A Story About a Fire

by Salena Casha

We try the app on a Sunday because it’s the scariest of days preceding the most sleepless of nights, heralded by the few and slipshod hours before I have to park myself behind the screen of a computer. The screen is haunted by an emerald field or a bouquet of healed coral set somewhere none of us can afford to fly to and subsequently ruin (or maybe, maybe, what I see on the screen isn’t even real, but I can’t contend with that on a Monday). Either way, in my waking from something no one would call sleep, the multi-colored riot of digitized earth will remind me how I don’t have the generational wealth or the luck to be in that place of make believe right now because I am instead waiting out a flash flood warning as I sit through a slide deck about compliance. It’s always compliance or project timelines these days, akin to counting sheep, ready to bore someone to sleep or death—whichever comes first—but instead, the anticipation of these meetings has me peeling off my nails at three in the morning as I go over my own minor part. This is all to say that the reason my husband suggests we try this app just after dusk is because he knows Sundays are indeed my scariest of days, the most sleepless of nights, the few and slipshod hours before I have to park myself behind the screen of a computer.
          The room is gentle-dark, made complete by my sleep mask. My husband asks me if I’m ready, and I nod, and he tells me he picked one about a campfire. The voice is sonorous and deep, an actor I know but can’t place.
          The story he tells is about many someones, likely children, building a fire in a backyard. I listen as they gather kindling, the type that the narrator snaps once, twice, three times, to show its dryness. I listen to the slow shuck of flint, tried once, twice, three times, until a flame is caught. I listen to slow lick of flames once, twice, and three times the size of the children who have made the fire and the story suddenly comes to an end and then starts again, the voice slowed down to half time and I can feel the panic rising because I smell burning rubber and overheated metal like a laptop on the fritz and I don’t claw my mask off but instead rise from the bed blind and stumble to my desk. My hands tap across the rectangle; the screen is closed and I keep it that way and when he comes out to find me and asks me what happened in a voice thick with sleep, I whisper,
          Can’t you smell the smoke?
          He waits a beat before nodding and saying, yes, but it’s gone now and he doesn’t promise that it won’t come back again.

Salena Casha's work has appeared in over 150 publications in the last decade. Her most recent work can be found with HAD, Club Plum, and Ghost Parachute. She survives New England winters on good beer and black coffee. Subscribe to her substack at salenacasha.substack.com.

 Maureen at the Mall

by R.K. West

Maureen was not surprised to see her late aunt Maude standing in line at Sbarro in the mall food court, because lately she had seen several of her deceased relatives at the mall, although usually they were somewhere ahead of her in the crowd, moving just a bit too fast for her to catch up, panting and wheezing with the effort, and she lost sight of them—except for her second grade teacher, Mrs. Wallis, who wasn’t related, but for whom she had always had a great deal of affection, who was standing outside the pet shop, gazing thoughtfully at some romping beagle puppies, but who turned out, upon closer inspection, to be someone completely different, which made Maureen question all those other sightings—but only for a moment, because it was obvious that they were exactly who they were, just like Maude, who turned around when Maureen touched her shoulder and smiled with a stranger’s face as Maureen, her heart pounding, stammered an apology before dashing back to the promenade so she could keep scanning the crowd, expecting but not expecting to finally see the one person whose presence would explain everything, or so she thought, and at that very moment she saw the familiar pink jacket and grabbed the arm of the woman who looked right at her with her own face, laughed, and said, “Hello, Maureen,” to which Maureen, pulse throbbing in her ears, could only choke a reply: “Maureen.”

R.K. West is a former ESL teacher and travel blogger now living in Washington state, next to the Columbia River, whose stories and poems have appeared at Bright Flash Literary Review, Right Hand Pointing, Sudden Flash, and elsewhere. Website: http://rkwest.com/.

