Acceptance (At Donato's)

flash fiction (originally published in PARAGRAPHITI [2015])

A storm blows over the filling station.

I wander up to Donato’s.

This house is empty, but the door unlocked.

Outside for a Parliament. Milkweed sprouts in the pool. Empty since the cat drowned. A shame to find him that way. But what could be done?

The storm catches up, gliding over the crest of the hill, eating the sun, licking her fingers until all that’s left is black and the ember illuminating what, for now, is real.

By the tree, where they buried the mouser. Dogwood. Florets of white and pink tinge spill out of the hard bark, saturated with chigger-sized watermarks dotting and drooling over the trunk.

A drop lands on the end of my cigarette. The light fails and the grave is wet. I laugh and laugh and laugh.

I am here. I am there, too!