My story, “The helium’s rise,” is now available at WhiskeyPaper.

“Five-year-old Cornelia has hacked off her hair with pink scissors. Her mother walks in and sees long locks, peach-scented, corn-husk blond, scotch-taped to a doll’s rubber head.

The doll needed hair, Cornelia says, her voice a whispered poem, her scabbed knees cratering the carpet. Who knows why they’re scabbed? The girl is reckless, always running, always falling. The scabs never get a chance to heal.” Continue here.