I’ll pack the snacks. Sweets bursting with sugar and dyes. Thick carbohydrates, sodium-rich chips. Rare cuts of steak. I’ll pack a gallon of your favorite scotch without fussing over the price. Once we reach cruising altitude, we’ll clink our crystal wedding flutes.
You’ll pack a deck of cards. The blue sweater that brings out your eyes. You’ll pack a fresh razor, a bright smile. I’ll pack that flimsy dress you like, the one I wore on our tropical honeymoon. We won’t worry whether or not it fits.
You’ll pack your best jokes. I’ll pack my musical laugh.
We’ll flee our cracking foundation and sinking porch, the slippery blame. We’ll leave behind his empty bedroom. The startling quiet.
They say we’ll reach Mars in a matter of months, that we could arrive in as few as 128 days, but we both know once we land on that distant, rocky planet, it won’t matter how far we’ve travelled or what we’ve left on earth.
Our son will still be gone.
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Abbie Barker is a creative writing instructor living with her husband and two kids in New Hampshire. Her flash fiction has appeared in Cincinnati Review, Berkeley Fiction Review, Monkeybicycle, Superstition Review, Pithead Chapel, Atlas and Alice, Best Microfiction 2022, and other publications.