Katie E. ten Hagen

Published in MetaStellar, March 2025

The house is smaller than I remember, again. Dad stoops as he comes through the door from the hallway into the kitchen. The ceiling brushes the top of Mom’s head as she stirs the pot on the stove, the hairs that have come loose from her bun swaying and stretching, static energy pulling them up to touch the plaster. My boots hang over the edge of the rubber mat by the door when I toe them off, dripping water onto the wood in puddles that spread, obscenely large against the miniaturizing grain. [Read the full story here.]