A snail slicks up the wall, passes the hose-tap after morning coffee, reaches the sill as I grasp seconds of solitude. After the toddler storm of bedtime, I watch it scale the window.

With a flick, my husband resets its progress, announcing, “You forgot the laundry.”

It starts over tomorrow.

Billie-Leigh Burns is a writer from Liverpool. Her short stories and flash fiction have been published by Fictionette and Naked Cat Lit Magazine. She is currently working on a novel set in a dystopian future.