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Wild Things

March 1, 2023 By Kathy Fish

Wild Things

I saw the wolf again last night, just before dark. He sat on a mound of blown snow buttressing the old fence in the back yard. His fur, stippled with purple like the sky and the snow. I looked out my study window and there he was, looking right at me.

My husband says, must be a fox. There are no wolves here.

But I hear him howl at night.

Dogs howl, he says. Lots of animals howl. There are mountain lions around here.

I don’t think mountain lions howl.

The best photo I get is like those pictures of Bigfoot. Blurry and out of focus like maybe it’s a man in a Bigfoot costume or someone in a puffy snowsuit just minding his own business until he finds himself on the cover of the Weekly World News.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m hallucinating. I don’t want my wolf to be a symptom. I don’t want anyone to say, you should have your head examined.

They had to give Jake a sedative before rolling him into the MRI machine when he was three. When I brought him home and got him out of his carseat his legs buckled  and he fell hard onto the driveway and a woman walking her dog came running and the dog licked his face.

My husband tells happier stories about him.

Remember? he asks.

I do not remember. I do not.

Maybe my wolf is a fiction or a metaphor or my spirit animal. Once I listened to a guided meditation on You Tube where you were promised an encounter with your spirit animal, but I only saw my own fluff ball, Rory, standing on a cliff for some reason.

Dogs are descended from wolves, I told myself.

I want to be a wolf so I can howl.

I stop telling my husband about the wolf and he stops telling me stories about Jake. When I dream of Jake he is a toddler dressed as a monster. A wild thing. He is not the nineteen-year-old with the blinding smile who is already going bald. The brain is sometimes merciful. If I dream about my boy as a nineteen-year-old I will know, even in the dream, that we are near the end of this story.

About Kathy Fish

Kathy Fish’s short stories, flash fiction, and prose poems have recently appeared in Ploughshares, Washington Square Review, Waxwing Magazine, Copper Nickel, The Norton Reader, and Best Small Fictions. Her fifth collection, Wild Life: Collected Works from 2003-2018, is now in its 2nd print run with Matter Press. She is a recipient of the Copper Nickel Editor’s Prize and a 2020 Ragdale Foundation Fellowship. Her highly sought after Fast Flash workshops, begun in 2015, have resulted in numerous publications and awards for the hundreds of writers who have taken part. She publishes a free monthly newsletter, The Art of Flash Fiction, which includes craft articles and writing prompts. She is currently seeking representation for her craft book of the same name.

Artist Credit:

Orlando native Kaylan Stedman is an illustrator out of Torrance, California. With a Master’s in TESOL, she teaches English by day and pursues her passion for art and illustration at all other waking moments. For more art, peruse past Ghost Parachute issues, follow her Instagram, @naryakal (K. S. Illustrations), or support her on Etsy at www.etsy.com/shop/ksillustrationsstore.

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From The Blog

Best Small Fictions Nomations

January 21, 2023 By Brett Pribble

The Storming of Rome by Slawka G. Scarso Juicy Fruit by Katie Coleman You Were Only Waiting for This Moment to Arrive by Kathy Fish Eddie by David James Poissant Something Fierce and Unnamed by Tommy Dean

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