Into the West by Katherine Gleason

                          Misty Banks CC


Into the West

The car, my sun chariot, rose as if lifted by winged horses with a plan of their own, and bore me away, away from you, from Manhattan and its smoke, and into the West. An hour out of town, the horizon beckoned, I crested a hill, and the sky filled me. Light and space. No need to ever eat again. I would survive on this, no, not survive, but live, grow, thrive. I would become the yellow-maned flier of my dreams. 
   I galloped over state lines, verdant pastures, meadows redolent of sheep, and I sucked in the nourishing air. Speeding down a steep hill, my heart thudded against my ribs, and the air inside me expanded beyond giddy. I was drunk with it, dizzy, and at the foot of the hill, bobbing back up for another climb, I knew I was lost. No ceiling above held me down, no walls gathered me in. I couldn't breathe.
   I made it all the way to Kansas before I called. I thought it only right to say goodbye. In the phone booth next to the diner off Exit 112 of the Interstate, I was sure, with all the distance between us, I'd be safe and you would have to listen. 
   "I'm coming to get you," you said.
   And, still holding just enough light and strength, I said no.
   "You can't make this kind of decision on your own," you said. "Just listen to how upset you are."
   I started to cry, cradling the receiver as best I could in my suddenly leaden hooves. 
   "Just sit tight," you said. "I'm coming, and I'll take care of you good."
   I slid down the side of the booth, into a shaft of lowering sunlight, pulled my legs in close, hocks to belly, squeezed myself into the smallest most impenetrable ball, and waited for you and your good care. 



Katherine Gleason’s short stories have appeared in journals such as Alimentum, Bending Genres, Derelict Lit, Gone Lawn, Juked, Jellyfish Review, Mississippi Review, Monkeybicyle, River Styx, and Southeast Review. She won first prize in the 2007 River Styx/Schlafly Beer Micro-Fiction Contest, garnered an honorable mention from Glimmer Train, and has published a number of nonfiction books, including Anatomy of Steampunk: The Fashion of Victorian Futurism.