by Laila Amado

Bicycles roll by the window, wheels spinning, silver needles catching light. In the puddles, skyscrapers are reflected upside down. They hang in the inverted sky. If the rain continues, I fear the sheer weight of these upended spires will pull the city down, and it will fall, plunging from its great height and into the abyss that sits, waiting patiently, underneath our world, like an open-mouthed toad. But for now, fishermen cross the asphalt wearing rubber boots. Spinning their reels, they pull up sky fish from the puddles, and one flops on the sidewalk, golden scales and pink flesh exposed by the blades of serrated knives. Vulnerable and fresh as a cut-up grapefruit.

Mother to one human, friend to a couple of cats, chronic illness wrangler, collector of books and unfinished cross-stitch projects, Laila Amado writes in her second language and lives in her fifth country. Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Best Small Fictions 2022, Best Microfiction 2024, Flash Frog, Milk Candy Review, Lost Balloon, and other publications.