By Chris Cochran

An erratic breeze scatters napkins from a picnic table. They tumble toward you, wearing the blue sundress, like always. The boy with the yellow hair is here, too, watching ants march across the concrete patio under a magnifying glass. Is he our son? I never see his face. The grill master stands too close to you, but you don’t mind. You laugh, lean into him. The magnifying glass splinters. Behind its lens, the face of our son (?) fragments into kaleidoscopic shards, none of which resemble me. On the patio, tiny plumes of smoke rise from charred ants littering the concrete.

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Chris Cochran is a high school English teacher who writes first drafts on an old typewriter in a small nook beneath his basement steps. His work has appeared in The Dunes Review, The 2024 Northwind Treasury, and the Write Michigan 2023 Anthology. He lives in Michigan with his wife and son, where he spends most evenings drinking tea and falling asleep to comedy podcasts.