Non-Fiction – Jessica Barratt

The List

flowers and stems on a table top close up

“If you won’t smile, I’ll take you out back behind the autobarn and make you smile.”

It is 8AM. I’m at my desk and Wes the mechanic is just walking by with his coffee. I stare hard at the screen, checking emails.

Some lives are meant only to tear holes in the tapestry. Yet someone once told me that the world is also full of menders, gently pulling broken threads back into place. And though there are times when I can only see the holes, there are others times when I can see them: The Menders, quietlyContinue reading “Tearing Holes in the Tapestry”

Sometimes I Disappear

close up of the dividing lines on a highway

I’ll watch a bird, and a week goes by. I’ll bask in the sun and find a month already gone. But I’ve always been here; it’s time that’s tricky. It’s time that spins past, so fast I can’t see. It’s time that moves, while I’m standing still. Then I look to my parents’ faces. IContinue reading “Sometimes I Disappear”

Soup’s On

We tell our truest stories when soup’s on. When the bay leaves do their thing (whatever it is), we reach into our deepest pockets and empty them all the way out. We’ve had enough time to stew, and so has the soup. It’s the warmth of it all, probably. And the waiting, because the longerContinue reading “Soup’s On”

Changing the Furniture Around

I’m sitting on a side table that’s usually meant for the alarm clock. Incense smoke drifts lazily to the ceiling, where I bet it lives for a while and I just don’t see it. My coffee is cold, but it always is after I’ve found it again. The piles keep moving from one place toContinue reading “Changing the Furniture Around”