 Walking Tom

by Robert Long Foreman

Tom and Carol were on a walking date. It was like a regular date, only they were to spend it walking. 
         It was Carol’s idea. A mutual friend had set them up, given them each other’s numbers. Carol had texted and made this suggestion, a date that would be spent moving forward, both of them on two legs and not sitting down. 
         Now here they were, strolling at a moderate pace on a trail by the river. The sun played hide-and-seek behind clouds. Leaves shook in the breeze. Somewhere, maybe in a park or a dog park, a dog barked.
        Carol and Tom had talked a little, so far. They had explained what jobs they had and discussed their families. They had not made much eye contact, because they had to keep watching ahead of themselves, to make sure they didn’t run into people or anything else. What if they stepped on broken glass?
         “I’ve never been on a walking date,” Tom said. “I’m not sure I’ve heard of one, actually.”
         “I’ve heard of a walking corpse,” said Carol.
         “What?”
         “There was an article in Harper’s, fifteen or sixteen years ago. These guys in China, they’re professionals. They travel with corpses by setting them up before rigor mortis sets in and rigging them with ropes, like harnesses, but for dead bodies. They walk long distances, and because of the ropes the corpses walk beside them, all the way to where they’re buried.”
         “Okay.”
         “They’re not really walking, it’s a simulation of walking. It’s reportedly strange. It’s what they had to do before the hearse was invented.”
         “What are you talking about?” asked Tom.
       “I’m talking about walking corpses,” said Carol. “But it’s not so much a thing as an activity. Like, there’s no walking corpse. It’s not a kind of corpse. It’s what you do. Walk the corpse.”
        Before this, Tom had been telling Carol about his job as a surveyor, and how much he loved it. Since he was a kid, he’d had a passion for measuring land and determining where things began and ended. If you love your job you will never work a day in your life.
         Carol had seemed interested in what Tom had to tell her. He didn’t think this thing about the walking corpse was her way of mocking him. 
        Carol was five feet eight inches and wore her long, brown hair up so the world could see her ears. Tom liked when he could see a woman’s ears. Why hide those things? They’re only cartilage. He was five foot ten with brown hair, lighter than Carol’s. He had this thing he did with his eyes. Carol had a good nose. It was sort of angled downward, in a nice way. Tom thought he should notice the color of Carol’s eyes, the next time she turned her face to his. 
         She asked, without looking at him, “Where did you come from originally?”
         “Pittsburgh,” he said. 
         “Ah,” she said. “Shittsburgh. That’s what I’ve always called it.”
         “It’s not that bad.”
         Carol looked in his eyes and said, “It is, though.”
         Her eyes were hazel. 
         “Where are you from?” he said. 
         Carol didn’t answer. “Look,” she said. “It’s Daisy.” 
         She pointed ahead of them, at a woman. 
         “Who’s Daisy?” asked Tom.
         “She’s that woman,” Carol said. “She’s my friend.”
         The woman walking toward them, down the path, was blonde. Her hair was up, like Carol’s. The path ran through the woods ahead, and she was emerging from the woods. 
         “Daisy!” Carol called and waved.
         Daisy waved back. They all stopped to talk.
         Carol introduced Tom to Daisy, who looked vaguely German to Tom. She was tall, with good posture, like a German. But she was American. 
         Daisy said to Carol, eyeing Tom, “What’s this guy about?”
         “I’m not sure yet,” said Carol. “He keeps talking about walking corpses.”
         “I think you were the one who talked about that,” said Tom. “Not me.”
         The women laughed. 
         “I’m serious,” he said.
         Carol asked Daisy, “Are you still dating that loser?”
         Daisy nodded. 
         “What was his name? Goro?”
         “No,” said Daisy. “Goro is on Mortal Kombat. It’s John.”
         Carol said, “That guy is a shit show, you know.” 
         “I know,” said Daisy.
         “What did you tell me? He never checks the pressure on his tires? And his mattress wasn’t made in the USA? Why don’t you dump him?”
         “Because I’m a glutton for punishment.” Daisy shrugged. “And because he’s constantly eating me out.”
         The women laughed uproariously.
         “I can’t break up with a guy when he’s slurpin’ my puss,” Daisy said. “It’s not allowed.”
         “Oh, I’ve done it!” Carol said.
         They laughed again.
        “Sippin’ that cervix cerveza,” Daisy said, her laughter subsiding. “Smegma Modelo.” She looked at Tom and asked Carol, “What’s so great about this one, then?” 
         “I’m working on finding that out,” Carol said.
         “He’s a good size.”
         “Yeah, I’d bet he’s a buck eighty.” 
         “Sounds about right.” Daisy reached out and ran her fingers through Tom’s hair. “Hair’s not bad. Not thinning too much, at least.”
         “Good stride, too,” said Carol. “I like walking dates because I can see if they walk in a healthy way. Check for gait problems.”
