“There’s safety in things,” the therapist explains, noting mile-high clothing, bric-a-brac, and boxes. “They won’t abandon you like the husband who vanished eight years ago. You’re filling the void with objects that can’t love you.”

But he’s wrong. The thing in the basement corner loves me.

When I feed him.

Michelle Wilson’s words have appeared or are forthcoming in Potato Soup Journal’s Best of 2021 Anthology, Rejection Letters, Maudlin House, Litro Magazine, The Drabble, 50-Word Stories, Literally Stories, Flash Fiction Magazine, and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, among others. She lives in Miami Beach, Florida.