Laura Shell

Because of the Stroke

She waddled when she walked, favored her left. It took her four tries to get the order right, doesn’t matter what it was—groceries, breakfast, DoorDash, something from Amazon. Took her ten days to learn how to use the TV remote. She loved to cook but couldn’t cook worth a damn. Her legs swelled, and putting compression socks on her was like trying to wrangle two suckling pigs into gunny sacks. She couldn’t take baths anymore because she was too weak to lift herself out. But she kept trying anyway. She loved baths. The paramedics knew her by name.

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Laura Shell has been published in NUNUM, Maudlin House, Citron Review, and many other journals. Her first anthology of paranormal stories, The Canine Collection, was released this year, and she is currently working on her second anthology. You can find out more about her at https://laurashellhorror.wordpress.com.