by Lucinda Kempe
The veins in her long chocolate brown neck were cut. Her vermillion blood turned purple as it oxygenated and bled into the rutted gutters, her life seeping onto the abattoir floor—auburn sleekness transformed into crimson cuts flecked with purple packaged in cellophane and stored in a freezer.
Days later, a girl ate her burger with chartreuse pickles, mayonnaise yellow with eggs and olive oil, and ketchup the red of summer’s fleshiest tomatoes. The burger was so delicious she asked Baba what kind of meat it was, and he told her, “Horse.”
The girl had watched a movie in class showing how horses galloped like panthers, each hoof hitting the ground in one-two-three-four strike that had never been properly rendered in paintings. After lunch the girl felt the desire to gallop—her auburn hair flowed from the back of her neck; her back was wide and firm, the color of chocolate and her horsehair as smooth as velvet as her legs hit the ground in a one-two-three-four strike galloping at a speed she’d never have been able to attain as a girl, galloping never to be butchered in a cool marble abattoir, galloping never to be consumed by a girl, who hadn’t known who it was she was eating.
Lucinda Kempe’s work is forthcoming in Gargoyle, Salvage (China Mieville editor), the McNeese Review, SoFloPoJo, Unbroken Journal, Bull, Gooseberry Pie, New Flash Fiction Review, and Centaur, among places. Her work has appeared on the Wigleaf Top 50(2018, 2019, 2020) and nominated for Best Microfiction (New FFR 2025). Her chapbook “Pretty Girl” is making the rounds. You can find her here: lucindakempe.substack.com.
Photo Credit: Sheila Swayze on Unsplash
