by Louella Lester
It’s not that she’s sleeping over at Kath’s. Not that Kath and her two sisters had to make room for her to squeeze into their pullout-couch bed. That Kath’s parents drank beer and whiskey shots at the kitchen table until they passed out. That Kath’s house smells of things that’ve travelled through places they shouldn’t have. Or that Lilly’s awake at dusk, a video loop of thoughts running through her head. It’s not that at home, yesterday, she had to cover her ears. Not that Dad shouted about leaving. That Mom said he can take the kids with him. That her sister Valerie said nothing will ever change. Or that Lilly never even cried as she sneaked out the door. It’s that she forgot to bring a book and there are no books here.
Louella Lester is a writer/photographer in Winnipeg, Canada. Her writing appears in New Flash Fiction, Blink-Ink, Potato Soup, Cleaver, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Litro, Five Minutes, SoFloPoJo, Six Sentences, Reflex Fiction, and a variety of other journals & anthologies. Her Flash-CNF book, Glass Bricks, is published by At Bay Press.
Emerge Literary Journal 