         “Well.” Daisy stepped back and looked Tom up and down. “I hope it works out. You know what I mean, right? I’ll see you at yoga practice.”
         Daisy continued on her walk. 
         “What in the world was that about?” Tom asked as they resumed walking in the other direction. 
         “Oh,” said Carol. “That was just Daisy.”
         “But why were you talking about me like that?”
         “Like what?”
         “Like, what difference does it make what I weigh?”
         Carol laughed. “What difference does it make? Tom, you realize, don’t you, that 70 percent of heterosexual sex is missionary? That means if we have intercourse you’re likely to be lying on top of me. And I’ve got a fragile ribcage. I have to watch what sort of weight I stack on myself. I’m not Giles Corey, over here.”
         “I guess that makes sense.”
         They were crossing into the wooded area, now. 
         “I feel like we’re Hansel and Gretel,” said Carol. “Stepping into the forest.”
         “I can see that,” Tom said.
         “But I feel like you’re Gretel.” 
         “Why am I Gretel?” 
         “Do you have a problem with being Gretel?”
         “No. Well. Maybe. Gretel’s a girl.”
         “Exactly.”
         Tom heard someone ahead shout, “Hey! Carol!”
         It was a man, on a bicycle. He was riding through the woods in their direction.
         “Fuck you, Carol!” the man cried. 
         He pedaled fast and hard.
        Tom leapt off the path and the man screamed past him. The wheels scraped as he halted and Tom stepped out from between the trees to see the man pull the helmet off his head, the gloves off his hands.
         He was a tall man, over six feet, with a square jaw and thick, black hair to his shoulders. His eyes burned. 
         He shouted, “What the fuck, Carol? This is the guy?” 
         “No!” Carol shouted. “That is not him!”
         The man watched Tom for a moment, less angry, more subdued. 
         Tom said, “What guy is he talking about?”
         “The guy she replaced me with!” the man whined.
         “This is Jerry,” said Carol. “We used to go out.”
         “Five days ago!” he said. “And you’ve already gone through one guy, and now you’re on to him?” He pointed at Tom.
         “Yes,” Carol said. “I am on to him. And he’ll probably be on me soon, if you get my meaning. What’s the problem, Jerry?”
         “It’s not fair,” Jerry said, and his voice broke. 
         He looked down.
         “Did you buy that bike to impress me?” asked Carol.
         “No,” Jerry spat, “I bought it so I could run down whatever guy you’re with.”
         “You did a terrible job.”
         Tom said, “I thought you did great. You almost took me out.”
         Tears in his eyes, Jerry nodded and said, “Thank you. What’s your name?”
         “Tom,” said Tom.
         “Don’t talk to him,” Carol said to Tom.
         Jerry said, “She brought me here, too, on our first date. My first walking date. And the last. We were together for a month, and then she stopped calling me. She just stopped.”
         He was sobbing now. 
         Tom had never seen another man in so much pain. 
         Despite how sweaty Jerry was, Tom reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. 
         Jerry flinched.
         Tom said, “It’s all right.”
         “It’s not all right, though,” Jerry wept. 
         Tom dropped his arm and said to Carol, “This is the weirdest date I’ve ever been on.”
         Jerry sobbed. 
         “Jerry,” said Carol, “did you hear what Tom said? You’re ruining what has so far been a perfect walking date. You need to stop this. I have moved on. All I wanted from you was sex. Some penetration and a couple of slurps. That’s all. I was clear about that. I never lied. You need to pull yourself together, get back on your bike, and go home. Take some deep breaths. Drink tea, or whatever. Think about clouds.”
         Still weeping, Jerry nodded, got back on his bike, and rode in the direction he’d come from. 
         “That fucking guy,” Carol said when he was gone.
         “He must be in a lot of pain,” said Tom.
         Carol smirked at him. “Right.”
         “Don’t you believe him?”
         “Oh, I believe him.”
         “But you don’t care?”
         “Why would I care? He’s a loser.”
         “My god,” Tom said. “Do you not have any empathy at all?”
         Carol shrugged. “Not for Jerry.”
         “I just can’t believe that.”
         “Tom.” Carol shook her head. “I didn’t want to talk about this. I really didn’t.”
         “What?”
         “Jerry is not a good guy.”
         “Okay.”
         “Like, he’s really not good.”
         “How not-good is he?”
         “He has one room in his house that’s never clean. He never cleans just that one room. For no reason! And he’s into masonry.”
         “Masonry? Like, he’s a Mason?”
         Carol nodded.
         “He goes to the Masonic temple? All that?”
         “No, I mean, for fun he puts bricks together.”
         “Well, what’s wrong with that?”
         “What’s wrong with it? It’s boring.”
         “A lot of people do boring things.”
         “I know. That’s why I dump them.”
         “Are you going to dump me?”
         “I don’t know, Tom. I really don’t.”
         “Are we even dating?”
         “We’re on a date.”
         “I don’t know if I want to be dating.”
