Tonight

FOURTH PRIZE

BY SASHA DROTENKO

PHOTO BY BURAK THE WEEKENDER


Tonight, I iron my mother’s clothes. The television hums. A woman with Hollywood hair wailing about her inattentive blue collar husband is my companion for the night. Tonight, I begin with her blouse. My hands tremor as I touch the familiar delicate blue. I switch to the coolest setting. I know she would see the slightest singe. The creases fade. I fold the now warm material.

Tonight, I find what my mother used to wear on our vacations: a black and white tank top, splattered with abstracted faces. I laugh. She will only wear that now for temperature regulation in the summer. I watch the faces squash and stretch as I manipulate heat. I remember this shirt, with nostalgia for camcorder memories melded with a child’s fear of disapproval.

Tonight, I recall my mother’s salmon pink wedding garb: pink blouse, pink pants, and a pink hat half the size of the ironing board. In my mother’s wedding photos, she looks like me in a way that makes me want to cry. I remember when she gave me her pink hat to play dress-up, wondering if she felt the same then. The heat burns my hands as I lose myself in lament, never able to meet the girl she was. Looking at this girl who got married in pink pants and flew across the world is looking in a mirror. Looking at my mother is looking through a window fogged by iron steam. Tonight, I cry with Mrs. Hollywood Hair.


Sasha Drotenko’s, Tonight, placed fourth in the BCPW’s Flash Fiction Contest. Drotenko attends Richmond Hill High School in Richmond Hill, ON.

Posted on June 9, 2023 .