Breakfast Room
She can tell by the scent who uses the hotel-provided lotion, who brought their own. Some of the breakfasters are clearly trying to ballast themselves for the day ahead; others stick to the diet from home. The ballasters aren’t stockpiling—they’re not making sandwiches, stuffing whole fruit into their bags. Maybe they would, given the option. The buffet’s fruit is all pre-cut, peeled and juicy, nothing you could tuck in a pocket. Still, they have a third or fourth coffee, a second helping of eggs. They chew with methodical determination. And the engineered jasmine and coconut fragrance of the bulk shampoo rises off them like mist off a morning swamp. Ana wants to go home so badly, she nearly vomits her rage and homesickness right onto the lap of the woman who’s just sat down. Ana swallows hard, deep breath, another, and takes down the room number. The woman has to repeat it three times to make herself understood, it might be an accent, might be she mumbles. Neat hair, long fingers, just the faintest wariness around the eyes—she’s not used to traveling alone. Another time, Ana thinks. I’ll tell them all the truth about this place another time.
~
Hothouse Flower
She’s wearing a red shirt. There’s no screen on the window. The hummingbird comes right at her, biggest flower in all creation, then veers sharply when her night sweat, sour milk smell lets it know at a distance, no nectar here. Easier said than done, flying away. Like the time there was a bat in the house. She remembers opening doors and windows, turning out all the lights—to help it find its way, or so she could hide from the bat? She’s no longer sure. The hummingbird doesn’t thump and bumble around, they navigate by sight—at least she thinks they do, all those red plastic feeders up and down the block—and the bird surely won’t harm her. Still, she doesn’t know what to do, and the bird doesn’t seem to know either. It takes them a long time to figure it out.
~
Amalia Gladhart is a writer and translator in Oregon. Her short fiction has appeared in The Common, Leon Literary Review, Portland Review, Necessary Fiction, and other journals. Detours, a sequence of linked flash fiction, was published by Burnside Review Press. Published translations include Jaguars’ Tomb (by Angélica Gorodischer) and The Potbellied Virgin (by Alicia Yánez Cossío). She is working on a novel about jigsaw puzzles, climate change, and stolen art.