mine , consuming the bulk of the flipped scene before me . I try to open my mouth , but I ’ m unnaturally rigid . I smell the acidic assault of cigar smoke .
A cough , this time from far below , from the rot of the earth .
The child is looking up at me from my porch , and from behind a thickening smoke , from a face so ashen that it looks like it ’ s been draped in a web of bloodless capillaries , he is smoking a cigar , grinning .
You ’ re in my seat , wheezes the boyish voice of my gray , lung-dead Papi .
Natalie Harris-Spencer is an English writer , digital editor , and blogger living in America . Her work has appeared in the Stonecoast Review , Archipelago , The Dark City , The Satirist , and more , with stories forthcoming in Hobart and Allegory Ridge . She was selected by Oyster River Pages as one of their Emerging Fiction Voices , and she is the winner of the 2021 Hummingbird Flash Fiction Prize . She earned her MFA in Creative Writing at Stonecoast , is the Editor-in-Chief of Aspiring Author and is currently working on her debut novel . Natalie enjoys surprise in fiction . And tea . Learn more at : https :// natalieharrisspencer . com
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