If you don’t look, don’t allow a toe to pass the mattress’s precipice, then it can’t get you. This intuition lives in my bones.

But she dared me.
“Baby,” she sneered.

What to do?

I extend my leg.
Laugh triumphantly.

But whatever is under the bed laughs along with me.

Chelsea Utecht is an American abroad in Tbilisi, Georgia where she teaches literature and writing. A recent participant in the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop, her work is forthcoming in Shooter Literary Magazine.