Popshot Issue 24 - The Escape Issue SAMPLE

S h o r t S t o r i e s / F l a s h F i c t i o n / Po e t r y

PO PS H OT QUARTERLY THE ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE OF NEW WRITING

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Hollie McNish: Exclusive new poem inside

THE ESCAPE ISSUE Issue 24 - Summer 2019

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A FAIRY TALE Shor t stor y by Daniel Shand Illu stration by Dionne Kitching

The family had lived for some time beyond the edges of civilisation. Their home was positioned within a clearing of woodland, some miles from the nearest village.

They were four—mother, father, daughter, son—and existed together there in quiet contentment. However, it was now the winter season, a period that brought with it specific hardships. Their small field grew resistant to putting up crops, the goats milked slowly, and evening arrived in late afternoon.

One cold night, they were eating their final meal of the day, when the mother expressed astonishment. “God almighty!” she screamed. “Look—the window!” The three others turned in their chairs to understand the source of her fear. Behind the window, clouding the cramped pane with breath from its nostrils, was a monster.

The father roared, pushed back his chair and leapt to his feet. The son and daughter, unfamiliar with the ways of the world, considered the creature with lazy indifference.

“What’s the big deal?” asked the son.

“It’s probably just hungry,” added the daughter.

The mother, voice choked with terror, explained that this was a fiend—a denizen of the other world—bent on bringing immediate violence to their home.

“At least see what it wants,” said the daughter. The father ignored this as he crept towards the door, inched the latch open and peered outside. There was only darkness there, the chill of frost. With a swallow, he went out, his arms and shoulders tense.

He made his way to the window, but the monster was gone. All the way around the cottage he crept but saw no further sign of it.

He returned to the kitchen to inform his family of the outcome and caught the monster in there with them. It was hunched up in the spare chair.

“Out of the way everyone,” he said. “Leave this to me.”

“Oh, give it a rest, Dad,” said the daughter.

“Yeah,” said the son. “It’s cold out there. Whatever happened to hospitality?”

The mother did not speak. Her face was a mask of frozen horror.

“Do you want something to eat?” asked the daughter.

The monster nodded. The daughter got up and went to the stove. She filled a bowl with peas and smoked beef and brought it back to the monster. It expressed gratitude, somehow, and began to eat. There was a sort of arrogance in the way it settled its elbows on the tablecloth, spooning up food and swallowing. The son and daughter went back to their own meals and the father was forced to rejoin the group. It seemed improper to attack one so obviously at ease.

After the meal, the daughter cleared the table and the son brought through their evening board game, one of the family’s daily rituals. The monster showed disinterest in such a diversion. From somewhere, it produced a tobacco pipe and started to smoke. The son and daughter watched on, their eyes wide with intrigue.

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MAGIC SHOW Poem by Hollie McNish Illu stration by Esther Lalanne

i’ve begun craving absinthe shots licked bare from bars tops more and more because i’m just so fucking bored of children’s parties smiling from our fold up chairs us adults sit like crusts of bread make conversation suitable for parents we don’t know yet yes, my child is that one yes, we’re very blessed the more orange squash i pour the more pissed i long to get little jamie says he hates orange it’s summer fruits or nothing else little jamie can fuck off, i think. i lie: say there’s just orange left

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i help to hand the food out crisps and pigs fill paper plates parents hover, panicked trying desperately to sell some grapes jake’s dad adds three carrot sticks jake looks at his dad like cunt someone tells me that the waiting list for cubs is almost one year long and i nod and i panic unsure how to respond because from marrow bone to blood to skin i just don’t fucking care i have my tits out in an absinthe bar liquour lapping down my front calling to the bartender to shot me out another one my daughter runs to me and points climbs my lap. we sit. we hug we watch the magic show together i’m pleased she’s having fun

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PROMENADE DES ANGLAIS Poem by Hannah Januar y Illu stration by Alexandra Dzhiganskaya

In memory of the victims of the 14 July terror attack in Nice

Give this fury a colour: maybe the hot stain of fireworks, crust on bulletholes in glass.

Why others and not us – was it the rosaries we were yet to bless?

Since we’re alive we put on suncream: McDonald’s is out of milkshake, just punishment for greed but the summer is hot and massacres pass like storms.

Take the girl on the tram in the morning, her plaits fizzled out like a fling: she had never seen such dandelions, cannot count to eighty-four.

We will not shatter her starry eyes with tales of other lights so bright mown down beside the sea.

A truck herringboning mincing deadheading men not dead – but the summer is hot.

A mile from the prom, we buy postcards to remember.

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T WENT Y DOLLAR SHOES Fla sh fic tion by Amanda Huggins Illu stration by Jade Moore

The man’s elbow digs into my ribcage, but I don’t move. I need his tourist dollars. We’re pressed together on the narrow bed in a mess of frowzy sheets, and his sagging flesh is clammy against my tanned skin. I turn to him with my paint-on smile and think of the good things. The yellow dress my sister is making for me, the matching shoes I’ll buy later, and the certainty that one day I’ll escape this city, this island; one day I won’t be in Havana. In America I’ll have all the dresses I want, and a Cuban man who’ll be kind to me.

And now the man is pressing down on me again, his sweat dripping onto my face, leaning in close to kiss me.

“Extra for kissing,” I say. “Twenty dollars in total.”

I can get the yellow stilettos with twenty, and I know that with those shoes I can get the attention of the wealthy Americans, the older men who are here looking for the prettiest girls with the sweetest smiles. I need one of them to take me with him to Miami, and I know they won’t take cheap corner hookers. When I get there I’ll find a Cuban boy like Ernesto Angel, the only boy who ever cared about me.

And when he’s finished, I wait patiently for his breathing to slow, for him to pull on his shorts and leave the money on the side.

He heaves himself up on one arm and looks at me.

“Twenty, you said?”

I nod as he reaches for his wallet.

Then he pauses.

“That’s more than a whore like you’s worth. But I’m feeling generous.

Ten if you kick me out now, twenty if you let me stay longer - and we play to my rules.”

I think of the yellow shoes, the candy pink houses in Miami, and Ernesto’s smile.

After he leaves I lie still. My wrists feel bruised, my lips swollen, and I can taste the metallic tang of blood. When I reach for the money it’s just as I expect. There’s only a single ten dollar bill pushed under the chipped statuette of Our Lady. Her watchful eyes reproach me and I turn her to face the wall. Then I get up and go through to the bathroom.

Everything will be okay. Tomorrow my sister will finish the yellow dress, and an American will fall in love with me.

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Popshot is a beautifully illustrated quarterly magazine showcasing imaginative short stories, flash fiction and poetry by the best new writers.

The Escape Issue is a collection of vivid writing about getting away; from real danger and metaphorical prisons. Our writers wrest free from relationships, time and life-threatening situations. The stories and poems included feature escaped jaguars, flamenco classes, magic mushroom tea and monsters.

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SUMMER 2019