A New Story by Dan Leach (fiction ’20) Appears on COPPER NICKEL

“Wasp Queen” was the winner of the Editors’ Prize in Prose for issue 33 of COPPER NICKEL

I.

Convention says I should kill you. By convention I mean my wife, the artist, who had plans to repurpose the vintage steel trash can inside of which you’ve built a nest the size of a small child. By convention I also mean my four-year-old daughter, who has been afraid to play outside since the day she bumped the trash can, prompting your drones to emerge and sting her on her face, and across her stomach, and even in the tiny pockets of flesh behind her knees. Twenty-six hits? Some might call that excessive. 

Read the full story at this link: https://copper-nickel.org/wasp-queen/