Fracture
The pool glimmers turquoise, sun and water mingling. But three chairs are splayed across the water, legs mingling, fractured.
They bear the mark of drunkenness. Parents, wrapped up in wine and the shields of I, I, I. Maybe parents who started out saying I’m sorry but were triggered. Maybe it was politics, credit card bills, a laugh or a glance once endearing. And with each week, they added indelible bruises, bribed their children, slept on couches and bathtubs.
Hunched over the pool, I try to extract one pair of legs from another. I pull, heave, legs shifting, shifting. Nothing breaks.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work has been published in The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
See more of Yash's work in 9.3 and 9.1 and 8.2 and 8.2 and 8.2 and 8.2 and Special Flash 50/50