On Saturday, I pedal through the rain to the school gym, where dodgeball reigns.

Elizabeth, who sits atop the bleachers, rules elsewhere. Red balls splat faces and bodies.

I shake off the rain, join the banshee chaos, and hope a ball finds me before she decrees us all hopeless naives.

Penn Stewart lives and writes in Wichita Falls, Texas. His most recent short fiction appears or is forthcoming in Literary Orphans, Word Riot, Dogzplot, Front Porch Review, Union Station Magazine, and elsewhere.