Minutes after arriving in a new place, my wife’s words start to warp, so much so that within the hour her accent sounds native.

Tonight, her dinner clingfilm-cold on the kitchen counter, she returns. I hear her reciting tongue twisters in the hallway, pretending she has not already left me.

Laura Besley is the author of micro fiction collection, (Un)Natural Elements (Beir Bua Press, 2021), 100neHundred (Arachne Press, 2021), and flash fiction collection, The Almost Mothers (Dahlia Books, 2020). Having lived in the Netherlands, Germany, and Hong Kong, she now lives in land-locked central England and misses the sea. She tweets at @laurabesley.