​Sleeping Beauty, by Bayveen O'Connell

Death in the Sickroom, by Edvard Munch (Norway) 1896

​Sleeping Beauty

An angel is coming to take the girl away. Her father is torn, he wants her to stay longer in this world, in this life. He imagines an empty space where she still lies and he cannot bear it. The girl is not thinking of what she will miss, she hardly knows the world outside this house, this bedroom. She wishes for less suffering more often. Her head pounds louder and louder each day as though hobgoblins are hammering away at the bedrock of her being. Her mother sways in the rocking chair by her side, round with the sibling the girl will never meet. Her mother hates the way of the world and how the old neighbours whisper: It’s God’s will or fate’s plan. With her last breath, the girl wheezes, asking her father to read her a story: Sleeping Beauty. When she sees the film of tears gathering in his eyes, she says: Perhaps I will awaken again, Papa. Awaken again, well. 

Bayveen O'Connell
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Bayveen O'Connell is an Irish writer whose flash fiction has been nominated for Best Microfiction and the Pushcart Prize. She is inspired by travel, myth, history, folklore, and art. She is currently working on a collection based on surviving cancer.