Photo by Dorrell Tibbs on Unsplash
by Claudia Monpere
Stunned by the inheritance, she wondered: new kitchen or new face? She hated this dark kitchen, its stained linoleum floor, broken appliances too old for replacement parts. Replacing her face would be more expensive— cosmetic surgery since she had no deformity or horrible scars. Just hidden ones, cemented by fear. She imagined being in public without fearing he’d recognize her. She’d moved six times, finally to a town so shabby and remote she could afford a house, could afford the fantasy he wouldn’t find her, his figure appearing in a café or garage or supermarket, his singsong words: “Found you.”
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Claudia Monpere’s flash appears or is forthcoming in Craft, Smokelong Quarterly, The Forge, Fictive Dream, Atticus Review, Gone Lawn and elsewhere. She tweets @ClaudiaMonpere.
