by Dakota Canon

Elisa shuffled down the block, turning up her collar to the bitter wind. Outside her favorite café, a man in a wheelchair held a paper cup.

“Spare some change?” he asked passer-bys.

His skin still bore the suppleness of youth—unlike Elisa’s—but both his legs were missing below the knee.

Elisa dug in her pocket, pulling out a dime and two quarters. She dropped them in the cup and returned his nod before crossing the street. She’d have to find another spot to settle for the night. That corner was taken, and her own cup was empty.

Dakota Canon’s novel, The Unmaking of Eden, won the 2018 Hastings Litfest Crime Novel Contest and was long-listed in the 2018 Yeovil Literary Prize. She’s received mention in the Manchester Fiction Prize, the Writer’s Digest Annual Short Story Contest and the Brilliant Flash Fiction competition and has recent pieces, either published or forthcoming, in Moon City Review, Literary Orphans, and Cold Creek Review among others. 

Follow her on Twitter @DakotaCanon
or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/dakota.canon.author.