“Sweet Reason,” by Elizabeth Mayer (Fiction ’19)

Fiction alum Elizabeth Mayer was recently featured in Husk. Read an excerpt of “Sweet Reason” below:

Sweet Reason

He had that feeling you get when you’re pulling down your pants, about to sit on the toilet, then realize, an instant too late, your iPhone is still in your back pocket. It was dread, but it was also surrender. Catastrophe was in motion. You couldn’t stop it.

He dreamt he had crippling arthritis in his ring finger from years of playing steel guitar. He dreamt he shaved his head, but when he dusted the fuzz from his crown and looked up at the mirror, his face had morphed into Randy Quaid’s. He dreamt he was lost in the mall. He found his way to the roof but it was 17 stories high with no way down. There were no zombies, only zombie consumers. It wasn’t satire; it was pure fear-of-heights. He dreamt he said women are inferior to men in front of a woman he had been in love with for years. Her face, so clear in the rooms of his subconscious, turned to disgust. He woke with a pounding heart.

 

Read the rest of this piece here: https://huskzine.com/issues/husk-1-1/sweetreason/