Read The Journey Prize Stories 28 for Free Online

muscular body is a lean shadow in the dimness.
    â€œWhat made you go from zero to sixty?”
    Laura hesitates. “Just a stupid breakup.”
    â€œAh. Bad?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAh.” George throws her cigarette at her foot, grinds it slowly. “Well, then, that makes a lot of sense, Mallory.”
    â€œWhat?” Laura’s neck snaps to the side. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œThe way you lift. You know, like you’ve got something to prove.”
    Laura stares at George’s profile but sees no hint of satisfaction—just her mouth set and calm, as if she’s just read out the price of an item for sale. After a few minutes of silence, Laura realizes that George isn’t going to say anything more. She leans back into the wall and watches traffic. Rain begins to fall, hooks at her lip.

    The streets are dark, empty. Houses and houses and houses, stuffed with their hosts. The weights made tunnels in her. Dug her up again. She will go home again to the empty condo.
    A white fish cruises along the side of the dark road.
    The bicycle drifts in its lane.
    Laura swerves slightly.
    The cyclist jerks, bends outward, pulled by the magnet in the centre of Laura’s driver’s wheel.
    She swerves gently again, hears the bellow of surprise from the cyclist this time, how she can press herself gently into him.
    She swerves again, comes back to centre.
    His yell comes clear through the glass: “CRAZY FUCKING BITCH.”
    This time she slows down as she swerves. Looks across the passenger seat and sees the cyclist’s face. Not the hardened urban cyclist she’d expected but a teenaged boy clinging to the handlebars like a tree branch he’s climbed too far out on. His fearful hunch, face angled across his neck, eyes stretched wide.
    She swerves one more time and watches him go over into the ditch.

    When she gets home, she huddles in her bed, the whole quilt around her body. Her body shivers so hard her knees knock against her chest. She pulls her laptop from the bedside table, opens it, and there’s her Facebook page.
    She types in:
your body was my home
. She presses post. Sucks in her breath when she sees the words float there.
    Hurriedly clicks her cursor in the blank space again.
    Types in:
it isnt over if theres nothing left something was there then nothing
    Post. A tiny red 1 appears in the top right corner of her screen. She doesn’t recognize the name of the person who liked her first post. Her body is still so cold.
    Another blank space and she fills it in:
breaking open
    Another blank space.
    She types:
nighttimes are worst when you sleep alone every night you feel alone all day you go back every time
    She types:
you planned it for so long and i had no idea. HOW
. Post.
    She types:
this is so poignant are you watching?
    She types:
can a person actually just fall in love with a cypher?
    She types:
blood vessels break down very easily did you know I didnt
. Post.
    She clicks the white camera icon to take a selfie. There she is, shockingly lean. Eyes large, the strong arch of one arm, the muscles visible. She clicks and the selfie stabilizes, both unfocused and luminous. A stranger gazes back at her from her new profile picture, jaw set, unmoving. The image pops up beside each of the posts, a row of her, shrunken and staring, beside her words, the only true words she has spoken since Mallory left. Sleep takes her down.

    She prefers the gym late at night. The bodies and wheels. The low hum. The feeling of this day, and that day, and the next, and the next, entering and leaving her flesh. Her limbs pressed into rotations deepening their paths. Joints; grindstones. Her breath under one hundred pounds, two hundred pounds. The soft hammer against the front of her throat, marking out time. She is so strong now. Stronger than she has ever been. People rise and move from one machine to the next, busy with their private reasons for