Yara On the Night of Her Tenth Wedding Anniversary
Sheldon Compton


Yara watched her man sprint bloody away from her through the forest and come to rest by a pond. She tracked him first from the top of the mountain, as a sprig from the highest tree, and then as a cloud resting flat near the moon.
 
When the moonlight shined down through the forest ceiling to reveal Yara’s man his beaten reflection, she was the moonlight itself, not a passenger.
 
And as the moonlight, she was indifferent to both his confusion and pain. Yara simply didn’t care. When she decided to light a path for her man, she did so on a whim. Maybe she wanted him to see the result of her anger. Maybe she felt every defeated man deserved a path.
 
After a time, she became bored and tired and stopped beside her man at the pond. She moved close enough to hear his breath heaving inside his throat.
 
Suddenly, Yara wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. Instead, she moved until her light rested weightless on his shoulder. Touching her man in this way, she knew her reflection, too—a small star pretending to be a larger one.
 

About the Author: Sheldon Lee Compton is the author of three books, most recently the novel Brown Bottle (Bottom Dog Press, 2016). His stories can be found in WhiskeyPaper, New World Writing, PANK, Monkeybicycle, decomP, DOGZPLOT, and elsewhere. He was a finalist for Best Small Fictions 2015 and Best Small Fictions 2016. 

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