Parting a sea is rather ostentatious.

I’ve no need to drown a pursuing Egyptian army, nor feed thousands of people with two loaves and a couple of battered haddock. Isolating dark matter can wait, and my polytechnic didn’t equip me to get into the quantum computing field.

I’m simply hoping to get down to the shop on Colliery Street.

Fifty-eight steps, four kerbs, four door openings, a bastard of a level crossing, and – worst of all – the chip and pin machine at the counter: the tasks rear up in front of me – cold, shadowy, and forbidding.

The problem, of course, is cartilage. No-one is going to waste a miracle on replacement cartilage, are they? Mine’s gone, anyway, worn and rubbed raw until my bones come together with all the lithe grace of a wean using chopsticks for the first time.

There.

Down off the kerb and onto the crossing. Gritting my teeth muffles all but the smallest whimper. Aye, sound your horn all you want, mate. I can’t go any faster, and my nervous system is reacting to far more persuasive stimuli than your tantrum behind the steering wheel.

Up…the opposite kerb, and eas-sy does it. Every touch of the walking stick against the pavement sends a jolt of pain through my gnarled pork joint of a hand and up through my shoulder. For a horrible, horrible moment it feels as though I will overbalance and fall backwards onto the road, my bones splintering and crunching on the tarmac. I catch myself, though, my centre of gravity righting itself like a mast on a choppy sea.

The shop is right in front of me and – thank whoever’s up there for small miracles – a man is leaving and holding the door open for me. I shuffle through, cringing away from him in case I accidentally brush against his jacket. Thank you. Thank you.

The jingle of the door announces my achievement amongst the aisles of canned goods and questionable frozen produce. I catch my breath in the queue, inching closer to requests for twenty Marlboro Light or an ounce of Drum. Soon enough, a downwards-looking cashier asks what she can get me. Lucky dip, hen. I hardly even flinch when the chip and pin machine with its stiff, grime-encrusted buttons is pushed towards me. Little daily miracles do happen, and there’s no harm in hoping for the bigger ones.

*Thanks for reading, folks. image courtesy of Geograph. My recent short stories include ‘The Lamplighter‘ and ‘Those Abroad‘.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com and tweets at https://twitter.com/mjrichardso0.