Variety is the spice

A lil flash fiction

Mixing it up a bit and dusting off an old piece of flash fiction. This piece was originally published in 2022 by the winnow magazine (link here but their site is doing something wonky.) It was featured in their dual-themed home/liminal spaces issue. And it was physically printed! In a magazine! Imagine that. Now it sits on my shelf in the dark. You can read it under two minutes. You’re welcome.

Whulp, just got a notification that Bill Belichick “breaks silence on viral CBS interview, his girlfriend’s involvement” so I gotta jet. Do your job.

xo,
Kate

Tsuruko Yamazaki, Work, 1957 (and my reflection)

There, There, There

It started with a podcast. Although to say it started there is not exactly true. One headphone in her ear, brushing her teeth in someone else’s bathroom. She rewinds; 15 seconds plus another 15 for good measure - makes sure she heard it right. The host cues up the artist with a question that could be answered in any number of ways. The artist takes a sharp inhale and begins:

Ugh, or maybe it’s, ahh.
Exhale. I mean.
Pause. I’m glad I haven’t been put in that position.
And then she laughs. I’m like, you know, I mean.
Pause. There…there…there... She says it three times…are people that I love very deeply.
She did not say loved. And because of how things ended, we don’t…pause…speak anymore. And it breaks my heart to this day that that’s just the way things are. Umm. So, I could not imagine shedding that much of myself, um, or…pause…being in a room with that person again in that way.

But this is where she knows they differ. Because this is what she imagines all the time.

For now, she spits out her toothpaste in a renovated sink. She wipes the counter with a stained washcloth and slides under someone else’s sheets. She falls asleep and dreams of that lucky accident, the good fortune of finding herself in the same room. Dreams of dry knuckles pumping gas and then in her hair. Dreams of happenstance in a strange town, in an unfamiliar state. Dreams once of J. Lo and Ben walking toward her on a sidewalk. Jen leans in and whispers, it can happen again. A dream, she knows in her bones, of a day that will never come. But she keeps returning there anyway because it’s the only place they have left.

Months go by and when she listens again, she notes the title of the episode: Ode to Duets.