Flash
Amie E. Reilly

Photo Credit: Nicholas Erwin/Flickr (CC-by-nc-nd)

Paul’s parents love his sister more than him. She has waterfall hair and cerebral palsy, but Paul hears it called “Cee-Pee,” which makes sense to him because her shirt is always soaked from her drooling.

His mother brushes his sister’s hair three times a day. When he runs away, he goes to the dock to watch the ferry slide over the lake monster living inside the murk.

I could be a fisherman and live inside a lighthouse. I will be a scientist and live inside a cave. I will go home, pack my things, and say goodbye forever.

On the table, the scissors look like a bird, all eyes and beak and instinct. His sister’s asleep in her chair. Their parents whisper at the television.

Why do lakes have waves? Every fisherman in a kayak is a monster until the binoculars are focused.

He cuts off her hair and runs.

Amie E. Reilly teaches in the English departments at Norwalk Community College and Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, where she lives with her husband and ten-year-old son. Her work can be found or is forthcoming in The New Engagement, Entropy, The Ekphrastic Review, and Pigeonholes. Email: amie.reilly[at]gmail.com