Nibha Akireddy
Try to Run
Clay Davis
Once Boris began cancelling plans, he received more invitations. When those were declined, people started showing up at his personal outings, seeking him out, appearing just as he would sit and settle. Locked in his home, he would hear scraping, scuffling, clinking, and discover acquaintances tunneling into his basement, his great aunt shifting and swatting at moths behind the curtains, his old boss removing a window screen. Boris fled to the country, packed dry goods and gear, and old friends he failed to keep in contact with would track him like bounty hunters, emerge from darkness into the flickering light of his campfire, squat on a log and try to take his photograph. Boris dove into the shadows, dyed his hair, got a prosthetic nose, spoke only in accents, but family, friends, and loved ones sniffed him out, caught him just as he relaxed and found a reprieve, ripping him from his solitude, tearing him from nooks between tree roots, alcoves in sewers, air pockets in sea caves. Boris wanted to live outside of both official and tacit dictates, alone with his choices—though he wasn’t the decisive type—but he could never escape the loving talons of the people in his life. One day, he decided to sleep for the remainder of his days and nights. He donated his assets to causes close to heart, entered a cryogenic chamber, closed his eyes, and drifted away. His family, friends, and loved ones visit him daily, poking at the glass guarding his slack face.
And the Days are Not Full Enough
Lulu Lebowitz