So, I’m sitting there scrolling my phone for vacant bedsit ads when Henry enters the house, all door slamming and dropping stuff on the floor, making my ears itch. “Shit, I have a bloody earwig now!” he shouts. “Or is it ear worm? I don’t know. Anyway on the way to work a car pulls up beside me at a light, blaring, of all things, that damn song...that stupid one...” He ignores me waving for him to stop, then covering my ears with my hands. “...the one about everybody ruling the world. All day it’s been buzzing around in my fucking head.” He staggers off to the bathroom and stays there until a foul odour creeps out underneath the door. Soon, I’m humming as I scuttle about the bedroom jamming all of my clothes into a couple of large travel bags.

Louella Lester

is a Winnipeg (Canada) writer and photographer. Her writing has appeared in journals such as New Flash Fiction, Blink-Ink, Flash Flood, Potato Soup, Cleaver, The Odd Magazine, Litro, Five Minutes, SoFloPoJo, The Dribble Drabble Review, and a variety of other journals and anthologies. Her book Glass Bricks (At Bay Press, April 2021), written in flash and micro, is a quirky look at her work life.

Author’s blog: Through Camera & Pen