Flash fiction by Zary Fekete

No comment (Reflections of Bathsheba)

The rooftop tiles stayed warm long after sunset. They reminded her of her home in the desert…her feet buried in the sand waiting for Father to come home with the sheep…her mother by the fire, pressing the dough against the hot stone. She would listen to them talking softly as the stars slowly overcame the night sky until nothing was felt except their brilliance.

She wondered…why had she left? The answer came back…everyone did. The city’s gravity was too great.

The rooftop became her escape after the streets had wound her heart too tight.

She used to sit there with her knees pulled to her chest, watching the steam from the bath drift over the ledge. Lights from the palace reflected in the water, red and gold. A drone passed once. She thought it was a bird. That was before.

The photo came two days later. Someone else’s angle, taken from above. Her hand resting on the stone rail. A twist of steam. The soft curl of her neck. 

My good side, she thought later.

Winced.

She didn’t read the first headlines. The phone buzzed until the battery died. When she finally turned it on again, the word trending blinked in the corner. Her name, everywhere, spelled wrong and shouted loud. Bad AI made her eyes move in unnaturally. Looking where she wouldn’t have looked.

He posted a video: soft lighting, piano music, tear at the corner of his eye. He used the word mistake like a lifeline, tossed it into a crowd and waited for applause. They gave it to him.

The messages kept coming:
Witch.
Whore.
Queen.

A lawyer asked if she had known he was married.
A reporter asked what she had been wearing.
Someone else asked if she would “share her side.”

She closed the door softly after that. Curtains drawn. Phone face-down.

Later, someone knocked to tell her about Uriah. Sand, shrapnel, friendly fire. A rearrangement of words that meant the same thing: gone.

She remembered how he used to hum when he shaved. Always the same song, just the melody. The sink would be wet when he finished. She would wipe it dry with the edge of her sleeve.

His toothbrush was still in the cup by the sink. She threw it out. Then took it back out. Rinsed it. Left it on the counter.

The palace moved on. The man who had wept on camera returned to the pulpit, then to the boardroom. Then to the throne.

She moved into a smaller place with peeling paint in the stairwell. No one recognized her there. She bought a new phone and didn’t log in. The bath in this apartment was deeper. The water sounded different. More distant, somehow.

Sometimes, when the light caught the tile just right, she could see her own reflection. Not her face…just the outline. A shimmer. A body interrupted.

One night, she poured salt into the bath. Not much. Just enough to feel the difference. The water held her more gently that way. Her eyes stung. She didn’t mind.

She stopped watching the news. She stopped explaining.

Online, her page still exists. The last post remains:
Her hand, a white robe, her neck just so.

Her good side.

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