Where You Are Now
photo collection of the author
by Eric Roy
One night we went to sleep and in the morning you had turned into a body-shaped pile of mystery books lying next to me. I figured I’d make us some coffee, come back, and take a look again, but soon as I left the room I understood something was very wrong. I was inside my childhood home, and worse yet, I was alone, no sign of my parents, the family dog, or any activity at all. I brought a cup of coffee up for each of us, just like I had always done, but you, you were still a body-shape of books asleep in a pile. When I brushed my teeth, I looked at myself in the mirror and seemed to be in fantastic human shape although my face had little rivulets of wrinkles beside my eyes. I was no less confused or sad. The books themselves offered me no clue. All I could do was read the books of you slowly, savoring each one. I lined them all up together on a shelf, then labeled the shelf with a strip of painter’s tape on which I wrote your first name, in black ink over blue.
Eric Roy is the author of a chapbook, All Small Planes (Lily Poetry Review Press 2021), which received Pushcart Prize and Best Small Fictions nominations for its hybrid writing. His recent work can be found or is forthcoming at Apple Valley Review, Bear Review, Bennington Review, Fence, The Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Post Road, and elsewhere. A former teacher, coach, and cook, he now sells junk in Carmine, TX (pop. 244).
