Lose This Skin

After the explosion his ears filled with hot wool, a ringing like a thousand hollow cymbals. Darkness and distant sounds of coughing, moaning, the carriage angled wrongly.

I shouldn't be here, he thought, legs at an awkward angle, splayed. They'll be able to see up my skirt.

Leaving the house, business suited, kissing his wife goodbye, he smelled comfortable bed smells of unwashed pyjamas; the murmur of Radio 4. Driving to a space beneath a flyover, surrounded by concrete and weeds, he slowly reskinned himself. In the rear view mirror, his real self took shape, stopping to feel the slippery touch of tights, the unfamiliar constriction of blouse and bra, the heaviness of makeup.

Crushing into the Tube, on this first day of a secret new life, he'd tottered on heels, admiring his pale smooth wrist, the turn of his hip.

Light showed through thick smoke, around him glass like diamonds, people injured. Someone said the word bomb.

Oh god, she'll find out, she'll leave me. Are my knickers showing?

Voices, far off, shouted about a woman bleeding. Trying to turn and look, his body didn't move.

Rough hands propped him up.

What woman?

Realising, he smiled through red lips.

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This story also appears in Issue 16 of Brittle Star magazine