1st Place Winner – Flash 405, June 2024: “Persona”
Fiction
Rita’s mom refuses to go to baby class with her because they won’t let her smoke, so Rita asks her gay friend Brendan from the restaurant. When all hell is breaking loose, Brendan remains unflappable, humming and hey girl-ing his way through even the worst storms like a big calm ship, especially in August when it’s hot as hell in the kitchen and every day’s a rager. Rita imagines having her baby will be a lot like lunch rush: a few hours of terrible and then relief.
At the first class, the leader, Anni, asks the pregnant people to lie on the ground and imagine a giant sun in the sky, feel its warmth, and tuck it inside of you. The couples take turns breathing, deep at first and then pants, louder and more urgent until the room sounds like a barnyard. Brendan is an excellent panter, but he’s even better at propping Rita’s shoulders up and shouting encouragement, stuff like go girl and do it, hon. One of the women tells Rita how cute he is, what a darling baby the two of them must have made. Afterward they talk about their baby over coffee at Starbucks, think about names: Star if it’s a little girl, Bucky if it’s a boy, how crazy is that. Public school in the suburbs, college later if the kid wants that. A white wedding when their daughter is old enough, won’t that be fun? They pretend all the way home so it’s a surprise when Brendan drops her off. There’s no one there but her mother who’s smoking and watching an old episode of “The Apprentice.” Smoke is no good for our baby, Brendan would say, just before he shut out the light and reached for her in the dark.
Judge’s Comments:
I love the sense of quiet longing in this piece, the banter between Brendan and Rita, and how much emotional meaning the author packs into an everyday outing with a friend. As a reader, I wanted to play along with Brendan and Rita, even if it only lasted for a short time.
Sarah Freligh is the author of seven books, including Sad Math, winner of the 2014 Moon City Poetry Award; Hereafter, winner of the 2024 Bath Novella-in-Flash contest; and Other Emergencies, forthcoming from Moon City Press in 2025. Her work has appeared in many literary journals and been anthologized in New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction (Norton 2018) and Best Microfiction (2019–22). Among her awards are poetry fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Saltonstall Foundation.
Photo by Immo Wegmann