She had run dry of stories. After purging the unexpected from her life, strained by pandemic torpor and a fear of human breath, what remained of each day fizzled into smaller and smaller eddies.

Driving was a distraction. At first, she followed county health guidelines, stuck close to home, looping in redundant patterns. In her youth, she’d nurtured a bleak fantasy of escape: jump a train to Nowheresville, change motel sheets for money, their filth a muddled narrative on repeat, an erasure. Finally, she wanted more than numbing.

She remembered a time she felt less dead and broke out to the north. No traffic anywhere, so the miles flew by. Outside Ukiah, the locked driveway gate looked the same, plain. She rattled it, called his name, not knowing if this land was still his, if he was what she remembered, if her longing could be trusted. The manzanita winding up the damp cracks of the hillside still stunned with their sinuous red arms. Silent turkey buzzards hung on the updrafts, betraying nothing. A flutter in her gut bucked. The sound of metal on metal could mean anything.

Janey Skinner

writes, teaches, and putters around in Richmond, California. Her story “Carnivores,” originally published in KYSO Flash, was included in The Best Small Fictions 2016 anthology.

For more of her work, visit: http://writer.janeyskinner.com/