Miriam Culy

“A Morning With ME” by Miriam Culy

Submitted to Contest #230

Wake up. Stretch out your ankles, try not to scream. Hide under the duvet, assess the pain. How would you rate the pain on a scale of 1 to 10? F*ck off, you can’t give pain a number. Take the painkillers you left on your bedside. The co-codamol not the paracetamol. Scroll through social media as you wait for it to take effect. It does not. Continue scrolling through social media. Realise you should have eaten before taking painkillers. Search bedside drawer for food, eat the half-squashed oat bar hidden there. Scroll through more social medi...

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“Her Father's Secret” by Miriam Culy

Submitted to Contest #214

As the car pulled up to the three-storey chalet on the edge of The Lac de Serre-Ponçon in the South of France, the sun glistened on the water as if to invite them in. The two girls, Talia and Maya, had their noses pressed up against the windows, trying to capture every detail they drove past: mermaid-obsessed Talia because she was desperate to be by the water, and budding artist Maya for inspiration for her next painting. She already had her sketchbook grasped firmly against her chest. Between them sat their mother, Marianna, whose impeccabl...

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“Growing a part” by Miriam Culy

Submitted to Contest #202

Sammie was staring intensely through her microscope at the petri dish before her. Her dreams of being a princess long behind her, she had swapped ballgowns for scrubs, tiaras for a facemask, satin gloves for latex ones, and a castle for a lab. The tissue cells she was studying had multiplied appropriately since her last observation, and a smile escaped the confines of her mask, spreading up to her grey-blue eyes. It had worked.With a stream of thoughts flooding through her mind, she pulled off her disposable apron and threw it in the hazard ...

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“Heard” by Miriam Culy

Sitting on the edge of the stage, she looked out across the sea of empty chairs. Strewn along the ocean floor were the remnants drunken holiday makers had left in their wake – empty plastic cups that could suffocate sea creatures, shiny plastic wrappers and confetti that would confuse a magpie, and a plethora of bottles, none of which contained a message. She pulled out her hair grips, letting the loosened curls fall gently onto her shoulders, hoping it would help ease the tension in her scalp. It didn’t. Although this had been the biggest v...

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“An (Annotated) Guide to Finding Happiness ” by Miriam Culy

Submitted to Contest #188

Step 1: Spend time doing something you enjoy I wouldn’t have thought it would be so difficult for me to find something that I enjoy. For some people, this is a straightforward task: they find this pleasure in baking or gardening; painting or drawing; music or books. Since first reading this guide, I have waded through an ocean of half-finished cross stitches and unsolved sudokus to find the thing I truly enjoy. My guilty pleasure.The key word there being guilty.Step 2: Do some exercise This newfound hobby of mine requires surprisingly m...

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“A Thimble of Murder” by Miriam Culy

Submitted to Contest #185

Layla shoved her hands deep into her duffle coat pockets, as far away from the biting cold of the February wind as she could get them. The doughnut stand’s enticing waft of frying sugar could not overpower the burning embers that haunted her nostrils, nor could the music in her earphones drown out the crackle of the flames as they consumed each beloved possession. She could still see the empty ashtray of a room that had once been her pride and joy. Shaking her head, she glanced at her surroundings, the ones around her and not in her head, an...

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