One hundred knots – Featured Fiction
Kelli Allen’s is the recipient of the 2018 Magpie Award for Poetry. Her newest collection is Banjo’s Inside Coyote, C&R Press, 2019.
Kelli Allen’s is the recipient of the 2018 Magpie Award for Poetry. Her newest collection is Banjo’s Inside Coyote, C&R Press, 2019.
Everyone knows exactly where they were when the little girl died. It was a momentary intake of breath, the news. An oh-my- god instant, and then the reassuring breath out and their own lives jerked back to them, arrhythmic but safe. Sweet Jesus, isn’t that awful. Tell me all about it. Addy in the shop, …
Jean-Baptiste Bécoeur is dancing with the flamingo again. A waltz – the dance has slunk across the border into Metz, even as far as the King’s private chambers, it is whispered. ‘Look,’ he says, to his captivated audience, ‘how beautiful she is! So perfect in her pink finery! So exuberant!’ And then, as he swoops …
‘I don’t want to go out, you know,’ Louise said as she ran the straighteners through her long blonde hair. Siobhan didn’t answer her. Instead she poured the last drop of wine into the glass. Putting more bronzer on her face, Louise sighed. ‘Right. Let’s go then if we have to.’ It was Friday evening …
We approached the door. It didn’t hurt to have me be the one they saw first. I was with my uncle, Walker, who claimed to be a natural born salesman. Could sell a Buick to a blind man, he’d said. I wasn’t sure yet about Chicago. I wasn’t sure about this uncle. But after Dad …