hi. i wrote you some flash fiction.

Lycoming

There are days when she doesn’t know where to begin.

Head fuzzy not having left the room; hair matted. Her nose is lured to ever new part of her body that has just turned stale. At the urge of yesterday, she believes that today contains a hidden promise, one where she can shed her calm, and regather the tautly strung bits of herself hung on lines; between this room and the next, her heart and Lycoming, now and then. She has convinced herself that all the parts hat are now gone, are the ones that are most important.

Outside the window, the weather is perfect. The brisk sway of trees shimmy remnants of summer from their grip. Memories kept in the hollows of raw umber and gold, preserved (trees anticipating petrification to be dug, found, and revered.) She is familiar with this silence, but is distracted by the gentle sway of the canopy. Her heels lock themselves to the carpet. Her body follows the soft contrapposto of the aged trunks.

She does this in silence for twelve minutes.

She feels small. She thinks about how her skin would feel against October. She thinks about the last time she left this room, abandoned its smells. Lycoming. The next thought is always Lycoming. The entire world reminds her that she is no longer there.

Very little. She remembers details: the carved ivory handle of a hairbrush, the smell of plumerias in her hair, and an old woman’s velvet palm on her shoulders. She does not remember why, or the in-between, but she knows she does not want to be here. Every part of her body that is awake urges her to return to Lycoming. So, she closes her eyes and and sways to stillness around her.

After the silence, she will gasp. One thousand magpies will fly out of the cathedral of her chest, and in her mind, she will see herself running toward an arched doorway she does not recognize.