, Clam keeps them to herself.
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Alison Wassell is a writer of very short fiction from Merseyside, UK. Her work has been published by Bath Flash Fiction Award, The Phare, Roi Faineant and Reflex Fiction.
