by B F Jones

She forever births and kills her baby.

He appears to her in fragments, memories splashing her brain, vivid images of him: a boy, a groom, a toddler, a boy, a teen, a groom, a baby, a man, a baby.

Sometimes she forgets he exists altogether, suddenly no longer aware of him, engulfed in the black hole that is her memory, and only a feeling of loss remains, an inexplicable grief clutching her heart.

Then he comes back, with a phone call, a trigger — the toddler she walks past with the old-fashioned gingham overalls. “My little boy used to have an outfit just like that, I sewed it for him,” she hears herself saying to no one.

Some days, her little boy is here. Alive. Palpable. Grown up. Cooking her Sunday lunch and with it, with his touch, his arms around her frail body, the memories of him are reborn, deliciously fresh.

She sews a patchwork with his old clothes. Every time her mind lets her remember him, with each rebirth of him, she adds another small square of fabric to her patchwork.

But she forgets him again.

The needles prick her fingers. Her fading son stabs at her soul.

A boy, a groom, a toddler, a boy, a groom, a baby, a man, a baby.

Hundreds of squares nestled together. Fragments of memories whirl-pooling away. Little gingham, and tartan, tombstones, a fabric mausoleum to his fading substance.

He calls her one evening, slowly resurfacing, rebirthed once again. She knows he won’t be there for long. He will be gone soon, forgotten by her faulty brain, and her heart will break over and over again with each one of his deaths.

Don’t call me again, son.

Don’t come over anymore.

And she hangs up the phone, killing him, one last time.

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B F Jones is French and lives in Surrey with her husband, three children and cat. She works as a web consultant and writes book reviews for STORGY. She has flash fictions published in Cabinet of Heed, Idle Ink, The Fiction Pool, Soft Cartel and Bending Genres.