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Libertas

Just as the Greeks hypothesised, my uterus traversed my whole body,  and yet in an absence of hysteria, she squeezed herself calmly out from between my legs. I set her free and she rose like a glowing New Year’s lantern. Getting caught in bare branches, she fluttered from bud to bud: a bright pink robin with fallopian wings.

My brother called wombs man-traps, my best friend grieved ’till hers was filled. But no squatters, no prisoners, tenants nor tears for me: I just watched her joy, serene and sisterly, as my uterus floated away, augmenting us both.

Bayveen O’Connell is based in Dublin and is inspired by myth, folklore, history and art. Her flash fiction has appeared in The Forge Lit, Splonk, The 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Anthology, The 2019 & 2020 National Flash Fiction Day Flood, From Whispers to Roars, Ellipsis Zine, The Cabinet of Heed, Molotov Cocktail, Fudoki, and others. She received a Best Microfiction nomination in 2019.

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