         “Anyone?”
         “No. You.”
         “Tom.” Carol put her hand on her chest. “That hurts.”
         “I don’t mean to hurt you. I’m just being honest. It seems like you treated Jerry badly, and the way you talked to Daisy?”
         “What about it?”
         “I don’t know. I feel objectified. Like—I don’t know. Like I’m a horse.”
         “I’ve never objectified a horse in my life.”
         Tom looked ahead, down the path into the woods. 
         Someone else was coming. 
         Two people.
         “Why is that guy walking like that?” asked Tom. 
         “That’s not one guy,” said Carol, looking with him. “That’s two guys. That must be why he looks strange to you—he’s actually two people.”
         “I know that. I mean one of them is walking weird.”
         The men came closer and Tom could see what was strange about the second man, the one on the right. 
         He was dead. His skin was so pale it was nearly blue. His eyes and mouth were stitched shut, his limbs bound in an elaborate rope harness that was attached to the man who walked beside him, causing his legs to move in sync with his own. Their arms swayed together. 
         The corpse looked strange. Like an animatronic man. 
         “Hello,” said the living man, smiling as he approached.
         “Is that a walking corpse?” Carol asked in disbelief.
         “It sure is!” 
         “I can’t believe this,” she said. 
         “Believe it!” the man said.
         “This guy,” she said, “has been talking about a walking corpse all day.”
         Carol quickened her pace, to keep up with the man and his dead payload. Tom followed close behind.
         “Where did you come from?” asked Carol.
         “This guy killed himself,” the man said, still smiling. “I’m taking him to the morgue!”
         “Did you sew his orifices?”
         “I sewed them myself, yeah. And his wounds. He lost a lot of blood. That’s why he died.”
         “How did he do it?” Carol asked.
        “Jumped out into traffic! It’s not the best way to do it. It doesn’t always work, and usually takes a while for death to set in. Success rate is pretty low, too, but I guess he’ll bump that up. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
         Tom asked, “Why didn’t they drive his body away?”
         “I got to him first. The call came in on the CB, and I ran as fast as I could. I live really close to the street where he jumped in front of the truck.”
         “How did you get started doing that work?” asked Carol.
        “Oh, I was a CPA for thirty years. When I retired, I couldn’t sit still. Once I learned to do this, I missed a lot of calls. Like, dozens. But I knew I’d beat the ambulance to the scene sooner or later. And it was not an easy thing, to learn to rig the body like this. I practiced on my wife.”
         “I’m so sorry for your loss,” said Tom.
        “Oh, she’s not dead,” the man said. “Just good at going limp. In fact, this morning I was giving her a slurp with her morning coffee, and right after she blew her top she said she had a good feeling about today. And now look!”
         Carol took Tom’s hand in hers as they continued walking, keeping up with the man and the dead man. She was so excited she apparently forgot the date wasn’t going well. 
         “You know what,” Tom said, pulling his hand back, “I think I need to go.”
         Carol, the man, and his corpse stopped and turned to face Tom.
         “Go?” Carol said. 
         “Yeah,” said the man. “What do you mean, go?”
         “I don’t like corpses,” Tom said. 
         “Why not?” said Carol.
         “Because they make me think about dying.”
         “That’s absurd, Tom. It makes no sense at all. And if you leave before this date is over, the date will continue forever. You’ll never not be on this date.”
         “It’s already over,” said Tom. “I’ve just ended it.”
         “Goddamnit,” said Carol. “I was going to have sex with you.”
         “Him?” said the corpse walker. “Seriously?”
         “I guess,” Carol said. “I mean, I didn’t have anything else planned.” She looked the corpse walker up and down. “I guess you’re busy?”
         “Yeah,” he said. “I have to walk this corpse. And, you know.”
         “The corpse is a turnoff.”
         “Plus I’m married.”
         “Like that ever stopped anybody.”
         “Right!” The corpse walker laughed. “Well. Goodbye.”
         He marched away with the corpse. 
         Carol turned to look at Tom.
         “What are you still doing here?” she said.
         “I don’t know,” Tom said. 
         “You look pale.”
         “I feel like I’m going to throw up. All I can think about is dying.”
         “Well, why don’t you try not thinking about it?”
         “I can’t help it. I saw a corpse.”
         “Was it your first?”
         “No. Sixteenth. I was in a helicopter accident, once. Only I survived.”
         “Well then this is nothing.”
         “It’s not nothing, Carol. It’s everything. That man looked so peaceful. Almost happy. My god, what if there’s no such thing as heaven?”
         Tom wandered down the path, the opposite way from the corpse walker.
         Carol watched him go. She shook her head.
         “This kind of shit happens to me constantly,” she said to no one. “And I have no idea what I’ve done to deserve it.”

