Flash Fiction by Dené Breakfield
By Dené Breakfield
While classmates hunched over their
dissecting trays, dutifully slicing open pale bellies, unpacking and labeling
guts, Lina faked it, carved nervous circles around the frog’s body with her
scalpel and pictured him alive, basking eyeballs-deep in warm mud. The image
made her head throb and shook loose an impulse.
She tucked him
inside her backpack and turned them both into fugitives.
They ended up at a creek bank shaded
by giant cottonwoods. She held him against her chest and waded in knee deep, her
heart drumming a eulogy.
As the current took him downstream,
she stood shivering, standing watch until he disappeared beneath the delicate mist
that graced the water’s surface.
- Vegan
writer Dené Breakfield’s work has appeared in cold-drill, Nebo, Writers
in the Attic, Rectangle, Fiction 101, Plays magazine,
and elsewhere.
Copyright©2022 By Dené Breakfield.
All Rights Reserved.