I visit my ex in the lion’s cage. The lion is asleep and I talk in whispers, but she speaks full-throated. It is her lion after all, her cage, ostensibly. She asks how I’m doing as I retrieve a small box of my books and a waffle iron that was a wedding gift she no longer wants. And tell her how: uncertainty flies with one wing and its head turned backwards and that there is no telling where or when it will roost. No, wait, actually I say: “Fine—I’m doing fine.” The lion twitches in its slumber, its claws flaring (no doubt reddening something with slower legs) and for a moment I recall how sweet the waffles tasted, dripping syrup onto those cheap plates we had back then. “Well, I guess that’s it,” I say. There are two cage bars wider apart than the rest she directs me to, with a finger to her lips, and shows me the new way out.

ROBERT SCOTELLARO is the author of six flash fiction collections, and five books of poetry. He has, along with James Thomas, co-edited New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, published by W. W. Norton & Company.  His work has appeared widely and is included in Norton’s Flash Fiction International and Flash Fiction America, as well as six Best Small Fictions and Best Microfiction award anthologies.  He was the winner of Zone 3’s Rainmaker Award in poetry, and his book of triptychs, Ways to Read the World, was a finalist for The American Fiction Award.  Robert currently lives in San Francisco.