The Ocular Precision of the Photography Teacher

His finger caresses the shutter button of the Nikon like the lips of a lover. When he’s captured enough life, he takes the camera and retreats into the dark room like a hermit. I follow on the whisper of hope. As he dips and swirls, rinses and hangs, I watch the miracles appear. He spreads his images on the table and points to the tiny details he’s picked up, things he says are not discernible to the human eye: The sun feathering the wing tip of a red kite. The glint of white fear beading the blackness of a vole’s eyeball. The wind sweeping the whiskers of wild barley. But there are things he doesn’t pick up. The red glow highlighting the swirling steam of my coffee cup. The quiver of my blouse covering my beating heart. The pheromones of longing keeping me close to his side.
by
Louise Mangos
@LouiseMangos

Falling in Love with Vinnie Sparrow Inside and Out

Vinnie Sparrow regularly turns his eyelids inside out on the playground at break time. We squeal with grossed-out delight as he chases us with his sherbet-furred tongue sticking out and those pale pink slivers of skin half covering his sky-blue irises. It snows for four whole days in February, and a group of us goes to the top field to slide down with bin liners borrowed from the custodian’s cleaning cupboard. Vinnie loses control of his stolen canteen tray half way down and tumbles into the wire fence at the back of the football pitch. The packed snow drift behind the goal is splattered with crimson. I clutch him, and stare into the chasm of his gashed cheek, past the shiny amber jewels of fat globules, to the blank white smoothness of his jaw bone. Until Mrs Smithfield says they really need to get him to the hospital.
by
Louise Mangos
@LouiseMangos

The Night the Fishmonger's Van Reverses into the Youth Club Pop-up Disco and Shifts Debbi's World

She is spinning when it happens, a big bang, pilchards slithering in an ever-increasing arc, spilled from a giant blue bucket on the back of the fish truck, ice cubes scattering like stars on the shiny black universe of a portable dance floor, spinning, spinning in the centre, Debbi is a brightly-coloured planet wobbling on her axis, thrusting her hips to keep everything suspended in the vacuum, a single mirrored ball sending out filaments from its solar corona, as she sucks the caipirinha from her plastic beaker, bursts of lime juice vesicles stinging her tongue like scales, but she can’t stop spinning, mesmerised as the fish approach in the perfect synchrony of an expanding super nova, as the closing bars of “Discotheque” fade, Bono is the king of the heavens, the Neptune of the deep, and Debbi’s hula hoop clatters to the floor with the last of her determination.
by
Louise Mangos
@LouiseMangos

The Last Kiss

You said goodbye in the anonymity of Paddington Station. Train announcements echoed off the high roof, flattening your voice with a thousand others. Destinations, track numbers, and your decision were incomprehensible. I should have known you would go back to her. Responsibilities and excuses. Men always go back to your wives. You left your coffee cup on the table, lukewarm dregs in the creases round the base. I studied the place you had last taken a sip, and pressed my lips to the cardboard, tipped it up, drained the cup. This would be our last kiss, moisture enveloping our DNA in the acinar cells of our saliva, embracing in my mouth. I envisioned them sluicing down my oesophagus, swirling through my gut, absorbed through my intestinal wall, flowing through my veins, pumping their way into the tiny embryo that has the shared double helix of us.

Credits

fiction
&
artwork
by

Louise Mangos
louisemangos.com
@LouiseMangos

©
creator

Heat - Louise Mangos

Heat

It was the hottest summer on record. Everyone waited impatiently for the rains. Dust blew off the clay-baked earth. The heat was so thick it buzzed in Jay’s ears. He poured a few drops of precious water onto his favourite neck scarf and laid its fleeting coolness on his cheek. He wished Mamma would hurry back with ice. The first locust hit the mesh screen with the sound of a torn high voltage wire. Jay ran down the hall and slammed the door. His heart pounded in rhythm to each thud against the rough siding of their home. As he checked the last window in the front room, he looked out to the driveway and saw Mamma in the front of the Chevy, her palm pressed against the windshield, her mouth a perfect round O, her scream drowned by the beat of a million papery wings.

Credits

fiction
&
artwork
by

Louise Mangos
louisemangos.com
@LouiseMangos

©
creator

New Bike - Louise Mangos

New Bike

Rachel zips up her jacket against the autumn chill. She slips one hand between Ronnie’s arm and his warm body. ‘This one’s the business,’ he says. ‘Full carbon fibre fork, tapered frame, lightweight aerodynamic wheels, eleven-speed electronic gear set. She’ll ride like the wind.’ Rachel smiles, and imagines him crossing the line in front of the Arc de Triomphe, crowds banging the boarded barriers with their gimmicky inflatable batons, his arms held high in victory, balancing on the slippery paving stones of the Paris street. ‘That’ll be at least ten grand,’ Ronnie continues. The streetlight wobbles in a gust of wind, showering them with a curtain of hanging raindrops. ‘Yep, this one’s the real business,’ he murmurs. Rachel walks to the van and slides open the door while Ronnie steadies the bolt cutters over the thick chain lock.

Credits

fiction
&
artwork
by

Louise Mangos
louisemangos.com
@LouiseMangos

©
creator

Ducks - Louise Mangos

Ducks

When the doctor came to ask why, Judy said, it was because of the ducks. She closed her eyes but their bodies were still there, wings flailing as they attempted to fly off the bitumen. The doctor said, sign here, on the dotted line, so we can give you some blood. Judy said, there was blood on the dotted line. Blood and shit and – grey stuff. She doesn’t have words for the dying-crying noises the ducks were making; their wing-beats, thickening the air like clotted cream; the hot scent of tar and blood and shit that has settled in her hindbrain and thrown her off balance ever since. The doctor said, something else must be wrong. People don’t slit their wrists because some ducks got run over. But they’re in here, Judy said, her hands fluttering around her head. They keep dying. I don’t know how to make it stop.

Credits

fiction by
Eileen Merriman
@MerrimanEileen

image by
Louise Mangos
louisemangos.com

©
creators