The Living

April Sopkin

Marguerite ducked into the wind and rode the mare through the darkening valley, past the crooked shapes of abandoned homesteads and towards the sun as it slid behind the hard, perfect line that expressed a distance she hoped to one day know, but could not yet. The midwife was retrieved and Marguerite turned back. Sudden-night’s long, close blackness broke open at the appearance of a thriving fireplace seen through a distant window, and Marguerite kicked the horse harder, until they got there, to the light, at which point she pulled the reins, and the horse’s gasping body joined the breaking noise of a baby’s first shrill breaths inside the house.

Genre: 
Author Bio: 

April Sopkin lives and writes in Richmond, Virginia. Her short fiction can be found in the Portland Review, SAND, Makeout Creek, and Paper Nautilus, among other places. More information can be found at aprilsopkin.com. ​

Issue: 
61