by Rena Willis

Let’s say they’ve returned again. Dipping, twirling, darkening the sky in a chorus of wings that cuts through the mosquito haze. Let’s say it’s the mosquitoes, ravenous, devouring the town, leaving sticky streaks of mud, feathers, and bird shit that cling to our soles. We track the remnants of this place everywhere we go.

I’m running down the sidewalk—red sneakers slapping pavement, shoelaces flapping. You are ten paces behind. No longer bruised. No longer broken. No Mom or Dad. Just us. You remind me of a dragonfly, swift and wondrous, hovering just out of reach. We run side by side now, though we never did when it mattered.

I was always ahead of you: learning to be invisible, curling into corners, swallowing my breath, slipping between shadows. You never learned the trick of it. You burned too brightly— caught in the doorway, too still, too obvious, looking too long. Let’s say I’m good at remembering, and you even better at forgetting.

The swallows are rebuilding their nests, tucking mud and twigs under the eaves. This is where we lived. Where the mosquitoes swarmed. Where the pennies clinked into a coffee can on Grandpa’s Formica table. The pennies are rusted now. Still waiting to be sorted. I tried to wrap them once. Lined them up in rows. Rolled them tight in brown paper. Tucked the ends like a gift.

I carried them to the post office, the paper softening in my grip. Held them out, both hands, arms aching. The postmaster didn’t even touch them. Just shook his head. No address. No delivery. The city wasn’t enough. If I sent them. If I folded the paper just right, if I smoothed the edges, if I held my breath and whispered your name into the crease—maybe then. Maybe then you’d remember.

You might have opened the box. Shaken loose my brown paper rolls. Felt the weight of all the promises you made me. Counted them, each penny whispering be good, be brave, be enough. You’d know I was still here, still waiting. I only knew you had run, and that running had swallowed you whole.

I imagine the town encased in amber. The tree sap curling under fingernails, thick and heavy as wax scraped from the kitchen table. The weight of it pressing against my limbs, thickening, hardening. When it sets, we’ll be preserved. The swallows mid-dive. The mosquitoes mid-bite. You walking away and me, ten paces behind. When it cracks open ten thousand years from now, we’ll swarm over the land, stomachs hollow, blood dried up. You’ll go first. Dipping, twirling, searching for the perfect place to land.

Let’s say it’s the swallows again. And they’ve come back. For you. For me. For everything we left behind. Let’s say it’s me, sitting at the bus station, hands fisted in my lap, your rucksack at my feet. I blink, and you’re gone again. Folded into the horizon. The sky erupting with wings.

Rena Willis is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Brevity, New Flash Fiction Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Five on the Fifth, Headland Literary Journal, and others. She teaches writing, believes in the brilliance of white space, and writes toward what resists resolution. Most days, she trusts coffee more than confidence and thinks hesitation can be its own kind of beginning. You can find her on Substack at renawillis.substack.com.