Photo by Karthik B K on Unsplash
A leathery snake slithered off to the side as she was pulling weeds between the rocks in her garden. She knelt still, pretending that it didn’t shake her up the slightest, while in the back of her mind, a memory flickered. An emerald lizard looking up at her from a sink piled with dirty dinner bowls. Before a shriek left her mouth, Ah Ma had skewered the lizard with a fork and sent it flying through the open kitchen window. “Turn off the damn water or plug the drain,” she yelled, before shaking her head and walking away. She swatted off the flashback like an annoying gnat, the knot of her stomach tightening as she watched a hawk circling above.
Christine H. Chen was born in Hong Kong and grew up in Madagascar. Her fiction has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Time & Space Magazine, Centaur Lit. and anthologized in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions and other collections and journals. www.christinehchen.com.
