the shame fairy
The first time Harriet was paid a visit by the Shame Fairy (had it been the first? she wondered, a lit broom sweeping her body at the thought of how many times in her yawn-and-stretch she must’ve pushed notes from under her pillow and down the back of the bed to be found by landlords or university hall cleaners or her mum and dad) was in the year of Marcus.
There was a time she’d burn the notes in the ceramic canoe of Magda’s incense burner. Then the morning after, turning her pillow, like you’d turn over a big stone or crumbly log in the woods… She bought instead a large enough jewellery box with miniature lock and key. Each new note sat at the front of a long Filofax column; the ones at the back crackled to the touch.
A short story by Mazin Saleem.