Epilogue 1
A year later, in the checkout lane at the dollar store, Jane met Bob Huber, a man with a subterranean smile who in many ways felt like an echo of the old guy. He was buying a three-pack of plastic goldfish bowls and he held them in his arms like precious cargo. “Good deal on those,” she said. His hooded eyes reminded her of a sad old turtle. He wore a copper green cap and had the aura, she thought, of a forgotten poet. Bob said his house had been flooded, and he lived in a downtown hotel, it was stinky from mold, and later, at Snake’s Tavern, he asked her to travel with him to somewhere warm, yet cheap. “How about the Canary Islands?” he said. Jane said she’d like nothing better than to submerge herself in warmth, and agreed to cover the cost. Anyway, Bob had very little to pack so it wouldn’t take long, he said, since all of his suitcases were waterlogged.
Epilogue 2
In Spring a man appeared on Jane’s front porch like a sunray selling glow-in-the-dark dog collars. His name was Evan Huddle. He reminded her of her late corgi, Bonnie. Evan was paunchy, with a dainty glimmer in his nut-brown eyes. “I don’t walk my team at night,” Jane said, hands fishing around in her fanny pack for a treat. “I understand,” he said, licking his lips. It was 103 in the shade. She invited him in for cookies and lemonade. A few nosy dogs caught on and gathered outside the window. They worried too much, it was true. Had never seen her acting so human before. None of them knew what to think.
Meg Pokrass is the author of nine collections of flash fiction and two novellas in flash. Her work has been published in 3 Norton anthologies including Flash Fiction America, New Micro, and Flash Fiction International; The Best Small Fictions 2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 and 2025; Wigleaf Top 50, and magazines such as Electric Literature, Five Points, New England Review, Waxwing, McSweeney’s, Washington Square Review and Passages North. Her collected stories,The First Law of Holes: New and Selected Stories by Meg Pokrass, was published by Dzanc Books in 2024. She is the Founding Editor of Best Microfiction.