Slug by M. L. Henderson
The droplets from the hole at the tip of my tent touch my middle where it is exposed. The blankets are wet. The air is wet. The sun rises and the heat refuses to be ignored.
I went to bed two hours ago. The combination of my own sluggish tendencies and lack of sleep moved me to just half way out of the tent. I drop my simmering pillow on the dewy grass, then drop my head. I don't care about consequences.
The sun rises further and I won’t have it any longer.
My friends are already sitting at our fold up table in chairs you bring to bonfires or your little brothers soccer game. And they’re all taken.
Slugs don't bring chairs.
I grab a towel that I won’t shower with and place it on the ground, between two people that are very much not slugs. I lie down on my shoulder blades and let the sun burn me a little more. I close my eyes in defeat.
Minutes later I’m woken up by three cold droplets.
It’s so cold it freezes the spot on my forehead that it touched. It hurts but only for a moment. The rest of me breathes relief. A shiver that soothes spreads to my fingertips and toes.
I look up and Anna is sitting in the chair beside me, she’s holding the ice cube deliberately in her palm facing the Tennessee sun, so it melts through her fingers and onto her slug.
“Feels good doesn’t it?” She says.
My eyes close again. And she knows it does.
“This is a short piece I wrote and revised several times. I was always trying to add more. But it was about one intimate moment and I’ve realized that’s enough. So I pulled the oldest draft out of retirement and shortened it even more.”
My name is M. L. Henderson. I am a gender fluid Buffalo New Yorker living in Washington State. I write about the moments in between moments. I am currently working on my Creative Writing MFA at Eastern Washington University. Instagram & Twitter: @morgansdowntown