From the Latest Edition of BLACKBIRD: A New Story by Kimbilio Fellow Amina Gautier

Perish

An hour after teaching her last class of the day, Laura sat in her faculty office with her door shut to block out the noise of the English department’s late afternoon bustle. By now, she should have been on her way home to her wife and daughter, but instead of packing her things, Laura tidied. The tidying gave her something to do while she waited for the mail’s delivery, which would, hopefully, include a letter telling her if she could keep her job. Today was the day the letter would come—she was sure of it—as equally as sure as she had been both yesterday and the day before.

While she waited, she found folders in need of filing, and corralled the loose binder clips running amok on her desk. She’d meant only to tackle the unruly papers, but restoring order to one area merely exposed the deeper chaos lurking. The pencils in the mug on her desk were stubby and dull. She selected one now and fed it into the mouth of her electric sharpener, holding it steady as the machine did its work. She pushed the pencil in deeper, and listened appreciatively, lulled by the grind and whirr as the machine consumed. She withdrew the pencil—all hone—and emptied the shavings into the small wastebasket beneath her desk, shaking them out onto her only other trash—the core of an apple, which lay browning at the bottom of the wastebasket, filling the confines of her office with the sickeningly sweet smell of rotting fruit. She’d sought refuge in the tidying, counting on the performance of meaningless tasks to quell her nerves and block out the noise of her fear, but now that the sharpener had grown quiet, the fear was still there beneath the hum of the day. It was there still beneath the sound of things being put away, and of file drawers sliding shut, the small fearful sound of her heart, a thrum of hope and dread.

Read the rest of the story at this link: https://blackbird.vcu.edu/v20n1/fiction/gautier-a/perish-page.shtml