Thursday, July 19, 2012

A MAP OF REALITY

Thanks to all those at Thrice Fiction - http://www.thricefiction.com/pdf/ThriceFiction005X.pdf
See Page 21 for story and outstanding illustrations!

A MAP OF REALITY
by MaryAnne Kolton

Bethann Dean was huge, like the Goodyear blimp, only rounder.  And only in front.  If you were walking behind her, you wouldn’t even know she was pregnant.  She stood on the driveway, in the dark, next to the car, with her pink polka dot, overnight bag, looking … determined?  Impatient?  Resigned?  Hard to tell.  Lloyd raced from room to room, making sure all the lights were off, throwing some salmon kibble at the cat dish and grabbing several energy bars.
“Lloyd, please!” she hollered.  She had yelled these same two words, at exactly the same volume and with the identical tone of exigency, on the afternoon the blimp had been created.  Lloyd’s parents were on a cruise.  The couple was on his bed, her legs wrapped tight around his lower back.  He didn’t have a condom and she wasn’t on the pill.  They had been dating for three months.  He had graduated from high school three days before.  Bethann had one more year to go.