Worlds We Wanted This World to Be by Jesse Eagle

My sister and I would go under the sheets together and imagine worlds we wanted this world to be. In my sister’s worlds, all the buildings came down. There were shards of broken glass from blown out windows all over the street and small splinters of twisted metal spinning in the wind. She imagined the metal got stuck in the corners of businessmen’s eyes, slicing them open, that inside, black stuff dripped down their cheeks. In her worlds, the oceans were always red. There were whales with vulture heads, whales with long black bodies and plastic tails. There were guns with infrared scopes pointed at the heads of people while they watched TV in their apartments. Under the sheets, my sister took my hand and slid it under her shirt while whispering, her bare foot moving up my leg. She turned to her side and told me to put my arm around her, and I did, and then she arched her back and dipped her body into the curve of mine and together we fell asleep, our foster mother up late vacuuming again, the sound of sucked up dirt coming through our locked bedroom door. 

© Jesse Eagle 

Jesse Eagle is the Editor-In-Chief as DOGZPLOT Flash Fiction. His work has appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, Hobart, and Midwestern Gothic. He lives in Chicago and attends Northwestern University.

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