Two Fictions
Nicole Elizabeth

You Motion Wait

She had to touch everything. She would run from the front door to the corner store leaning to tag the birch, her feet got ahead of her at the brick. She turned left at the crosswalk by the church, she touched the sign on the lawn, it read, "Sinners, repent."



Tubing

I picked up the hulahoop the day everybody else got pregnant. Preschool best friend had a boy, internet stalker was having a girl, they were naming her Madge, bff baby boy was nameless. I said to them "Listen, everyone, I cannot do that." They said, "Oh you're such a kidder."
My hips were bruised at first, it was a heavy hoop, the kind people use for weight loss, or as a prop in the background of a variety show. I did this in the kitchen for hours everybody had to walk around me to get coffee. "What is her problem?" Roommate said. My waist shrunk considerably but that wasn't the issue, the issue was where the baby wouldn't sit and how to keep it in motion. This is how I began to live.

1996 © 2008