So Far

Nicholas Claro

I come home to find Kristen sitting cross-legged on the couch, laptop on her lap, her eyes wide and darting back and forth. Her bottom lip is clamped beneath her teeth. I can’t tell if she’s angry, upset, or just focused on whatever’s on the screen. I set down my bag and take my shoes off. Still nothing. Moving toward her I wave and say, “Earth to Kristen.” Here, she looks up and sets her lip free; her teeth have left these shallow indentations like a row of tiny, freshly dug graves. She shakes her head. “What is it?” I say. “There’s been another one,” she says. I don’t have to ask what she’s talking about. And neither do you.

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Nicholas Claro is an MFA candidate in fiction at WSU and reads fiction for Nimrod International Journal. His work has appeared in or is forthcoming from Pithead Chapel, Bending Genres, Heavy Feather Review, Fictive Dream, X-R-A-Y, Necessary Fiction, and other publications. He lives in Wichita, Kansas.