Where the creek bends is as good a place as any, pills in your pocket, short note signed. Cold in January, lonely too, but that feels right. Until you notice those bare stalks are forsythia, dried seed heads—rudbeckia? Ironweed? And you think you can wait, like them, for spring.
Rebecca Cuthbert writes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. See more at rebeccacuthbert.com.
“Fortunes, ten dollars,” the jeweled crone had croaked. “Your future awaits. Take my hands; you’ll see.”
You ducked into the dim tent. Carnivals were such a gas.
A year has come and gone, but still you sit—hawking the same vague promise, waiting for someone to take your outstretched hands.
Rebecca Cuthbert lives, writes, and reads in Western New York. Her work has appeared in Brevity, Slipstream, Neworld Review, and elsewhere, and it is forthcoming in Blueline Magazine. She serves as managing editor for Leapfrog Press and is a content writer and editor for LiveWriters.