Robert Long Foreman is the author of several books and work that has appeared in many literary magazines. He lives online at www.robertlongforeman.com and in real life in Kansas City.

 Fractures

by Amy DeBellis

Before leaving for the show, I apply lipstick. The product is stumpy from overuse, the tube scarred from rubbing against the keys in my purse. The lipstick slides across my lower lip, because that lip is greasy with Vaseline, because my lips are always dry now. As though the accident has turned my body into a crumbling statue, something bleeding moisture, desiccating without end.  
          The theatre is full of people, but none of them look at me as I walk past to my seat, which is right in the front. A special favor, from Eli. It was the least he could do. 
          Finally the music begins, and the dancers, one by one, enter the stage. The entire cast is lean and sinewed, skin shining beneath the stage lights, but I can’t look at anyone besides the prima ballerina for very long. Julia, I think her name is. Who am I kidding, I know it is. I know her first name and her last name and her favorite drink and her astrology sign. I know the menu of the French bistro where she and Eli went on their last lunch date. I know the location of every callus and taped-up toe on her right foot, because those are what she showed off in her latest social media reel, and I—a heavy lump in my bed, the mattress imprinted with the mold of my body, my body itself feeling like it was growing mold—devoured it all. 
          I watch her extend her arms: first to the male principal dancer, then to the ballerina who plays her mother. And now, and now…
          Her pirouettes are precise. Quick snapping of the head with each turn, leg pulled up smartly to her other knee, arms steady. Her little jumps—only sautés, for the moment—are as easy and weightless as the leaping of an insect, a tiny bright invertebrate glinting and flashing across the stage. The jewels in her costume glitter like a carapace. Her bun is black and solid at the top of her head and doesn’t wobble at all, even as she performs a grand jeté. I can almost see the blood pearling on her forehead from how tightly her hair is scraped back. Or maybe that’s just a memory. It always felt like my hairs were being ripped out by the roots, although no blood ever showed. 
          But memories are milk-teeth, and in their place grow the fangs of the present. Julia lands lightly after each jump, as though she is not wearing heavy, boxy pointe shoes at all, their silk already soaked with sweat, but rather soft slippers made of rose petals. She stretches into an arabesque, balancing en pointe on one foot, the other leg lifted effortlessly behind her at a 120-degree angle. Her arms are spread, and her upper ribs jut out; they look almost like I could hook my fingers on them. 
          But hers is no weak, mutilated body, stinking of shit and disinfectant and every other pervasive hospital smell. No; despite her leanness, her strength is undeniable: the whole one hundred pounds of her balanced on the tiny square toe-box of her pointe shoe, and her arms like feather-plucked wings, and the arch of her back like the curve of a breaking wave.
          I put a hand on my skirt. It’s a long, bohemian-style skirt, the type I never wore before the accident. The fabric covers most of my legs, conceals the twisted keloid scars that mark almost every inch of my calves. Below its hem are my boots. Special boots. Boots that help me walk. I’ve got my cane, too. It became necessary after the first time I went out on my own following the accident—I found myself stranded half a block from home and with no way to continue walking. The pain was unbelievable. It felt like my legs were coming apart from the inside. So I sat against a wall and called Eli in tears, but he was busy, always busy with rehearsal now, You know I love you babe but I can’t just put my life on pause, so I had to call my mother and she arrived with the hospital-issued wheelchair that she had refused to throw away because What if you need it and she was right and she came like an angel of mercy and wheeled me back home.  
          People sometimes glance at a mid-twenties woman walking with a cane, but most of the time they look away. They look away deliberately. Like they so badly want me to know that they’re not staring. I could probably rob a jewelry store in broad daylight and no one would notice. Everyone too busy not looking. Everyone too busy congratulating themselves on being polite. 
