When it first appeared to me that I’m an astral traveler, tubes were coming from mom’s mouth and the monitor next to her beeped, I was biting my fingernails and dad called me stupid and then sat outside holding his head with both hands as if it was falling down, I thought about parallels and multiple dimensions and I decided to teleport to my new life, I closed my eyes and brought my attention between my brows, I felt a buzzing in my ears, a throbbing around my ankles and I was with Nick, who liked me even if I was chubby and my eyes were too close to each other, we were on his bed watching The Bear, then we fried eggs and ate them and smoked some pot then kissed softly on the lips and the crisp May breeze came through the window and even if I couldn’t see them, I knew that there were fire flies dancing dizzily outside and I heard the crickets’ chirp chirping and the psithurism of the leaves and it was then I realized that in my new life, I knew it all; about the people I love, their whereabouts, mom wasn’t dying, no, she was in our kitchen with the blue-white mosaic tiles, oiling the phyllo for spanakopita, talking to my sister about the amazingness of centripetal force and dad was still a useless prick but his head stood by itself in front of the TV watching soccer.

Shortlisted for the Bridport Prize 2024 & 2025