SUMMER 2025, SHORT STORY, 350 WORDS
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What are you doing here?
You lie alone in a field, discarded—they do not need you anymore.
You stare sightlessly at the bright blue sky, pale clouds drifting lazily across it like soft boats on a calm sea. The sun shines down, golden rays licking at your cold, unfeeling skin. The long grasses around your body sway gently in the breeze, their quiet whispers left unheard.
What are you doing here?
The magpie lands on the ground beside you, feathers gleaming blue-green in the sun. It cocks its head as it gazes at you, its beady black eyes staring at your stillness.
What is that?
It flutters next to your head, attention captured by the jewel dangling from your ear.
As shiny as a hazelnut!
It pecks at you, sharp beak snipping into your lobe and dragging the prize from it before swooping away, the precious stone dangling from its mouth.
Thank you!
What are you doing here?
The starling chirps, ruffling its soft speckled feathers as it lands in the hedgerow. It inspects you from afar, waiting for a sudden movement that never comes.
What is that?
Hopping down, its pointed yellow beak begins to pluck at your scalp, collecting strands of your deep brown locks.
As fine as horsehair!
Done with its harvest, the starling flies from your body and disappears back to its home, its beak full of strands for the nest.
Thank you!
What are you doing here?
The crow caws as it dives down and lands beside you. It tucks its glossy black feathers tight to its body as it inquisitively hops upon your corpse.
What is that?
It buries its sharp black beak into your eye socket, ripping the eyeball from it.
As blue as a cornflower!
It swallows your eye, savouring the taste as it begins to pick at the rest of you, devouring your flesh.
Thank you!
A. J. Sharpe, queer horror author and collector of dead things, has always enjoyed the morbid and the gross. Armed with a MA degree in Creative Writing from Aberystwyth University, Sharpe hopes to use her skills to horrify and nauseate. You can find out more about her and her writing at: ajsharpe.co.uk