GUT PUNCH, by Jason A. Wyckoff“Antiphon! Antiphon! It sloughs history!”
Her laugh is fay. She wobbles the royal wave; one imagines wine sloshing from a goblet. In any other setting, I would think she was drunk or high; I’ve certainly seen her that way often enough. But I’m told she has been under observation for five days now. My mother is in a robin’s egg gown, sitting on a cot in a locked room, talking to no one.
I can’t watch her anymore. I never loved her, but this hurts—it hurts me (sans pathos) because however pitiful the circumstance, however strange the performance, the comportment is too familiar, re-opening every wound of my youth.
Dr. Duenger leads me back to his office and bids me sit. He dawdles as though composing his thoughts; it’s a performance to add weight.
I don’t ha
