trigger happy

by Susan Leona Flint

On the way home from the restaurant Joselyn stops at the Asian market. She walks in between rows of rotating Peking ducks and she thinks about killing herself. She wonders how her naked body would look on one of those skewers, first pink, then orange, then black.

She comes home to her apartment, stepping over a line of ants at her doorway. The corners are tinged yellow with old cigarette smoke. There’s half a bottle of three dollar wine sitting on the coffee table next to a gutted smoke detector, belly up, and a nine volt battery. Out comes Meow Meow from the bedroom, a tumbleweed of stringy gray fur and yellow eyes. Joselyn jiggles out two full cans of Friskies chicken dinner into Meow Meow’s bowl; it’s the second time this week that she forgot about his breakfast.

Those dumplings were supposed to be her triumphant return to life after a slobbery work week, bridle tight on her teeth, flanks lathering with sweaty panic. But she’s already collapsed on the couch, dumplings forgotten wet on the counter, she’s staring at that chip in the wall that looks like a face. When she was little she wanted to be an astronaut.

Joselyn stays on the couch until the lavender light through her window has gone fully maroon and the dumplings are a puddle. Suddenly she picks up her phone and sends a text. Should I come over? <3 The text is read but there’s no response. She’s so sick of fighting and failing to catch even the tiniest scrap of happiness between her fingers.

Meow Meow jumps on her lap and starts purring. There’s a dead spider tangled in his fur. Joselyn starts to cry.

“I’m so sorry.” She sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

Photo of Susan Leona Flint

BIO: Susan Leona Flint is a writer and video game developer originally from Vermont, but currently sweating her ass off in Austin, Texas. You can find her written work published or forthcoming in Jabberwocky, BULL, Putney Litmag, and others. You can find her video game work online at forgetmenotgames.com.