by Curt Saltzman

She told me once about the sensations of heat when her father stole into her bedroom. He’d crank up the thermostat first so she’d throw the covers off naturally as she slept. He was cunning like that. The room stifled, but she kept her blankets, her pyjamas. Later, she came to love winter landscapes, frozen spaces, ethereal climes, and snow seemed the most virtuous thing to her, and terrible cold the truest. “When I die, I want to freeze to death all bundled in clothes,” she told me once up on the mountain. “You just let yourself fall asleep.”

Curt Saltzman was born and raised in Los Angeles. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Saint Ann’s Review, Sou’wester, Whiskey Island, The Cossack Review, Epiphany, and elsewhere. He lives in France.