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MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Issue 16: 1 Jan. 2023
Microfiction: 119 words
By Bayveen O’Connell

Washerwoman’s Wish

 

I am a washerwoman. I do not dream of chandeliers or manicured gardens or four-poster beds. I do not want to lie with the prince (and you wouldn’t either if you saw the state of his sheets.) Soap, suds, and soaking buckets are all a long way from sapphires and soirees. No silk gloves will fit over my pruney, arthritic fingers. No amount of satin over corsetry will turn me into a princess. I prefer cabbage to caviar, tatties to terrines. I do not need a fairy godmother unless she’s good at wringing and folding. My only wish is for a man who can wash his own bloody clothes, and mine too while he’s at it.

Bayveen O’Connell
Issue 16 (1 January 2023)

has words in Splonk, Scrawl Place, The Ekphrastic Review, Lumiere Review, Janus Literary, Fractured Lit, The Forge, Ellipsis Zine, Maryland Literary Review, Bending Genres, and others. She has recently received a Pushcart nomination for her microfiction, and is a Best Microfiction nominee for 2023. She loves costumes, capes, Bowie, ruins, and Síle-na-Gigs. Her writing is inspired by art, folklore, history, and travel. She’s currently putting together a flash fiction collection.

 
 
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