“Isn’t this cosy?” I said.

“We’re in a box,” she answered. “I want out.”

The sun shone in the window, and a rainbow fell across her face. Over the years, our house had grown small. I pulled out a match stick and played my tiny violin. Even the dust listened.

Jeff Friedman’s tenth book, Ashes in Paradise, has recently been published by Madhat Press. Friedman’s poems and mini stories have appeared in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Poetry International, New England Review, Flash Fiction Funny, Best Microfiction 2021 and 2022, 2023, and The New Republic. He has received an NEA Literature Translation Fellowship and numerous other awards. Meg Pokrass and Friedman’s co-written collection of microfiction, The House of Grana Padano, was published by Pelekinesis Press in 2022