David Schuman directs the MFA program at Washington University in St. Louis. His work has appeared in Catapult, Joyland, The Rumpus and many other publications.
His body had been in the trunk some hours already when she began to feel him next to her in the cab as well. She couldn’t see him at first, could only sense he was there. But soon the hair on her right arm stood up and the air beside her began to shimmer. Before she began to see him fully, she whipped her gaze away.
This house isn’t haunted, has never been, but that will change when, some years from now, I will sometimes feel a chill, and sometimes I will feel alone, and sometimes a voice will say, “Who are you and what have you done with Donna?” And I will try to respond, but I won’t know who Donna is, won’t even know a Donna. I fear I might someday learn.
People like to believe they have influence over disasters, catastrophes, losses—by which they mean control—but that’s illusion, and she was done with illusion. Could she write that in her report? You’re all suffering under an illusion. Instead, she picked up the phone and texted: Island//illusion. Illusion//island. They sound the same when you say them enough. There’s a word for that, but I can’t remember it now. I can’t remember anything clearly. All my words are inverted and mirrored. edrorrim. See?