No sense worrying that the car’s gone. You’re beyond transportation. You’ve entered the twilight zone of essential need. You read about dystopia back before they shut down the papers, burned the books, screwed up the internet. So now it’s here. What’s next? What’s left in the cupboards? There’s peanut butter. They always ask for peanut butter, the charities. It’s got protein they say. Your mother spread it on white bread, removed the crusts the way you liked it. You want to call your mother but she’s not there. She’s not anywhere. Not for the last thirty-three days. And fourteen hours.
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Linda Lowe’s stories and poems have appeared in Outlook Springs, What Rough Beast, Crack the Spine, Star 82 Review, The New Verse News, and others.