FLASH FICTION
Whisky for Great Grandma
Sorcha is having trouble at school — luckily great grandma is still around to help
Sorcha was ever so careful to set the low coffee table just as her mother had: incense, photo, candles.
More candles burned on all the flat surfaces around the room, extra by the armchair that she’d pulled forward slightly so it was closer to the coffee table.
She couldn’t boil the kettle for tea without arousing the suspicion of her parents, so instead she’d gone for Great Grandma’s other favorite drink, whisky.
She’d had to climb up the cabinet to get to it, balancing precariously on a chair, and then clinging to the shelves with one hand as she grasped for the right bottle, just out of eyesight, with the other. Every time one bottle clinked against another she cringed, certain her parents would wake and catch her.
They hadn’t, and now she could hear her father’s slow snores alongside her mother’s softer ones she knew she was safe from discovery.
She’d poured the alcohol into a small port glass, and she lifted it to inhale that smoky, peaty scent, then took a deep breath, picturing the way her Great Grandma had appeared when Sorcha’s mother had done this ritual, before setting the whisky…
