“Bubbles, Mermaids and Broccoli” by Riham Adly - Published Today on The Reading Life

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Riham Adly on The Reading Life. Includes Links to other of her stories

Today I am very pleased and honoured to publish a short story by the multi-award winning writer Riham Adly.  

I have posted so far on four Short Stories by Adly (there are  links to these stories in my posts).  I would never read let alone post on four stories by a writer if I did not find their work intriquing, interesting, insightful and of lasting value.  I hope to follow her work for many years and I thank her for allowing me to share this story with my readers.

 This story is protected Under international Copyright laws and is the exclusive property of Riham Adly.  It cannot be published in any format without her permission.

Bubbles, Mermaids and Broccoli by Riham Adly 

Rainbow colored bubbles don’t like me very much. They fly away when I blow and never come back. Some just POP and kill themselves. Teddy bear said we should always use sunscreen because the sun screams at us; lots of sunshine screams can hurt us. Did they hurt my bubbles? Mom’s hurt too.  Mom once said, Bubbles are all soap, they drown in the air. I think, sometimes, you drown even if you’re all dry, like when you cry? But that’s water too.  Mom also said that even mermaids can drown, if they get feet and sit in bathtubs. I don’t believe it, but Mom never said anything wrong.  Mom’s prettier than mermaids and rainbow bubbles. She’s gone now, just like the bubbles.  I wish she’d come back, but she’s far away, deep down, like roots of that sad tree called Willow.

We are Twins, Teddy bear said. I’m the wee one and he’s the stronger one, like Batman, he said. Twins look the same. I have long hair, like Goldilocks. Teddy bear’s all fuzzy brown with black button eyes.

Teddy bear has a mama. No one can hurt his mama, he said, not even Uncle Jimmy. Uncle Jimmy likes to tickle me hard where I pee. I never ever laugh when he tickles. He calls me bad girl. I’m not bad. I’m all good, all good except when he tickles. Teddy bear said I’m not bad, I’m just the wee one, and that I should be like Batman. I just like bubbles but I hate it when they POP.

Teddy bear eats bad people who make his mama sad. I wish I could eat Uncle Jimmy even if he tastes like broccoli. Maybe when I become a grownup I’ll eat bad people, even if they taste like broccoli.

Riham Adly is a creative writing instructor from Gizah, Egypt.  Several of her short stories appeared in online literary magazines such as Page&Spine,  The 10 minutes Novelist,  Paragraph Planet, Visual Verse,  Fictional café, For The Sonourous and The HFC Journal. Her short story “The Darker Side of the Moon” won the Makan Award in Egypt and was published in an anthology with the same name. Riham started h