by Natasha Akery

My husband and I spoon on the bed in the guest room, and I wear him like a coat as we listen to the rain. The shades are half drawn, leaving room for our daughter to rest her arms on the sill and her chin on her hands. She watches the leaves tremble and droplets collect in the tiny squares of the window screens. Her relentless requests for her favorite dinosaur show sank beneath the faulty internet connection and the quiet wonder of a room we rarely occupy. She empties drawers and excavates the closet. She tries on mommy’s surplus of never-worn shoes and drowns us in giggles and kisses. Her dad and I don’t have to move, as if frozen in time as she fast forwards around us. Any other day, our daughter’s iPad and our iPhones would rob us of this intimacy, of the attention and adoration that soak us now.

Natasha Akery is a writer and contributing editor for One for One Thousand, a virtual literary journal specializing in flash fiction and creative nonfiction. Her writing aspirations began on the black screen of an old IBM when she was eight years old, and she has been typing ever since. She lives in Charleston, SC, with her husband, daughters, and tarot deck.