An experiment on a bird in the air pump (after Joseph Wright of Derby)
by Sarah Gillett
Anna so wanted to stroke its soft white body that she poked her fingers into the cage when Maria wasn’t looking. The cockatoo stabbed, drawing blood with its curved beak, tongue waggling. They both screamed and it went back to preening itself, nibbling under its downy parts, closing its wings with a dry snap, smoothing down its combed head with grey claws. Maria said she deserved to get pecked, it wasn’t a pet and if anything happened to it then Papa would be filthy furious and lock her in the box under the stairs until they all forgot she was there, until she died. Anna, yelling, wished she could be a ghost and haunt Maria forever and ever and always. Shrieks crumpling to giggles, they washed their faces and fumbled each other into pale lilac silk dresses.
Downstairs the parlour table was set with wooden instruments, connected by brass tubing, polished handles, glass vessels. When Anna asked Papa what the gnarled slimy thing in the amber liquid was, he said it was a diseased human skull. The sisters shivered. Papa’s important friend placed the cockatoo inside a large glass jar and demonstrated the effects of something called a vacuum, counting seconds on a silver watch.
The white bird shone in the candlelight. It looked fragile and heavy, its feathers wide, its feet scrabbling then twitching slower. Maria hid her face but Anna could not look away. She wanted to touch the glossy black eye staring right at her. Around her, moving splashes of cheek and hair and cloth caught the light in time with the thumping of her heart. She had thought it was only in the shadows that everything was dark and treacherous. Time was slower there, the box had taught her that. She held her breath and waited.
About the Author
Sarah Gillett is an artist and writer from Lancashire, UK. She currently lives in London, where she investigates the life of things across space and time. She has a soft spot for meteorites, the colour blue, old dictionaries, glass paperweights and early postcards. In another life she would have been an astronaut. www.sarahgillett.com
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Judging for the Bath Flash Fiction has been an absolute treat, but it’s also been quite stressful! I’ve enjoyed reading all the stories, and I didn’t mind reading them multiple times. I actually enjoyed all my train travels these past couple of weeks because I carried these flash fiction pieces with me and they kept me company wherever I went. But it was stressful to choose the three winners and the two highly commended. I had no problem choosing some of them, but with a couple of them, I really, really had to ponder about which one would make it. 
As usual, there was a flood of stories near the end and a lot of writers picked up the Last Minute Club Badge on the final day, February 5th. Someone said it was the colour of a Cadbury’s Caramac bar. Tasty!
The weather where we were at the launch of BFFA Volume eight was stormy, but the party in St James Wine Vaults, Bath, where we launched both anthologies was wonderful. Seventeen people came to read. We heard winning, shortlisted and longlisted stories from The Weather Where You Are by 
Sara HIlls, Mairead Robinson, James Ellis, Mark Barlex, Kathryn Eldridge-Morris, Nick Havergal, Lotty Talbutt, Alison Woodhouse and Sophie Hampton
To remind everyone, The Last Minute Club, for intrepid flash fictioneers is only open on the final day. Anyone entering on Sunday 4th February will receive a (virtual) Last Minute Club badge. Everyone loves badges don’t they? Our mini-competition to guess the colour of the badge is open on X and Facebook tomorrow, Saturday 3rd Feb. The first person to guess the colour (or colour comibation of the new badge will receive either one of the 2023 Bath Flash Fiction anthologies Vol 8. Or the new Flash Fiction Festival Anthology. We often give prizes to two people for near guesses. You won’t know the colour until first thing on Sunday morning. 
A busy week! It’s the final weekend to enter our 26th Award 
Anna M Wang is a Bristol based author and librarian. Her novella in flash,