Phil predicts an early spring. They tell me it’s a foolish ritual; a rodent can’t predict the
weather. But who can? I didn’t know I’d move from one apartment to the next, leaving behind
puke-green TV dinners bought on tenuous credit and people telling me to pick myself up by the
bootstraps, while bosses talked about streamlining, budgets, fake regret.
I look out the window. Snow still covers the ground, tree branches naked and tender. But
there’s a patch or two of brown. And the moon escapes a cloud, shadows waltzing into my new
room. Perhaps the ice will break completely.
Flash by Yash Seyedbagheri
Image by Adam Strong
Yash Seyedbagheri is a graduate of Colorado State University’s MFA fiction program. His stories, “Soon,” “How To Be A Good Episcopalian,” “Tales From A Communion Line,” and “Community Time,” have been nominated for Pushcarts. Yash’s work has been published in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, Write City Magazine, and Ariel Chart, among others.
Backwards Trajectory 