Glassworks
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
  • home
  • about
    • history
    • staff bios
    • community outreach
    • affiliations
    • contact
  • current issue
    • read Issue 26
    • letter from the editor
    • looking glass spring 2023
    • interview with Raina J. Leon
    • interview with Sarah Fawn Montgomery
  • submit
    • submission guidelines
  • looking glass
    • through the looking glass
  • editorial content
    • book reviews
    • opinion
    • interviews
  • flash glass
    • flash glass 2023
    • flash glass 2022
    • flash glass 2021
    • flash glass 2020
    • flash glass 2019
    • flash glass 2018
    • flash glass 2017
    • flash glass 2016
    • flash glass 2015
  • media
    • art
    • audio
    • video
  • archive
    • award nominees
    • read and order back issues
  • Master of Arts in Writing program
    • about Writing Arts at Rowan University
    • application and requirements
  • newsletter
Glassworks

In the Absence of Cats by Ashley Kunsa

11/1/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the absence of cats, first, check the windows and door to the fire escape. Chant Simone, Jean-Paul, Simone, Jean-Paul, while flinging open the bedroom closet and shoving aside kitchen chairs.

Try to think what he would do in the absence of cats. Pry lids from cans of tuna. Roll a ball of yarn in front of the TV. In the sudden, inexplicable absence of cat toys, shake a box of wooden matches.

Pace the kitchen’s chipped tile while your armpits dampen. Unbutton your white coat. Flatten your body against the carpet and burrow halfway under the bed. Press speed dial 4, stop, then say, “F it,” and hit the call button; when it goes straight to his voicemail (wtf?), leave a frenzied, rambling message about the absence of cats.

In the absence of cats, try to remember the last time you noticed their presence: last night—no, this morning—lounging on your pathology text while he sermonized about the superiority of Canadian universal healthcare. Shove the book from the futon. Obviously, no cats.

Feel your chest tighten in the absence of cats. Rub your fingers together, say, Here, kitty, kitty, kitty, and other generic things you imagine people say when faced with the absence of cats.

Dial his number again. Try their names again.
​
Begin to notice the absence of other things: the wireless printer, the framed Matisse, two entire shelves’ worth of Continental philosophy. The phone hits the carpet. Rush back to the closet. No Converse or cashmere sweater, no sock monkey tie dangling from the shelf. Stagger now, stricken, to the bathroom. The Scope. The beard oil. Half the washcloths. And there, under the window, confirmation of the absence of cats: the absence of their box.


Picture
Ashley Kunsa’s creative work has appeared in or is forthcoming from more than a dozen places, including Bayou Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, and Tahoma Literary Review. She has been awarded the Orlando prize for flash fiction from the A Room of Her Own foundation and tied for first prize for Eastern Iowa Review’s Experimental Essay award. Currently she is completing a PhD in English literature at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA, where she lives with her husband and son. Find her online at www.ashleykunsa.com.
0 Comments

    FLASH GLASS: A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, & MICRO ESSAYS


    Categories

    All
    Aficionado
    A Mermaid Dreams Of Shoes
    A Moment
    Anjali Pursai
    Ashley Kunsa
    Claire Day
    Daniel Riddle Rodriguez
    Displaced Person
    Ed McCafferty
    Flash Fiction
    Homecoming
    In The Absence Of Cats
    Kathleen McGookey
    Kathryn Hill
    Kristin Laurel
    Log House
    Micro Essay
    Morning-fog
    Morning-thought
    Motel-life
    Mother
    Prose Poetry
    Rob-hicks
    Tara Deal
    The Parable Of My Clocks
    The Rental
    Vivian Wagner
    Why I Hate Balloons


    Cover Image:
    "Bottled Light"
    Lori Blake | Issue 7


    RSS Feed


Picture

glassworks is a publication of
​Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing
260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 
glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu
​All Content on this Site (c) 2023 glassworks
Photos used under Creative Commons from Rmonty119, Marcela McGreal, andreasw1966, BarnImages.com, D.Eickhoff, blondinrikard, Edna Winti, pcambraf, Du Žiedeliai { Vestuvinė floristika }, Glyn Lowe Photoworks.