Ysiad Senyah
Bio
I write stuff, sometimes.
Stories (5)
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Sunshine
I’m not a fucking savant. I can’t play the piano at an advanced level. Not that it would matter now, anyway. It shouldn’t matter, and yet it does. The whole fucking world imploded, but less than twenty seconds after speaking to me, they know what I am. They know what it means. Oh, look, an autistic kid! And then they want me to jump on command like some dancing monkey. Well, I hate to break it to you, but I suck at maths. I don’t know an isotope from a telescope, and I can’t even say hello in any language but my own. I haven’t been painting since birth, and I couldn't produce the faintest suggestion of a likeness if I attempted to draw something.
By Ysiad Senyah5 years ago in Fiction
High Visibility
It’s hard playing second fiddle to a genius brother; harder still when he wipes out half the planet. Nobody congratulated me on being sister to the boy who won the science award five years in a row, but now I’m diabolical because of his bright ideas. It almost seemed destined, somehow. He was the clever boy, and I’d be the pretty girl. It worked for a time until puberty hit me, and then I failed to hit the mark. Stretch marks, acne, braces, greasy hair, and worst of all, entirely mediocre grades. Next to him, the best I could hope for was invisibility. Still, he loved me. I’m not sure he ever understood how brilliant he was, to be honest. I hated him all the same. On a good day, I’d leave the house before anyone came down for breakfast. I’d make my way to the back of the classroom before anyone else filtered in. I’d sit in the bathroom to eat my lunch. If I was really lucky, I’d make it home before anyone else. I'd run straight up to my bedroom to set up my telescope in time for the blue-black unveiling of the great beyond.
By Ysiad Senyah5 years ago in Fiction
The Coal Troll
My house, like most houses in the town I grew up in, had a cellar with a coal shoot. My father worked down the coal mines prior to the strikes, later requalifying as a care assistant and working in council-run homes for the elderly. Coal - and more broadly, mining - was a huge part of my childhood. My father had tiny pieces of the stuff buried in his skin. The large landscape of his back, juxtaposed against my tiny frame, was littered with their stubborn presence, like tiny meteorites in a wide expanse of a whitewashed sky. I would panic when I saw them. I rubbed my hand over his back and I felt the rough surface left by their unwanted blemishing of his perfect skin. I worried that perhaps they would make my dad sick. I worried he'd get so many of them that, eventually, he'd turn into a large piece of coal with eyes. I worried.
By Ysiad Senyah5 years ago in Fiction
Chaos and Caramel
I have a small army of children. Seven, to be precise. Four years ago, I developed the sudden urge to return to education. Something my mother said to me many moons ago was suddenly replaying in my mind: Monkey see, monkey do. I wanted better for my kids than the life I’d made for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children. I imagined, somewhat romantically, that we were a little like the Weasleys: eccentric, financially stretched, but loveable, and - perhaps more importantly - loving. We made do. Still, something nagged at me for long enough that I made the jump and returned to education. My life best resembles the checkout at the supermarket: rapid-fire administrations of food and clothing on a production line, and some days are better than others. Mostly, it’s the others. What I haven’t mentioned yet is that I applied to study for a full-time degree at university in spite of the fact that my seven Weasleys were themselves educated at home. By me.
By Ysiad Senyah5 years ago in Families
Dragonfly
Soon, the clattering stopped. The women held their breath and closed their eyes, as had been their practice for the last six weeks. Jo assured them that the hall was soundproof, but it didn’t stop them from worrying they’d be overheard. In front of her were thirty weary women. Some black, some lesbians, some disabled, some poor. All women. They crept to the side of the hall, sticks in hand, and returned them to the store cupboard.
By Ysiad Senyah5 years ago in Fiction
