by Bethany Mangle

Sarah lives in a dresser drawer, the one with the mismatched knob shaped like a bumblebee.

She returns from work, shedding her collared blouse and wrinkle-resistant slacks like a child casting off a costume. She walks, half-naked, to the dresser and climbs into the abyss of her drawer.

She sighs in the darkness, trembling as she touches the collar of her dead cat, the abandoned shirt of her vanished lover, the empty bottle of rosé she sips in the hope of finding another drop.

Sarah may never come out again.

Bethany Mangle lives and writes in Mississippi. Her short fiction has appeared in The Brasilia Review and Maudlin House. Her debut novel, Prepped, will be published in 2021 by Simon & Schuster/McElderry Books. She can be found online at bethanymangle.com.