Pete woke up alone and he was not there.

He smelled the roots of trees; he heard the worms whisper; his foot walked away without him; he sank into the sky; his inside was outside; he saw the sun shine through his navel.

Pete had stars at head and foot.

Paul Negri has twice won the Gold Medal for fiction in the William Faulkner-William Wisdom Writing Competition. His work has appeared in Vestal Review, The Penn Review, Pif Magazine, Jellyfish Review and other publications. He lives and writes in Clifton, New Jersey.