After leaving my lover by way of a kind but firm email, I cried for several hours. On receiving his sad but kind reply, I cried some more. Then I made a mug of strong tea and opened the box of butter biscuits that had come by post from his more-secret lover in Sweden the day before. I took out two, and carefully closed the cardboard flaps so that the remainder would not go soft. I bit into the first crumbly yellow biscuit and paused, admiring its simple form held between my thumb and forefinger in the sunlight of a spring afternoon; its happy, unequivocal presence gave me a deep pleasure, and I soon reached for the second biscuit. When I had eaten both biscuits I opened the packet again and took out two more. Now I noticed that the contents were divided into sections of four biscuits, each preserved in clear cellophane, as if the manufacturers had anticipated the perfect point for a girl with a broken heart to stop eating them. I picked up my phone and sent a secret email to my ex-lover’s secret lover thanking her for the extremely delicious biscuits.

About Nancy Campbell

Nancy Campbell is a poet and non-fiction writer, who has travelled widely in the polar regions and received the RGS Ness Award in 2020 for her ten-year literary response to the Arctic environment, including How To Say ‘I Love You’ In Greenlandic, The Library of Ice and Disko Bay. As the UK’s Canal Laureate in 2018, Nancy generated poems and mixed media collaborations around the national waterways. Her latest book, Thunderstone, is a memoir of love, loss and vintage caravans.

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flash fiction grief lovers relationships