Growing up, we didn’t have much, but we had Mum. Sometimes at night, I would drift into her room, drawn by her CD, ‘Ocean Sounds,’ filling the darkness.

Mum whined, turned, and tugged. Her pillow sopping. It was too late when we finally realised that, all along, she’d been drowning.

Raymond Sloan lives and writes in County Down, Ireland. He has previously been published in Blink-Ink, The Dribble Drabble Review, 101 Words, Every Day Fiction, among others.