The tree swayed gently over the little girl’s head – forming a canopy that dabbled little pools of darkness across the sand pit surrounding her. In this separate world entirely of her own, she sat alone, etching strange shapes into the sand with a short stick she had found lying on the ground.
Isolated in this oasis of her own making, the little girl had forgotten all about her parents still arguing inside their house – the sounds of shouting and screaming having faded into background noise, as ignorable for her as birdsong was to other children.
After a few minutes passed, the little girl suddenly looked up, her head following the sound of stamping coming closer – like the steps of the giant her father had read to her about. Not a moment later, the front door slammed and her mother came racing towards her.
"I’ll be back soon, Debbie," her mother hurriedly whispered, gently brushing the hair from the little girl’s face. "I promise…"
Debbie looked up to her mother with a look of pure adoration and held out to her the stick she had been playing with.
"For me?"
Debbie’s mother softly wrapped her fingers around the top of the stick and tried to pull it gently towards her. Her expression unchanging, Debbie pushed the stick down into the sand as if she were stamping a flag into some new, unknowable land between them.
"Do you not want to give me it?"
Her mother tried for a second time to take the stick away, to treasure it as a parting gift until she was ready to come back. But as though Debbie were innately trying to keep her mother close to her, she held on tighter than before – her face contorting into an expression of sadness and confusion.
"I have to go, Debbie! Mummy has to go!"
Unable or unwilling to prolong the goodbye any longer, her mother planted a quick kiss on the top of Debbie’s head before quickly dashing to her car. As she opened the door to the driver’s seat, Debbie’s mother turned to her daughter for a final time – the bright light of day illuminating every tear falling down her bruised face. Still not understanding the situation, instead believing her mother upset at her for not giving away her precious plaything, Debbie ran – the stick held firmly between her hands – after her mother’s car…
Runner-up in both the Wicked Young Writer Awards: Gregory Maguire Award 2016 and Penguin Random House's 'Borders' competition, Laurence Sullivan's fiction has been published by such places as: Londonist, The List, and Amelia's Magazine. He has also had his work featured at literary festivals like the Birmingham Literature Festival, Bristol Storyfest and the Wise Words Festival. He became inspired to start writing during his studies at the universities of Kent, Utrecht and Birmingham – after being saturated in all forms of literature from across the globe and enjoying every moment of it.
