Fiction

I’m going to quit, I said. For you. I’ll quit.

Conversation was playful; he was charming, I was witty. Our humor bounced off each other seamlessly, smiles and laughs came easy as breathing.

I want them to say, wow look at Griselda now, thinking her shit doesn’t stink. And I’ll say back to them, it doesn’t 'cause I’m classy now!

“You need to watch the news. Aren’t you interested in the world? Very important to know what’s going on in the world.”

You had to knock thrice slowly on the door’s edge, said Grandma, and if she didn’t reply, that meant she didn’t want you to come inside.

There is, however, an urgency. And, urgently, she tells you stories.

“You know what I mean. It really just makes you think about the shortness of life and shit.”

So by week four of my fellowship, I shifted my plan to write a piece of “autofiction” in which an Australian named Simon dates an Amazon employee.

Andrea tells me her hallucinations are getting worse, more frequent, more frightening, though she doesn’t elaborate on how.