Windshield Wipers
A Flash Fiction by Mona Angéline
Shortlisted 2024 WestWord Flash Prize
Modeled after Brenda Miller’s “Swerve”
I'm so sorry that I left the windshield wiper halfway up. I'm sorry it stuck up like your sore thumb with no way to come down from its high, the kind of high you were on as I behaved like myself again, that way that nobody but you would put up with in all those million years I've stayed. I'm so damn sorry that you were led to these heights of your emotions that way, so sorry you had to go through it all and push that pillow onto me. I'm so sorry you had to show me how I'd die, how you'd push me up the wall with your hands around my neck. I'm just so sorry that you had to throw me out afterwards, it really was a lot to ask to get some clothes that winter night, when really you needed to sleep. I knew pretending the next day would take you energy and rest, I'm just so sorry about it all, because the day after I was blue, and it's just a bummer that you had to see it all, because whose fault is this but mine, whose fault it'll be but mine when you'll take off in our rental car in Alaska with all my stuff and my passport. Whose fault will it be but mine when I'll fold a sock in your direction, when I'll drink the coffee not your way. Whose fault will it be when I'll bring you to that train station, telling you I'll see you soon, only to watch the last wagon disappear around that snowy bend, the icicles hanging from the bridge above. Whose fault will it be after I'm finally free.
Author: Mona Angéline (creativerunnings.com) is an unapologetically vulnerable writer, reader, book reviewer, artist, athlete, and scientist. She shares her emotions because the world hides theirs. She is a new writer and regular scientific guest editor. Originally European, she lives bicoastally in Santa Cruz and New York, savoring life despite chronic illness.