Flash Fiction
INVASIVE SPECIES By Susan Rukeyser
Regret sounds like a rubber band pulled taught, then snapped. Sara holds her breath, what they say not to do. Her leg sweats against the plastic chair. The goggled doc scrolls the laser across her anklebone, following an artist’s line. She wanted a Kudzu vine, emerging from toes and wrapping her foot. Drew missed the South, so they moved down here from Boston, where they happened to meet. Sara has a habit of rearranging her life, not always for men. Early on, they canoed the lazy Chattahoochee. The Kudzu-wrapped riverbanks seemed to shift, vines squeaking as they passed over one another, knots tightening beneath. New shoots extended with a pop, then burrowed taproots into clay. Native life smothered, inch by inch. When Drew leaves for work, Kudzu taps at the window. By lunchtime, a vine fingers its way in through a gap where the glass sits crooked. At sunset, Sara dons gloves and steps into mosquito clouds. Cicadas perform their shimmering swell, males vibrating their ribbed abdominals while females crouch and click. In this lusty humidity, Sara chops. She draws Atticus Review│Get Lit: Round 1
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