Wasn’t nowhere else for cover when the sirens went off. Janie had just hopped the fence with a hoagie bag and two Cokes, and I put the mower in park, admiring my work around the gravestone jigsaw. Think I’d have noticed her stars n’ stripes bikini top for the evening parade, but my ears began popping and Janie started pointing across the river, and never since have I seen the sky turn green nor the leaves flip ‘round backward. She took my elbow and we ran up the Hill o’ Wealth, where all them rich folks who built the old Victorians on Main have mausoleums, and I knew the Aber one was unlocked what with Groundskeeper Bradley’s complaining over lock parts lost in the mail. I remember Janie’s hair smelled like fireworks as I held her on the dusty stone floor. I remember sniffing for rot but only catching our sweat as we boiled like lobsters in the July-stale tomb. Would I find the mower in a tree? Would our ancient neighbors and cousins be reclining on their headstones when we came out? Wind like a train whistle and debris smacking the granite exterior. I’d get serious, save up for a ring, and we’d marry and move to a tornado-free town. I still tell Janie I would have done it, too, when I plant fresh pansies on her plot every season.
Lauren Kardos (she/her) writes from Washington, DC, but she’s still breaking up with her hometown in Western Pennsylvania. The Molotov Cocktail, Spry Literary Journal, hex, Whale Road Review, Fatal Flaw, Best Microfiction 2022, and The Lumiere Review are just a few of the fine publications that feature her stories and poems. You can follow her on Twitter @lkardos and find more of her work at www.laurenkardos.co/.