FLASH
The day does not conclude with the gentle exhale of the earth, but with Mother Superior flipping the hourglass over, again.
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.
It was spring and the hills were irradient, like they had to get out all their green in one short burst before catching fire.
When Laika the space dog comes back, bulleted to earth in a tiny white escape pod that dissolves upon opening, nobody can believe it.
At the end of the meeting, the villagers agreed to contribute shillings and pounds to sponsor Elochi to a university in America.
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.
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.
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.
I’m dancing with my best friend’s husband, under the influence of his jaws and thighs.
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.
A man with a fistful of showbags said, “That cow sounds like a person trying to sound like a cow.”
At twenty, the world is yours because you’re beautiful. But never acknowledge your beauty, or it makes you a bitch.
