Today on Midwest Weird: “Negation” by Jessica Klimesh.
Jessica Klimesh (she/her) is a US-based writer and editor whose creative work has been published or is forthcoming in Cleaver, Flash Frog, trampset, Atticus Review, Brink, Club Plum Literary, Ghost Parachute, and Bending Genres, among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. Learn more at www.jessicaklimesh.com.
Like the story? Check out an interview with Jessica!
Midwest Weird is an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions. We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.
Submit your own work to Midwest Weird at www.midwestweird.com!
Episode Transcript:
This is Midwest Weird, an audio literary magazine from Broads and Books Productions.
We’re the home of weird fiction and nonfiction by Midwestern writers.
Today’s episode: A flash fiction piece by Jessica Klimesh, titled “Negation.” Read by the author.
I’m seventeen when my mother shoots me, or tries to, again and again.
I’m Hester Prynne, and my mother is Dimmesdale.
It feels like a game, but it’s not.
#
My parents have abandoned me, left me in the attic of my grandparents’ house where no one will look when they discover I’m missing. There’s a small window, but I can’t see out because I’m trapped, can’t move, so I cry, scream. Years later, my mother will laugh at my version of the memory and say that it wasn’t an attic at all but the upstairs of my grandparents’ house. You were just taking a nap in your crib, she’ll say, and we were right downstairs. Her tone will be light, sing-song sweet, and it will feel like the truth, but it won’t be the truth.
#
A man has lost his head, so I try to superglue it back on for him. Hold still, I say. Then: Bend down, I can’t reach. He nods but not really, because I’m holding his head, rocking it like a baby. It’s mine now, I say, I’m sorry. I sound sincere, but I’m not.
#
A mother and her two daughters are visiting me. During the night, one daughter helps her sister put knives in her chest, spelling out “Help me.” Their mother calls 9-1-1, but the operator ignores her. I grab the phone and scream for them to hurry. The operator says it will be alright, but it won’t. The paramedics arrive, but they arrive too late.
#
Even though I’ve told her I don’t want to go, my mother drives me to the birthday party of one of my kindergarten classmates. You’ll change your mind once you get there, she says. But I don’t. I begrudgingly get out of the car like she’s asked me to, and while still standing on the driveway, just an arm’s length, no more, from our yellow Ford Pinto, I give my gift to the girl whose birthday it is, then tell my mother I’m ready to go. Don’t you at least want to go inside and have some cake? my mother says.
It feels like an option, but it’s not.
No, I say.
#
When I’m ten, I take a summer swimming class. Not at the Y like the swimming classes I took when I was five and six. This is an outdoor pool, somebody’s house. We learn to do somersaults in the water. But when I try again later that summer at a hotel pool, I get disoriented, am unable to find the surface. I panic, flail, gasp.
It feels like the end, but it’s not.
Jessica Klimesh (she/her) is a US-based writer and editor whose creative work has been published or is forthcoming in Cleaver, Flash Frog, trampset, Atticus Review, Brink, Club Plum Literary, Ghost Parachute, and Bending Genres, among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. Learn more at jessicaklimesh.com.
Watch for upcoming bonus episode where we chat with Jessica about this story, writing, latest obsessions, and more.
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