Savage Fiction Submission
Prose by Janet Bradshaw
DNA
On the dresser top was a small pile of things she felt she couldn’t throw away: combs, nail clippers, scissors and files, two lip balms and a used handkerchief. Remnants of their DNA, evidence that they had lived. Stray grey hairs, stiff stains and worn down waxiness. Without these physical signs it would be as if they hadn’t existed. Memories and photos were inadequate.
Jane held the mug and stared at the two toothbrushes and half used tube of toothpaste and remembered writing to Father Christmas a generation before, asking him to bring her mum and dad a toothbrush. She caught sight of herself in the mirror on the bathroom cabinet and realised how ridiculous she looked. Black bin bag in one hand, tooth-mug in the other, crying and not able to make a decision. She thought about the collection on the dresser and pictured the toothbrushes there. One red, one blue; one for a mum, one for a dad.
‘Put it in the bag you silly cow,’ she said aloud and dropped the mug into the bag.
Later, driving home, looking at her hands on the steering wheel, so much like her dad’s hands, it came to her that she was the proof, the continuing DNA, the legacy they had left behind to be remembered by. And she hoped it was enough and that next time she would be able to throw the collection away.