          But me, I can’t stop looking. Julia lifts her leg in a developpé, raising it so far that it almost brushes her ear. Her sweat glistens under the lights. Her calf muscles flex with every relevé, thick blocks of muscle that I know she’ll ice and stretch after tonight’s performance. She’ll get a massage; she’ll grit her teeth. But right now she’s smiling, and even though the smile is fake—she’s performing a happy princess, and ballerinas must always bare their teeth in a huge grin, unless they’re doing the mad scene from Giselle or the death scene from Romeo and Juliet—the happiness in her eyes is real. How could it not be? She is doing what she was born to do, and her heart is pounding with the thrill of it. The audience, most of them a sea of black rendered invisible by the stage lights, is drinking in every one of her movements. Gulping them down like they’re starving. And it’s the woman onstage who is nourished, right now—heart, soul, and spirit—she is fed. 
          She is more than a dancer, now. She is the music itself. She is luminous, spectral, elemental. She is a lick of fire as she moves across the stage.
          My mind swarms, honeycombed. A fractal, a spiral of memories.
        It was a clear summer day two years ago when Eli crashed his McLaren into a concrete barrier. The driver’s side was fine. The passenger’s side, where I was, was half-crushed. So were my legs. They were broken in six places, smashed into a mess of fractures like shattered twigs, and the doctors said I was lucky to avoid amputation. But sometimes I felt that that would have been preferable to the pain. To the screws and plates, the knee replacement, the grueling physical therapy. At the hospital, a well-meaning woman (idiot smile, huge bleached horse teeth) said, You’re a ballerina, so you must be used to pain! Physical therapy should be a breeze! 
          I wanted to tell her so many things. I wanted to tell her that even the most exhausting, painful rehearsal was better than what I was about to undergo, because in the former the goal was to achieve a beautiful ideal of human movement, and in the latter the goal was to re-learn how to do something that most humans had achieved at the age of eighteen months. I wanted to tell her that I had fallen from the summit of human artistry and physical potential to the rank of a helpless baby. I wanted to tell her that she needed to stop smiling like that or the world was going to think she was slow-witted. 
          But mostly, I wanted to tell her that I was not a ballerina anymore. 
          I watch Julia’s movements onstage until my eyes blur with tears because I have forgotten to blink. I blink, and blink, and blink some more, but the blurriness doesn’t stop. So I let the tears paint salt down my face—Julia can’t see me, none of the dancers can see anything but dust and black beyond the stage lights—and anyway, I am simply crying from the beauty of the performance.  
          When it’s over, I clap along with everyone else as the dancers take their bows. The house lights in the audience brighten. 
          “And now, we want to thank our choreographer!” Julia cries, turning towards the edge of the stage.
          My heart does its own little relevé into my throat. I almost rise, but there’s nowhere to go—the seats are full on both sides of me, and in order to get out I’d have to fight my way through, wielding my cane in front of me. I’d make a spectacle out of myself, especially now that it’s no longer dark in the audience.
          Eli’s name is all over my program. So is the fact that this is essentially his farewell dirge. It’s the last show he’ll ever put on, due to vague, age-related health issues—always hinted at but never fully explained—as well as a more general slide towards a slower, easier life. Balanchine he is not. 
          I wanted to see his ending. But I didn’t know that they would drag him out onto the stage afterwards. I didn’t know that he would get to see mine. 
          Julia and her fellow dancers are all grinning, expectant and eager. I can almost see the love on their faces. 
          My own smile is paper. My hand, which a moment ago was on my armrest, about to push me to my feet, is shoved into the pocket of my jacket. Clenching around the edge of my ticket, wishing it was sharp enough to cut into my skin. 
          And as Eli walks onto the stage, I turn fragmented at the sight of him. Even at the age of sixty he moves more easily than I do, straight-backed and sure, his eyes flashing darkness, face all bones and planes and hollows, hands large and veined, and he reaches out to accept the bunch of roses Gillian is holding. 
