excerpt from "Half"
by Katherine J Barrett

The Team Lead does, however, leave the rest of the meeting‐cookies on her desk. She’s unsure if this means her presentation went well. What else could it mean? They are fancy cookies, gourmet, from the store down the street that sells only cookies. They are the size of her discoloured palms with exotic, undulating topographies. She’d kept them at bay throughout the meeting, in part because she was speaking, but on her desk they are so very loud. They won’t shut up. She muffles them with a file folder. She locks them in a drawer. She wants to flush them down the staff toilet but what if the Team Lead asks? Which was her favourite? The hills of chocolate, the protrusions of walnut, the foamy lakes of marshmallow?

 

 

 

From The Malahat Review's summer issue #231