Clickety-Clack
There are many footsteps at home. The clickety-clack of grace and motherly smiles, the thump of arguments, and Dad’s rules. Then, there’s another clickety-clack, something faster, accompanied by thumps and bags. Mother laughs and plants a perfume-scented kiss. She loves you. Maybe you’re imagining. But you hear the motor sputter with energy and run, your own footsteps clickety-clacking, Mother fading. Footsteps rise more, clickety-clack. Crack. You trip. Mother’s vanished. You will chase many things and never catch them, bills, appreciation, jobs, answers. But now you rise. One foot. You fall, pick yourself up. Fall harder. Getting up really, really hurts.
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University's MFA program in fiction. A native of Idaho, Yash’s work is forthcoming or has been published in WestWard Quarterly, Café Lit, and Ariel Chart, among others.
See more of Yash's work in 9.1 and 8.2 and 8.2 and 8.2 and 8.2 and Special Flash 50/50