Lucy Zhang

Only We Were Left

The story goes like this: the children became books, spines worn and pages read, discarded in recycle bins, emptied in landfills instead of melted down for reuse. The children became pulp and fiber, lost between decomposing banana peels and metal hangers bent into sticks. When the compactor came rolling over them, tamping them into the ground, puncturing them with spiked wheels, they sank below the earth, taking their words with them. And then their parents came searching, pulling away torn sheets of cardboard and plastic bags, digging for an arm, a finger, a toe, anything to put their hearts at rest. The parents found nothing, and when a breeze rolled in from the coastline, blowing over a compacted layer of dust and grime, they shielded their eyes from the flurries of scraps, blocked their ears from the rattling of metal against plastic. How it might’ve looked like snow lingering into the spring, how it might’ve sounded like whispers crinkled between slips of paper.

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Lucy Zhang writes, codes and watches anime. Her work has appeared in The Boiler, The Hunger, Fractured Lit and elsewhere. She is a finalist in Best of the Net 2020 and included in Best Microfiction 2021. She edits for Barren Magazine, Heavy Feather Review and Pithead Chapel. Find her at https://kowaretasekai.wordpress.com/ or on Twitter @Dango_Ramen.