Peripheral Reading
Katie Young Foster



For the woman, there was always the rectangle of light, always the text that grew brighter and smaller with each of her breaths. And each breath held an image, and each image held a castle, and in every castle a heroine chopped something with a dagger—carrots, or fingers. The dagger, of course, led to steep mountain walks, which turned into journeys on horseback over scarred clover fields. A fool appeared, shaking bells to distract her. But the lovers—yes, lovers—fell into bed, sighing happily. Their child was born at the end. The woman stirred. The end always returned to her the peripheral shapes—untenable, untouchable—blurred and casting about. Within the rectangle? Outside? The woman could never decide. The shapes could be anxious. They passed by her as ghosts pass through water, saying “Mama,” saying “Yo, can you get that.” The woman touched them, sometimes—or tried. She fed them, washed their clothes. You make the carrots taste sweeter, the woman explained. The lovers, tender. The shapes listened or drifted. The woman insisted. To demonstrate, she shined the phone’s light into the hall, but the light caught her eye, and the text grew bright, and she breathed.







​

About the Author: Katie Young Foster grew up in the Sandhills of Nebraska. She was the 2016-17 Creative Writing Fellow at The Curb Center in Nashville, Tennessee. Her stories have appeared or are forthcoming in The Masters Review Anthology V, Arcadia, Day One, Joyland Magazine, Booth 11: Women Writers, and elsewhere. She teaches at West Texas A&M University in Canyon, Texas.

---