A flash fiction piece, entitled, BOXED:
Dreamed you we here. It was a beautiful fall day, much like yesterday and today’s promise. Blue sky, trees orange, grass still shocking green. Oddly, you were wearing my red coat from when I’d backpacked Europe at 21. Plus your own black shades. In your hand you carried a perfect antique crystal tumbler to hold a gin and ice. It was frosted against the warm day. You emerged from my back yard through the fence I’d built and were talking, as if picking up a conversation we had already begun. You said, “...But broken people aren’t worth a damn in this world. Everyone sees them as nothing but a costly burden.” I was wheeling my garbage bin out to the street. You said, “The world puts broken stuff in there,” gesturing to the bin with a slosh of your ornate glassware. Considering, I said, “That hurts my feelings a little. And it should hurt yours. You’re broken. I’m broken. And yet, here we are. Outside the box. Standing on our two legs, each.” Unseen in the distance, the garbage truck shifted gears and rumbled.
