Things in Jars

by Jess Kidd

Bridie motions him to sit and takes the seat opposite. Dr. Harbin perches his backside on the edge. He’s a man with business so pressing he hasn’t time to sit down properly.

Moreover, women should have the uncontested right to enter the medical profession, being, as a general rule, notably less stupid than men.

And all at once Bridie is filled with the hot rage that comes over any sane woman who rails against her market price, or the damnable fact that there is a market price in the first place. She glares into the mirror.

London has never seen rain like it. And now, all over the city the streets run with water, this foul, gray-foamed downpour. As if God has emptied his washtub after boiling Satan’s inexpressibles in it.