Originally published in Literary Orphans and reprinted in The Best Small Fictions

© Jen Knox

You told me not to play with matches that summer, so I palmed a corner-store lighter instead. The flame reached for the tip of your blue Crayon, until you knocked the lighter from my hands. You wanted to color the sky, you said, and I wouldn’t ruin your chance.

I p…

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We have six gallons of drinking water, half a box of graham crackers, and oatmeal we’ve been eating with minimal water and warming on the space heater. We had perhaps our last small fire yesterday, and Joshua found a few packs of raisins, a food that used to make me cringe, behind the fridge. Consumables dwindle so incredibly fast. The plump r…

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THE SLOPE OF A LINE

© Jen Knox

So many mistakes. The heaviest of them rests on Rattle’s thighs and flattens its palms against his shoulders. He hears the rush on the freeway nearby and remembers raging down 315 at criminal speeds. He was sinewy and strong then, steering the straight line.

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“After the Gazebo” was originally published in the collection, After the Gazebo: Short Stories. New York: Rain Mountain Press, 2015. Print. It’s also featured Great Writers Steal: “What can we steal from After the Gazebo.” This piece was republished in Germ Magazine, Change Seven Magazine, Fox Chase Review, and The Original Van Go…

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This poem was originally published in Midway Journal.

An hour before sunset

Grumbling arrives as we workshop 
             creative ideas 				            in a volatile space.

Better to cluster, align. Like 
                                                   a starling 
                                                   finding its …

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Original title: “Columbus, Ohio.” Narrative Magazine.

Always a Story

© Jen Knox

When Grandpa’s unable to move, he yells at my grandmother, and she yells at my mother. The residue of this yelling sticks to Mom so …

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Dandelion Ghosts

© Jen Knox

We were born into curiosity and raised with a light touch. We ran around trees and chased ice cream trucks down the street or stared at the world through cameras and recorded what we saw in bound journals.

The crumbling concrete alongside our homes led to narrow alleyways that promised adulthood. We congregated on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, and marched past the plump blackberry vines and fields of dandelions. Stopping to taste the fruit or flick the heads of flowers into the alley, we enjoyed the last bit of childhood beneath a blue sky. Dirty fingers and playful shoves.

Once beyond the fields, the awkwardness and delights of youth would be over, and the mysteries that awaited would be revealed. We couldn’t wait to solve the riddle that stumped so many before us.

No one sat on back porches to monitor our pace or offer words of wisdom. The elders were too tired. The homes we left were perpetual rehab projects, brick and tall. There was nothing alluring to make us turn around. There were no home-cooked meals or promises of stories at night. The basements held ghosts and dust. The mistakes of those who came before us.

Just before we reached adulthood, the vines became thicker. Blackberries covered the path, either smashed or whole. Small animals watched and waited till there was stillness as, one by one, we reached the end of the alley, where the riddle was presented to us at last. There must be rules to freedom and ambiguity around structure.

A simple sign directed us to move forward to trade, to go uphill to give, or to run downhill to take. We scattered, some going on instinct, while others turned back after a headlong dash.

Beyond the signs were homes like those we grew up in, only made with solar panels. Wind turbines overlooked our town, and the air was clean. We found the homes we liked the best and began to fill our roles: providing, taking and exchanging what we found at hand. We ate berries and harvested dandelions for tea and medicine. Some ate rabbit and racoon, while others chewed on bark and plucked tiny insects to bake into brownies.

The first decade of adulthood, the majority decided to provide. We grew strong and steady like the rivers where we caught fish and swam every solstice. Our celebrations were boisterous, and our rest was deep. But some of us grew bored and began to take unapologetically. The trend continued until there was more need for exchange.

We changed roles again after a few years, or a few realizations. Takers found guilt and opulence alike; providers smiled sleepily while worrying over time and lack of resources. Those responsible for exchanging goods were always counting, and this drove most to madness.

The second decade, takers demanded more homes and stockpiled fish. Those who traded were told what to say, and we began to look at each other with wariness. The few providers starved; some died and were buried in basements, where our children would play with their ghosts.

The path toward death was a circle. We walked it until we grew too tired, and then we watched as our children moved away. They skipped toward a lake where they would create a new life.

