Tag Archive for: Bridget Holland

Reality Bites

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by Bridget Holland

Gabby smacked her torch against the hydra’s severed neck. Flesh sizzled. The air stank.

“Last head!” Luke called through the murk.  “Keep up!”

As she lunged forward, a coil clamped onto her shoulder. She fell, swamp water closing over her head. Her health points flashed red.

Blackness.

***

Her mother, shaking her shoulder—that explained the coil.

“Dinner, Gabby! I called you twice already.” Mum wrinkled her nose. “Something smells.”

“That’s the swamp. This new VR suit is dope. Full sensory.”

Mum snorted. “Dinner. Now!”

Gabby peeled the suit off. The stench intensified.

Leeches—blood-filled, satiated—dropped from her arm.

Bridget Holland

Bridget’s a reader, dreamer and writer living in Australia and in her imagination.

Free Choice

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by Bridget Holland

“I miss my daughter.” The woman’s hands knot together, white-knuckled, desperate.

Few find our valley. Fewer consider trading our centuries of peace for a brief lifetime outside. But all may choose freely.

“You must leave your notebooks behind. And never speak of Shambhala.”

She nods eager agreement.

***

The woman and her guides are black dots climbing to the Pass of Snows. I leaf through her notebooks, admiring how her nimble fingers have captured our homes and fertile fields. Paragraphs of foreign script separate the sketches.

I beckon Gun-yi.

“Run. Tell the guides, take her tongue as usual. Also, her hands.”

Bridget Holland

Bridget’s a reader, dreamer and writer living in Australia and in her imagination.

 

 

 

Eye Spy

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by Bridget Holland

Once, I loved the beach. Sand, sea, open sky. But the birds were watching me.

I moved to the shops along the esplanade, hid in crowds and covered spaces. One among many. Hidden, safe. But sharp eyes found me.

In my apartment, door locked, blinds drawn. I order groceries and takeout. I tell them to ring, then leave the deliveries.

Yesterday, when the doorbell rang, I checked the peephole. A beady yellow eye looked back.

Today, I can’t leave the bedroom. I hear something clacking on the floorboards outside.

I could hide in the closet.

…Will I ever come out?

Bridget Holland

Bridget’s a reader, dreamer and writer living in Australia and in her imagination.

Cabin Fever

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by Bridget Holland

Leanna hunkers in the torn-off tail of the plane, watching the afternoon downpour fill her plastic containers. She peels foil from one of the remaining meals. Larvae move.

So hungry.

“Protein.”

She forces herself to swallow.

Raindrops pound the fuselage. Vines with blood-red flowers twine over the jungle floor, over bumps which were once passengers, over the jagged rim of her sanctuary. She hacks them off every day, then huddles damp with fear-sweat while night rustles in the trees.

Overnight, the vines grow back—closer—their flowers red and hungry mouths.

“Leave me alone!” Leanna whimpers.

Her voice cracks.

“Alone…”

Bridget Holland

Bridget’s a reader, dreamer and writer living in Australia and in her imagination.