Jack Morris
Grief is a thing with claws
There’s a lion tethered to the whirligig. It arrived the day Jamie died. Every day Mae watches it from the kitchen window, which she’s long since locked against the stink. Every day the lion, chain taut, paces mud circles around Jamie’s once pristine lawn. This year’s tomato plants wilt in the veg patch, their fruit hard and green. Last year Jamie brought in the first crop and rubbed fresh leaves along the delicate skin of Mae’s wrist; held her hand against his cheek.
‘You smell delicious,’ he’d said. Mae tries not to remember these moments. It doesn’t do to poke the creature that lives in her chest, the one that roars when she thinks of all she’s lost.
Every dusk Mae stands by the window, washing dishes, and the lion stares directly at her with unblinking amber eyes. Jamie would’ve said it was lonely. Soft lad, Jamie. Tender-hearted. Mae closes the kitchen curtains and leaves the beast to the shadows.
One night, Mae dreams of sunlight and ripe tomatoes and a warm body next to hers. She wakes to trampled plants and a bent whirligig, lying lopsided like the skeleton of an upturned umbrella after a storm.
‘What are you doing?’ She rushes outside. The lion is on the roof of Jamie’s potting shed, tail flicking. ‘You’re supposed to stay on the chain,’ she yells. ‘Not wreck everything.’
The lion grumbles, deep in its throat. Like Jamie’s breath towards the end. Rattle rasp, rattle rasp. Mae had held his hand for hours. Rattle rasp. Kissed each white knuckle. Rattle. Inhaled his new sour scent. Rasp. Yearned for an echo of his old one.
Rattle. Rasp. Rattle.
What would Jamie do if he had a lion loose in the garden?
‘Come here,’ she says, in as kind a voice as she can muster. ‘Come down.’
She feeds it last night’s mince. It gulps the food then looks at her, head cocked, as if to say, ‘Is that all?’
‘I’ll go to the shop,’ she tells it.
In the supermarket she picks lamb chops, Jamie’s favourite. The plastic-wrapped tomatoes, shelves upon shelves of them, make her eyes prick with tears so she takes a bag of rocket instead. Jamie always declared rocket too bitter. Bitter suits her fine.
She eats at the garden table. The lion licks both of their plates clean then lies down in the veg patch. That evening, Mae drapes a blanket over the lion’s broad back to keep off the chill. It doesn’t smell so bad, she decides. It's a musky, feral smell but not stale. Not sour.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ she says.
The lion sighs, lays its head on its paws. Mae turns and heads for the door but it looks so forlorn, huddled against the first nip of Autumn. She knows what Jamie would do.
‘Come on, then’ she says, ‘you’d better come inside.’
Editor’s note: This piece garnered third place in the 2023 Propelling Pencil Competition.
Jack Morris lives in Brighton, UK. She has a Masters in Creative Writing from the Open University. She’s hopelessly dedicated to brevity and is proud to be in both Best Microfictions 2026 and the Fish Anthology 2026. Published work at https://www.thewavingnotdrowningblog.com/
