FLASH
I know you shouldn’t keep wild animals as pets, but I’ve had the same spider in my bathroom sink for over two weeks.
The new octopus at the children’s aquarium was named Athena, and as we waited for her to emerge, I thought of the almost-too-faint second line on the pregnancy test three days before.
Sitting at the bar on Pacific Avenue. With the seashells in the walls. Same bartender from last year, still here, making the same lethal Mai Tais.
It all started with the curse of my tits. Women’s bodies are cursed. Everyone tries to look at them, everyone tries to ignore them.
Allanson looked out of the viewport, at the ragtag flotilla of ships trailing behind, some of them slow to catch up. It was to be expected with the little time that they’d had to cobble the fleet together.
On the first day of our new life together, my husband realized that I was not interested in theoretical debate. He said it was okay by him and went out to get some pancake mix.
Another image rises to us both: A man hunched before a TV, watching historical documentaries, correcting incorrect facts. Rasputin was not a priest, damn it.
None speak of how the streets collide in coarse seams like scars, the fresh cobbles unable to level with the ones shaken from their mortar by uncountable seasons.
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
I’d never heard of anyone having a second baby right after the first one, but everything was so strange in those early days of motherhood that I just acted on instinct.
Mama sped along the highway, unbothered by bits of gravel that flew up from the front tires and struck the windshield of the sedan.
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
