FLASH
The weeks go like this: accepting, horny, hopeful, sad. I’m four different people trying to establish one perspective on a major life event – on the creation of life itself.
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
Kate Winslet always reminded me of my mom. Maybe that’s why, even to this day, I get defensive of Rose from Titanic when people call her stupid or shallow…
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.
You’re joking, I say, interrupting the steady bumping of the doctor’s bushy white mustache.
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.
When Laika the space dog comes back, bulleted to earth in a tiny white escape pod that dissolves upon opening, nobody can believe it.
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.
He used to hold my hand on Commonwealth. I wonder sometimes if he ever still thinks about my mouth.
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.
I reached for my invoice, which Dr. George, holding it between thumb and forefinger as if it were a soiled diaper, dropped into my hand.
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.