Esther was sixteen the summer that all the bees in her father’s hives died. Those were the days when she was in love with everything. The curtains in her room, billowing with the morning breeze; the spongy hills leading…
In David’s previous life, he was a mad scientist. According to him, I was a lab rat. I’m chopping the remaining half of a watermelon and am more concerned about the ant infestation I had eliminated yesterday because I…
Content Warning—domestic abuse He likes to wear a cowboy hat when he fucks her. She is eighteen, wears her hair traditional—its length snaking down her athlete’s body, a body slowly giving way to womanly curves. She doesn’t know enough…
“The 2024 election will be all about Taiwan,” our boyfriend, Jeremy, says. We’ve turned off all the lights except the one over the stove in the attached kitchen, and now we’re getting high on the plaid sofa in the…
In the gathering dusk of an afternoon that still lingers, I followed my father into the woods. He had not prospered in his first attempt to start a nursery business, the crimson-budded azalea liners withering only days after he…
In Hollows, Tommy Dean’s first full-length flash fiction collection, the narrative lens captures everyday humans at a pivotal moment, where one decision will change everything. Three boys enter the woods carrying a gun. A divorced teacher borrows money from…
By Lee Upton • Probably like many writers I’m protective toward my characters—even though I put them in impossible situations or give them unfulfillable longings. I pretty much pickle them in vulnerability. Sometimes I let them avoid any action…
PROLOGUE: RANA Rana cannot speak. She’s eight years old, but Rana is incapable of yelling out to her sister that a smell—a smell not quite like gasoline spilling from the undercarriage of a rusted out four-wheeler, a smell darker…
This is what you do if he wakes up sad. This is what you do if he comes home angry. This is what you do if he stops taking his medication. This is what you do if he stays…
I followed Horace’s horns as he walked ahead of me into the tearoom. No matter how many times he visited me, I couldn’t seem to keep my eyes off the silky brown pelt of his neck, or the gentle…
As with my previous CRAFT publication, I have an MFA classmate to thank for my inspiration: the very talented and kind Angelica Escalante. Last fall she posted on Facebook that she had over 200 postcards and stamps and offered to send one to anyone who replied with the choice of message they wanted to receive: limerick, a memory, a writing prompt, etc. As a writer, I naturally chose the writing prompt.
Angelica sent me a postcard of Keith Harrop’s Anamorphia #7 Water Buffalo Drawing with the following message: “Write a flash piece in which the main character is the buffalo on this card and there’s somehow mention of a girl who ate so much of her emotions that she ballooned 3X her size.”
I found this image incredibly intriguing: the majestic horns, the smart suit, the pride in the pose with one hoof on a wooden pedestal and the other resting just above the hip, and all of it rendered with such realism. There’s a wonderful mixture of dreaminess and precision in this image, and I aimed to bring that combination of moods into my story.
In terms of character, I was struck by the confidence in the subject’s body language, which might have seemed pompous if not for the expression on the water buffalo’s face: steadfast rather than haughty. This idea of balance made me wonder what it might be like for him: someone successful (guessing from his dress and pose), with ample reason to be proud, but who is also aware of his outsider status, having to operate in a society that only welcomes him because of the money and power he’s managed to amass.
The mention in Angelica’s prompt of the girl eating her emotions put me in the mind of a restaurant, and the horns led me to high tea via the expression “bull in a china shop.” Add to this the idea of a woman who can’t bear to share what she’s feeling, and of course, I arrived at a forbidden romance with an urbane, well-traveled, financially stable water buffalo man.
TARA CAMPBELL is a writer, teacher, Kimbilio Fellow, and fiction co-editor at Barrelhouse. She received her MFA from American University. Previous publication credits include SmokeLong Quarterly, Masters Review, Wigleaf, Booth, Strange Horizons, and CRAFT. She’s the author of a novel, TreeVolution, and four collections: Circe’s Bicycle, Midnight at the Organporium, Political AF: A Rage Collection, and Cabinet of Wrath: A Doll Collection. Connect with her at www.taracampbell.com or on Twitter: @TaraCampbellCom or IG: @thetreevolution.
