fiction – Jessica Barratt

The Thought Experiments

The Thought Experiments are a recent writing exercise I created for myself. It is a practice in introspective writing, using the senses as a guide. I completely recommend using the following experiments as prompts for your writing – enjoy! Experiment #1 Typing what comes to me when I close my eyes. First I close myContinue reading “The Thought Experiments”

Bait and Twitch

There’s dirt, and there’s grime, and then there’s whatever lives beneath the cracked-claw fingernails of Arnold K. Sprouse, the fat man who everyone was sure had been a child at some point, who forever twitched or itched at the boils beneath his skin. Worse yet, Arnold was the kind of scrounging sort of thing thatContinue reading “Bait and Twitch”

Spill

A while back I had the honour of having both a short story and a small book review published in the inaugural issue of The Bolo Tie Collective‘s annual anthology. While the book review takes a lighter approach to a local author’s short publication, the short story below casts a dark shadow on Edmonton’s 104th Avenue,Continue reading “Spill”

The Artist’s Lot

“…round…around…around…red, on black, on blue…” The old painter-woman pauses, her attention listing to the juicy black fly that buzzes around the sweltering, wallpapered room where she lay. She does not watch the fly—cannot, in her growing blindness—but lolls with it, following the sound as it moves from the outer edges of the room’s damp wallsContinue reading “The Artist’s Lot”

Lemon

At first there’s no warmth. Only the hot black pain of frostbite. Then like a shock, the blankness ends again and I feel my skin start to thaw, my blood slowly pulsing through veins that had almost forgotten how to push it. I pull past the glue of long-closed eyelids only to find the sameContinue reading “Lemon”