Without Your Father, #29

originally published as “Myths” in Tweet Lit, October 2017

When your father dies, you go downtown to sell your old engagement ring. On the street in front of the shop, you meet a horse who tells you it was high time to do this. With your blood-diamond money, you fly to Egypt to climb the tallest pyramid, for a moment buying into the myth that this monument was built by creatures from another world. Atop the sweat-soaked bricks, you stare out into the desert, sun searing your too-pale skin. You wake in your own bed, hair and sheets wetted through, vaguely recalling a dream of your father in a coma, your father not waking, your father not moving when you spoke to him, when you touched him, your father not speaking, your father not there.

— Jessica Lynne Henkle, Without Your Father

Like this piece? There’s more where that came from. Get the book here.