          White roses symbolize eternity: eternal love, eternal devotion, eternal disability. Take your pick.
          His hand brushes against Julia’s as he takes the roses, and I think I see her flinch. Shudder, even. As though she accidentally touched something with too many legs. Her smile shivers, and a moment later she pastes it back on again, but it’s not genuine anymore. It’s the same fake smile she wore when she was dancing, except there is no longer any happiness in her eyes.
          Oh, Gillian, I think, what did he do to you? For the first time, I am sad for her. 
          At least you don’t have to walk with a cane. At least you can still dance.
          But there are so many other ways a person can be wounded. 
          Eli looks out into the audience. He scans the front row. And when his black-hole eyes meet mine, there’s a rush in my head, a feeling of sudden emptiness. Like all the blood in my brain has evaporated, turned to poison gas. 
          In the hospital, I asked him: Why did you have to go so fast? The drugs had worn off enough so that I was no longer slurring. But I was still crying. Why couldn’t you have gone slower? I was scared. I was telling you to stop. I was beg-g—I swallowed a gob of phlegm—I was begging you to stop.  
        He spoke without commas, without pause, without intonation. Yeah you were fucking bitching at me and complaining and distracting me and there was nothing but this shrill whine in my ear like a huge fucking mosquito, and to demonstrate he shook one hand next to his ear, vibrating it as his eyes pinned me to the hospital bed, just as his actions had pinned me there, his actions that he would not apologize for. His pupils swelling as he stared at me. 
          You should be here, not me, I told him. The words felt like ash in my throat. You’re the old one, not me. You’re not a—not a—
          I could no longer say the word dancer. Could no longer even think it. Because even then, before my doctors had given me a real prognosis, I could feel how broken my legs were. How shattered the bones, how mangled the muscles. Nothing more than mutilated clumps of driftwood. 
         Now, as Eli stares down at me from the stage, something strange flashes across his face: fear. His arm jerks up to shield his chest, and then he looks over to his dancers, laughs, tries to brush it off. But within seconds his gaze snaps back onto mine, as precise as Julia’s head when she was doing her turns, and yes, that is fear in his eyes, that is unmistakably fear—but why should he be afraid of a crippled girl? Does he think I’m going to whack him with my cane? Does he think I’ll—
          And then it hits me. How I must look: my face tight, jaw clenched, and one hand shoved deep in the pocket of my jacket, as though I’m holding a secret. Or a gun. 
          I smile with teeth and watch the fear spread across his face like an oil spill. He is regretting his generosity now, that’s for sure. A front row seat would only give me a clear shot at him. 
          But that would be too easy, I think. Killing you at the climax of your career, spattering your fame across the stage like blood—that would guarantee notoriety. And that won’t do, because I want you to fade. I want you to end your life as a lonely old man, fading into obscurity, clutching a warm beer in front of a fuzzy TV. Watching younger and more dedicated choreographers take your place. I want you to gutter like a candle. 
          Just as I did. 
          The audience files out, and I walk out with them. I keep smiling: a small smile, just for myself. I keep thinking: He saw me. He didn’t look away. He saw me, and he was afraid. 
          My cane helps steady me. My boots ground me to the earth. The pieces of my identity I lost in the accident are drifting invisible into the air behind me. Untethered, floating silently away. But I keep walking, even though each step is an effort. I keep walking. I don’t look back.

Amy DeBellis is the author of the novel All Our Tomorrows (CLASH Books, 2025) and the novella The Widening Gyre (Lanternfish Press, 2026). Her writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, has appeared in the Wigleaf Top 50 Longlist, and can be found in X-R-A-Y, Uncharted, Write or Die, Trampset, Pithead Chapel, Monkeybicycle, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, and elsewhere.