This was 1997, before everything sucked. You could wander off school grounds, or back onto them. Life was fluid. It could expand. “A FIDDLER ON A ROOF!” Nicky shouted. His tenth-grade girlfriend had been in that play. She played a grandmother in a babushka: still looked hot. And now, like he’d psychic summoned her, his old girlfriend came walking by. He gave her a hand up. They shared a smoke. Nicky watched moths masquerade as fireflies against the moon. He watched the moon turn shy and hide behind a cloud. Like his ex-girlfriend, it went away sometimes. Sometimes, it came back.

Kathryn Kulpa is the author of For Every Tower, a Princess, just released by Porkbelly Press, and A Map of Lost Places, forthcoming from Gold Line Press. Her stories can be found in Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, BULL, Moon City Review, trampset, and other journals. Find out more at kathrynkulpa.com