Entomology for Beginners
Dying in her own arms for the night, she wakes to the scuttle of a bright bug under the weighted blanket. It’s been eating her dreams again, having already devoured her husband’s. It’s left him wide-eyed, biting his nails and researching the habits of insects. If he could just discover what repels them, he could adjust the shape of his dreams. She could never do that; she puts too much stock in facts. What the EKG shows. The angiogram. The blanket so heavy, lifting it could give anyone a heart attack.
• • •
They Even Flew a Little
It is late spring: the moon hums in her lap. There’s the snap of twigs under work boots, a drizzle that mists the distant traffic. The man stares into her cataract eyes and whispers, “We were such a good invention,” while she counts the stars, fading backward from one hundred.
• • •
Wind Phone
He has built a telephone booth in the desert, where it is quiet enough to hear blood rush. He has angled a chair outside the booth, and set a rotary phone just inside it, close enough for a quick pick up. Yet, when he does, he does not get a dial tone. He realizes: no wires, no connection. The phone-in-booth together is barely a metaphor. The man would have to return to his burning home to get the necessary equipment to install the phone, but he is stranded in the desert. He dials his wife’s old number. He knows she must be far away by now but he puts his ear to the receiver anyhow, and listens to the blood rush.
• • •
Cheryl Snell’s books include poetry and fiction. Her most recent writing has appeared in Ghost Parachute, Flash Boulevard, Bending Genres, and Midway. She has stories in the Best Microfiction 2025 and the 2025 Best Small Fictions anthologies. A classical pianist, she lives in Maryland, with her husband, a mathematical engineer. See https://www.facebook.com/cheryl.snell/ for more.