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GLASSWORKS
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Cold by Celeste Hurst

1/1/2024

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Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash
Heavy folds of Sherpa blanket sag down her arm, cold air rushing into the pocket of warmth. Watching the ripples of her breath gently crash through ginger and lemon tea, she hopes the draping makes her look like Meg Ryan in Sleepless in Seattle. Maybe Sandra Bullock in Practical Magic. It doesn’t. No kind wind pushing hair back. No full moon to gaze at. Snow hits the window, at least. But no drifting flakes. Just a frenzied swarm of tiny shards. The caretaker commented on the luck yesterday. That burying someone during the warm before the storm was easier than cutting deep into frozen ground. Maybe he didn’t think the young woman running her pale hand against glossy dark casket again--wishing the surface wasn’t so smooth, wanting a splinter or rough patch but feeling nothing but slippery varnish--could hear him. Fair enough. Most would be preoccupied after screaming, yelling sharp words that cut jagged lines in the throat. Words not spoken ten years ago, but left to molder, infecting the mouth. The heart. Finally spewed out over the corpse of a mother. Hoping the venom might pierce the armor of the pressed suit of a father. Hands and fingers aching for something to break against, yearning to feel something other than polished walnut. Settling for mangling a business card offered with soft words, words that would probably work on another woman, other children that weren’t left with rot in their bodies. But the slick card felt too smooth against trembling hands, too much like the coffin. She pulls the torn fragments from her pocket now, the blanket gaping further, her chest more vulnerable to cold. Tea and honey having soothed, the empty cup is set down slowly enough to not sound against a desk. The puzzle of a torn phone number is carefully solved with fingertips skimming the surname she abandoned. She remembers a gift given over a decade ago. Carefully chosen green and blue stripes, the favorite colors of father and daughter matching against each other. The same pattern seen on an old faded tie yesterday. A tie too old and cheap to match well with a fancy suit. But worn anyway. One hand gathers lumpy blanket closed around a shivering chest. The other hand carefully consults a torn number and raises a phone. Two rings, and then an answer.

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Celeste Hurst graduated from the University of Utah with a BA in English and from Lindenwood University with an MFA in Creative Writing where she was also an editorial assistant for The Lindenwood Review. Her work has been published in The Citron Review. She lives in Utah and enjoys participating in community theater.
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    FLASH GLASS: A MONTHLY PUBLICATION OF FLASH FICTION, PROSE POETRY, & MICRO ESSAYS

    COVER IMAGE:
    ​"Topography in Tiny C and MicrosweeT" 
    Ivan Amato
    ​ISSUE 27


    Categories

    All
    Amy Devine
    Andrea Lius
    A New Home Beneath The Stars
    A Very Tenuous Grasp Of History
    Aviary
    Beyond 10000
    Bistik Ayam
    Brandy Reinke
    Celeste Hurst
    Cold
    Deron Eckert
    Dispatches From A Red County
    Donna Obeid
    Flash Fiction
    Garnet Juniper Nelson
    Ha Kiet Chau
    Illegal Fireworks Destroy Oakland Home In Fire
    Imperfect
    Jenny Severyn
    Joanne Esser
    Jonathan Fletcher
    Kale Choo Hanson
    Mariana's Headstone
    Medina
    Micro Essay
    Miss October 1976
    Negatives
    Nora Gupta
    Olivia Demac
    Orb
    Oz Hardwick
    Prose Poetry
    Reece Gritzmacher
    Self-Portrait As God Of Hope
    Suppose I Stopped Running
    Swampland
    The Hoax
    The Things He Does That Have No Words
    Whitney Schmidt
    Zach Keali'i Murphy

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