Postcard to Stephanie by Erin Murphy
Illustration by Emilee Covers.
Editorial intern Nick Hansen on today’s bonus short: A typical game of kickball takes an unexpected turn, and the result is two minds left somewhat unharmed, but nevertheless changed.
Postcard to Stephanie
Kickball on my dead-end street, you bowling the red rubber ball, me launching it toward that recurring suburban sky. Then creeping past us: the beige car, hovering and purring like the Close Encounters mother ship. Impala. Chevrolet Impala. And all I could think was pale, pale as the ass of the man who flashed us, then fled, slipping our stunned faces in his pocket like a snapshot, leaving us with a lifetime of taking license plates whether we needed them or not.
Erin Murphy’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, North American Review, Waxwing, The Best of Brevity anthology, and elsewhere. She is author or editor of ten books, including Bodies of Truth: Personal Narratives on Illness, Disability, and Medicine (University of Nebraska Press) and Creating Nonfiction (SUNY Press), winner of the Gold Medal Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Award. She is professor of English at Penn State Altoona. Website: www.erin-murphy.com.
