by Katherine Gleason

We feed the pigeons in the park. We pick up trash. We see the comings, the goings. We greet our neighbors, even the ones who do not bathe. We suspect our neighbor, the one who calls himself Bodhi the Buddhist Mediation teacher, actually works at a big box store and is a heavy drinker. We’ve seen his trash. He’s a war veteran, well, maybe, and is missing a few teeth. We believe his much younger wife has cancer.

We watch for animals, the rats that scuttle across the sidewalk, the rats that rummage in the trash, the rats, their sharp teeth and grabbing toes, who scare the bar patrons, the tourists. We like our street at night, the peace, the susurrations. We understand the rats are just going about their rat business, doing their rat jobs, collecting food, securing shelter, raising their pups. It’s not like they have their little fingers on the trigger, will initiate a stock market crash, will drop bombs on a girls’ school in Iran.

We believe in early light, the healing powers of vitamin D. We enjoy the dawn hours for feeding birds, checking on squirrels, searching for lost cats. Just before sunup, the fading stars whisper, each to each. Their breath ruffles the clouds, awakening tree and sparrow, stirring our hair and that sense that we want. We want to believe.

We want to believe the earth is flat, that powerful dragons lurk over the edge, just out of sight. That these massive beings will rise, leaders, a green revolution. Maybe they have their fingers on the trigger, but they care nothing for markets. They love no bombs. They do not see international borders. They’ll reach out, cradle warmongers, tax cheats, chauvinists to their scaly breasts. Soon dragon love ignites. Hatred and fear burn away. The heat wafts toward us, rising, so we feed pigeons and pick up trash. We prime to greet the future, our green.

Katherine Gleason’s stories have appeared in Bending Genres, Cheap Pop, The Drabble, Defenestration, Derelict Lit, Every Day Fiction, HAD, Juked, Jellyfish Review, and Menacing Hedge. She won first prize in the River Styx/Schlafly Beer Micro-Fiction Contest, garnered an honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and has been nominated for a Best of the Net award. Her play “The Toe Incident” won the Christopher Hewitt Award for Drama in 2020. She lives with a bossy tabby cat and is happy to serve her feline overlord.