You lie in the grass and let ants crawl all over you. You lie so perfectly still that they start to think you’re just another part of the landscape—a rock, a log, a statue. They crawl in your ears and your nose and under your eyelids. You think, I’m just a performance for people to watch, but all I want to be is invisible. Your invisibility spills over you, coating your body like oil. Everything in the unnatural world is a transaction. Sin most of all. What if you could pause and stop it all? Digress from existence? You make your breathing shallow and soft. All the ordinary people walk by you muttering. A woman blames the drug lords and vows to write her senator when she gets home. As she passes, you can see a tuft of her white hair, like a cloud in the blue sky. You wish you could rip off your skin. Slowly unpeel it like a reptile. Nothing happens. Nothing happening is a surprise. Eventually, you realize you’re just like everyone else except in your mind. You sit up and brush off the ants. You put your hand over your mouth to cover the sob.
About the Author
Holly Lyn Walrath is a writer, editor, and publisher. Her poetry and short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Analog, and Flash Fiction Online. She is the author of several books of poetry, including Glimmerglass Girl (2018), Numinose Lapidi (2020), and The Smallest of Bones (2021). She holds a BA in English from The University of Texas and a Master’s in Creative Writing from the University of Denver. In 2019, she launched Interstellar Flight Press, an indie SFF publisher dedicated to publishing underrepresented genres and voices.
