Ella Hormel
All at once, the city rocks awake. Family photos rattle against the wall; the dog barks; Janey’s fourth grade history project, a diorama of the Donner Party, crashes from the kitchen counter and the little cannibals scatter across the floor. The family springs from sleep and finds each other in the hallway. Janey’s father, wearing only his boxers, stands at the door to his office where Janey can see that behind him, the pull-out couch is made up.
In ten years, when her parents finally call it quits, they will agree on nothing except the dog’s ashes, which they’ll pour evenly into two Ziploc bags. Janey will come home from school to help her parents pack up the house, and she will find a little cannibal poking out from under the old fridge. She will remind them of this night, how when the shaking stopped, all the family photos settled crooked.
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Ella Hormel is a queer writer and MFA candidate at University of Massachusetts, Amherst where she received the Harvey Swados Fiction Prize. She is currently working on a collection of very short stories set in San Francisco where she grew up. Ella’s work can be found in Smokelong Quarterly, Passages North, The NYT’s Tiny Love Stories, and elsewhere.