“My Flower” © Phelix Owiny

 

Walking Up to TSA: A Framed Mental Breakdown

I forgot how to take off my shoes. How do normal people
Take off their shoes?
What if—what if I brought a gun?
You know—accidentally—?
Like what if I stashed it in there
Years ago, and forgot, and now—
Oh God, what if my fillings set off the alarm?
Aren’t fillings made of metal? I can’t remember.
What if they just send me away,
What if they say, “what a strange thing, how you thought
you could travel, and go to a place that isn’t your place
and stay under a mountain at the foot of its base
and feel a way that isn’t your way
and sit and not shudder at the frayed edge
of your mind and how you ought not to think—
And just think—
What a strange thing, that you thought such a thing.”
And then I walk through, and they wave me through,
And I breathe and put on my shoes,
Which I guess I remembered how to take off.

 

Emmie Christie has been published in Flash Fiction Online, Infinite Worlds Magazine, and Daily Science Fiction. Her fantasy romance novel released in February of 2024.

Phelix Owiny is from Nairobi Kenya. “I’m an art lover and model I have lived with vitiligo for over 16 years now and I use art to create vitiligo awareness in Kenya and beyond I treat vitiligo as my Flower coz I believe that beauty has no skin tone and we are all beautiful in our own way that’s why we should all embrace diversity and inclusion.”