subs

(this is mostly to help me keep track) I sent off Oh My Heart, Oh My Soul out to Coyote Wild and When Big Betty and the Circus Came to Random, Wisconsin to Intergalactic Medicine Show. I want to send Matilda off somewhere, but will wait for a crit from the VP group (nudge, nudge)

my balloon wrangler

I couldn't sleep last night. I kept thinking of the shop, if I should open it anyway, if I should keep trying. I quoted numbers again and again to Mike, patient fellow. Each time I'd get to the end, I'd say, "I just can't keep going. I would, if I could."

He'd hug me and say, "I know."

"I don't want you to leave," I muttered. I felt stupid and weak. And afraid of being lonely. "I miss Len." With my head on his arm, I could just see his chin and the outline of his mouth. "I don't hate him." I twirled one of my newly short curls around my finger and thought of endings and of Vanye sawing through his braid.

"Yes. You're weird that way."

"Joe says that if I lived in a bigger city, I wouldn't be so alone. He says that I'm brilliant, but I think that I'm just odd."

He kissed me on the temple. "You are brilliantly odd."

That made me laugh. I rolled and threw my leg over his hips and swept my fingertips across his face. "How do you do this? How do people do it? Stay on the path. I feel so ... so ... So many things have been cut loose. I feel like a Macy's balloon with only half of its balloon wranglers. I'm going to ... to..."

"Bounce into a skyscraper?"

I raised up on my elbow so I could see his eyes. "How do you do it? How do you stay on the path?" And I didn't mean just him, I meant everyone, everyone; how?

"Perhaps our spirits aren't quite as free."

My elbow slipped underneath me and I buried my face in his armpit, my words mumbled against his skin. "Or as odd."

"That, too."