Featured Flash Fiction...

The Material World

I came downstairs in my pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt, bra-less and floppy, hardly seeing anything at all. My eyes always stung early in the morning, and this was maybe six am; still, I could see one foot in front of the other, just about. The sliver of light from the shutters promised dawn, enough to see my way so long as I used my phone. But what did that matter for the pong hit me first. It rattled me. Filled the whole room - the sharp musk of a body: heat and desert sand and animal dung; onion sweat, age, aromatic oils, old hides. Weeks of the same cloth against sour flesh.

When we moved in I was forced to settle on the only couch they could deliver fast, a beige textured-effect three-seater, Scandinavian style, priced accessibly thanks to the miracles they’ve been performing with polyester. It was not, and never will be, what I wanted in a couch. But there you go. I flipped the light switch at the bottom of the stairs and there he was - sitting on it.

Imagine. This couch - with midcentury modern teak legs angled out in four corners and the low, soft seat - holding his solid girth. I presume he had been staring at the television screen suspended ahead of him all that time, a black void with a dull plasma sheen revealing the felt of dust I never got round to cleaning. Assorted cables grappled with the shelf underneath. We tried to hide them, but they always stuck their coiled bodies out refusing to listen.

With the shock of modern electric light, he turned.

His face was like leather and his eyebrows were arched black and thick and glossy as if he had applied oil to them. His mouth sneered, lines drawn down at each side of full lips. High bones, eyes silvered dark, black lashed; bearded. Haughty nose, huge wide shoulders and the whole package draped head to toe in yarn-dyed cloth; hand-loomed with a gorgeous warp and weft. (I’ve always had an eye for textiles. And round that time, I’d been humming and hawing over investing in a set of long staple certified organic Egyptian cotton percale sheets. This was the decider: yes, absolutely!)

But anyway, so, there I was, frozen on the bottom step and his eyes turned, glaring at me.

I stood and didn’t breathe.

That glare. Was a dagger hidden in his hand? And the size of him. I thought he would break the sofa. (But somewhere deep inside I was secretly pleased, too, because then we could maybe order the kind of one I really liked, a European linen classic low back with pleated detailing on the arm rests and removable, washable covers. Worth the fourteen week wait.)

His chest rose and settled again as though he wasn’t sure if he was going to pounce at me and also wasn’t sure why he was there, wondering who I was and what that black rectangle was. And it was all a little awkward.

Should I head on into the kitchen and warm up the coffee machine? It was all I could think of first thing in the morning. Maybe offer him a cup. What was his language? Ancient Coptic? Greek? Hebrew? Aramaic? Did he prefer espresso? Should I use Google Translate?

His eyes compelled me. I let out a murmur and edged over to the little pouf we bought at Ikea - just inches away from legs that hit the floor like two evenly erected telegraph poles. It would be rude to cover my mouth and nose, so I didn’t. I was sure I was getting used to it. Anyhow, how did I smell to him? Pretty ripe, I’d say, pre-shower, with diminished residues of yesterday’s armpit deodorant and whatnot.

I did a little bow sort of thing with my chin and tried to look respectful, palms together.

“Wait!”

It only occurred to me as I said it.

“You’re from the Gnostic stuff I’ve been reading about aren’t you?”

Had I conjured him from my latest rabbit hole? The podcasts, websites, books: a satisfying mystery of inner kingdoms, Barbelo, Archons, light and fire. But I trembled now, still scared at the size of him. He was a strapping Arab.

He did not strike me down when he shifted in his seat. No, he nodded, and his smile was cruel. He was dangerous for sure.

Encouraged by his nod and lack of violence I went on:

“I’ve been reading way too much about all that second century biblical stuff,” I said. “Keeps coming up on my feed. And I don’t understand any of it.”

His eyes gleamed and I was beginning to get a thrill from his generous weirdness. Now, I wouldn’t say he was gentle. He was a pungent serpent/lion. But still, I settled into it.

He was about to say something, his mouth revealed a flash of jagged white teeth. I waited. Soon rough consonants crackled in the air like sparks.

“Whenever you split a log or turn over a stone you will find me there,” he seemed to say. He had come a long way to say it, maybe eighteen hundred years. He made me know it though it came out in an ancient tongue.

Whenever you split a log

or turn over a stone

you will find me there.

But I had never used an axe, nor would I, and my husband did all the gardening. Or anything to do with stones. If that was needed.

I stood up to get the coffee, pushing my hand out as if to say “stay there”, sure that he would wait, that we had an understanding. There was grit in his beard and under his fingernails. Would he like to wash?

Sadly, when I returned with the two coffees he was gone. The back of my throat made a little rasp of pain. I had even decanted his into a borosilicate shot glass I had bought but never used before because we preferred flat whites. I was proud to show it off and be a good hostess. But there was not even a suggestion of him in the scatter of the Indian block print cushions and the air was clear, spiceless.

I felt a little guilty, but you know how the day goes? You’re busy, and after a while you forget? Although, I did look over at that spot on the sofa from time to time if I was passing.

The room seemed desolate now, bland, and I began to wonder how we could liven things up. Add some deep terracotta tones, a new rug?

Funny thing is - as it happens - I found myself tidying up the front border where we had put in an automatic sprinkler a few weeks later and when I turned over a stone that was pushing on the hose, I was indeed reminded of him. It was a foot long piece of sandstone easy enough to dislodge and expose the wet grass and slime underneath. I watched the woodlice scatter like a bunch of low-lifes.

I hope the neighbors didn’t see me gaping at them that way I did - for far too long - just wondering at the wonder.

copyright Lisa Power Reynolds 2026