Princess Angharad swallowed the apple pip by mistake,
she felt it slipping down her throat and tumbling down
inside her. She ran up the stone steps to her bedroom
in the tower, to take off her clothes. She hung up her
pink blouse, folded the skirt onto the chair, and stood
in her petticoat, her fingers rubbing her belly, feeling
for swelling. It was already starting to happen. She
could feel the seedling stirring inside, rising up from
the compost of lunch. She cried then, thinking of the
tree that would sprout, branches pushing out of her
nostrils, her ears, from under her fingernails, children
snatching apples from her branches.
The door opened, it was Mari, she had heard the Princess'
whines from her room under the stairs. Mari knew how
to get rid of it, her cousin had helped her once, after
she had swallowed an avocado stone. She made Princess
Angharad lie down on the floor like a stiff starfish.
She bent over and pressed her ear to the Princess' naked
belly, listened to the gurgling and pulsing inside.
Then she moved her head down and looked up the little
hole that she found there, searching for the young tree
with her eyes, her tongue, her longest finger.
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Non Ifans
is a Welsh writer living in Cardiff, South Wales. She
works as a Speech and Language Therapist. She will complete
her MA degree at Cardiff University in "The Teaching
and Practise of Creative Writing" in Sept 04. She
enjoys writing all sorts of things both in Welsh and
English, including microfiction, poetry, fiction and
monologues.
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