Prelude to a flight – by Joel Keith

For years Becka had awaited her life, as if it were a friend late to a bar for whom she had already saved a seat. Do you really need this spot? inquired the glances of strangers. We could use it. Obstinately she clung on. Sometimes a girlfriend would call to complain about the bequiffed men they would soon marry and become mothers to, or about the houses they had been bought by their parents who worked well-paying jobs cleaning blood from household items and the machinery of state, and Becka would nod along, a sensed but unprovable consolation, like God.