3Elements Review, No. 28, Fall 2020*

Night Walks

Excerpt:

Once when she was collecting laundry, she saw a house centipede scurry out from under the laundry basket. She killed it and went on to expect to see another one every time she collected that basket. In the three years since spotting it, she had not seen on in that place. It was the same level of expectation as thinking she would see a dead mouse in a trap where a trap no longer existed, but memory once killed.

Soon there were expectations of things that would make her recoil all around her. She thought she would find a snake in the corner, a spider on her arm, or a ghost skulking in the mirror. On her walks outside, she feared stepping on toads. Near misses under street lights with toads leaping to safety. Felt the skim and pinprick of a mosquito on her shinbone. Expected to see a corpse discarded in the brush along the creekbank.

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* Nominated Best Short Fictions