After a record-breaking 600 entries, we are delighted to announce the shortlist for this year’s Short Story Prize. The selected stories will be judged by Omar Robert Hamilton, Kishani Widyaratna, and...
You realise you haven’t eaten in days
Dirty dishes line the counters; your twin toddlers
glitch in and out of their high chairs, mustering
twin howls of outrage
You give up;
pass out on a floor slick with plumbing malfunctions
Someone, as always, is watching
and will come to your aid
Your husband is home from work
but his pay barely touches the bills strewn
across the front lawn Sometimes
you wish for a meteor, or a swarm of bees
Sometimes you think the only way out
of this suburban hellscape is through the foundations,
trapped waist-deep, pissing yourself into the cellar
Someone will make it all right;
and anyway none of this is real:
leading scientists
guess we are ninety-nine-per-cent probably
living a simulation
Against your better judgment, you pull up a chair and
Play Video Games until 6 am
You realise you haven’t eaten in days
