Reader’s Choice for the Ceiling 200 Contest (2021)
~
Morning at the Farm
I woke to discover the farmhands gone, having vanished in the night after decapitating all the animals. I never managed to find where they’d hidden the heads. As I roamed the farm, eyes bulging, I recalled a story someone told me: She was dreaming about a hotel one night and woke up to find herself inside of it and never figured out afterwards how to get out. That’s where I met her, she’d been there a while by then. I had checked out already but I promised to return someday. “All night,” she said, “I wander the halls looking for an exit.” I never did return. There were too many fascinating foreign wars to join up in; but that’s no excuse.
I can barely remember which of my adventures led me to possess this farm. Many things are to be had in this world of ours, so many options, like the option that the farmhands had decided on, and my own option, apparently, to have surrounded myself with decapitated animals. But it is not so bad a world if you can manage to be alive on one of the sunnier days.
~
Michael Samra has lived most of his years in Brooklyn and his current home of New Orleans, with some deviations. His writings have received the Himan Brown Award and Hillary Gravendyk Prize; Among the Enemies is his first published full-length book, forthcoming this spring.