They took a path worn into the fields that were full of soy and marigolds, and they ended up who knows where, with all-new signs. We watched as our parents had, talking to our ghosts, asking them what comes next, and they told us to wait and watch.

The children approached their riddle. One sign told them to look inward, another outward, and yet a third to look directly up.

We watched as their heads moved. Some closed their eyes, while others examined the earth, and those who remained, pointed upwards toward the stars. We watched them for decades.

Though some never moved, others refused to sit still, and those looking up imposed stories they couldn’t prove; we swelled with pride. Their riddle was tougher than ours, and we applauded their hardscrabble journey.

As our children walked in circles, their children shook their heads and made their way toward another life; new ghosts remained. And we began to band together to move beyond brick and basement, stone and soy, to create new riddles for all the children, as they rushed and argued, created and destroyed, and ultimately found out how little they knew.

PREREQUISITES

© Jen Knox

He was a fourth taller, and his thighs were half the circumference of my own. Before I knew his name, I felt his attention. By this time, I had a habit of scowling and sitting without my legs crossed. Maybe this is what he noticed. He clea…

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BUSSING

© Jen Knox

My husband, a food researcher, introduced me to the concept of mouthfeel. This term refers to the physical sensation of a food or beverage, which contributes to the overall experience of eating or drinking. I’d say the mouthfeel of Midw…

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The Glass City, a collection of climate fiction I released in 2017 with Press Americana (Prose Winner), was reprinted on Zero-Emissions Day. This story (one I dissected in a previous post) is also featured in a slightly different form. I post in a mini-workshop here.

Our Sky, the Ocean

© Jen Knox

We were waiting for rain the day my sister stopped talking. We examined the swollen clouds. Mom and Dad prattled on about the football game that was holding up traffic to I-10, the sandwich shop opening on Fifth, and the sad state of our garden.

I chimed in from time to time, keeping an eye on my sister as she watered the vegetables. The broccoli and basil leaves were withering up like prunes, and the lettuce resembled the tops of Grandpa's hands. My sister patted the ground and traced the leaves with her fingers, as though speaking to them without words.

"Do your job," I told the sky.

The twenty-day drought was right on schedule. It was the middle of August, and droughts often hit the panhandle this time of year. Still, no one ever seemed prepared.

"Do you think it will rain?" I asked my sister. When Em didn't answer, I said, "How much money you think we'll earn if we help Mr. Jerry paint his garage next week?"

I asked more questions, so many I don't remember.

Em responded with smiles and raised eyebrows, shrugs and tightened lips. She walked with urgency, as though excited, but she didn't make a single sound.

"You okay?" I asked.

She smiled with a brightness I wasn't used to.

"Why aren't you talking?"

She examined me with her wide eyes. They were the same brown as our kitchen table, which Dad had stained extra dark, only they had flecks of gold at the edges. I wished I had her eyes. Mine were light blue like the sky on a day with no chance of rain.

Later, we ran around a nearby store and tried on clothes, but my sister never opened her mouth to chuckle. "You girls are being so good," a worker said. She gave us watermelon candies and instructed us to tuck them into our pockets for later.

My sister didn't appear ill. At dinner, she ate her corn and mashed potatoes like a champ. Toward the end of the meal, Em winked and gestured toward the door.

The sky was pregnant with moisture. My parents were talking about who bought the house at the end of the street and why our neighbor got fired from the automotive shop. They talked about how much the cell phone bill would be and what time they'd be home from work on Monday.

"Why aren't you talking?" I asked again.

A year before, my sister had closed her eyes and refused to open them for almost the entire day. She had spent hours feeling around the house to get where she needed to go. After, when she finally opened them, she said that she had been trying out a different way to see.

My sister slipped the watermelon candy in her mouth. She felt the dry earth around our vegetables.

"It's like sand," I said. The sky was our ocean.

Em sat down on a patch of dirt and began to carve a message with a small stick. "Try it," she wrote.

I closed my lips, traced my finger over the wrinkled lettuce and looked up at the sky. Together, we waited. I could hear my parents talking about this and that, but after a while, I began to hear the wind too, then the whoosh of cars nearby. I began to understand.

The first drop of rain hit my arm and made all the little hairs stand up. The next drop landed on my cheek. My sister and I leaned back and closed our eyes, listening to the world, absorbing each drop.

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