by Leah Browning

I’m told that you packed some supplies and drove into the mountains on your motorcycle. You left the house in the middle of the night, when no one would see or stop you.

It began to rain. On a hairpin turn, the motorcycle slid on wet gravel. You ended up with road rash, a broken arm. The previous year, a teenage boy with a brand-new Kawasaki had gotten hit by a car so hard that it knocked him out of his shoes.

In the news there are lightning storms, mountain lion sightings. Again, I’m told, you are talking about leaving.

Leah Browning is the author of Two Good Ears and Loud Snow, mini-books of flash fiction, and When the Sun Comes Out After Three Days of Rain, a collection of poetry. Her fiction has appeared in Waxwing, Contrary Magazine, Necessary Fiction, Flock, Harpur Palate, Four Way Review, The Threepenny Review, and elsewhere. Her first full-length story collection, The Costume Wedding, is forthcoming. In addition to writing, Browning serves as editor of the Apple Valley Review.