5 Cantos in Late September @ Atticus Review

Lillian Ann Slugocki

I think he fell out of bed at the nursing home because he was really at the beach in Ft. Lauderdale, just north of Las Olas Boulevard, and south of Sunrise. This was his favorite spot, old school Florida– the Jolly Roger Hotel, and the Parrot; a tiki bar for locals. He was at the shoreline in a hospital bed, just as the sun was coming up, facing south, and sitting up. Instead of being in some institutional nursing home, he was at the beach. And he just got up, and walked away, headed north.  On earth– his body fell out of bed. And that was the end. The rest was pro forma.  Maybe his heart kept beating, but — really, he was at the beach, smoking a Marlboro Light, and a having a coffee. And he knew he was dead, and said, glad that shit’s over.

Read the whole essay here

Unknown's avatar

Published by Lillian Ann Slugocki

Lillian Ann Slugocki is Project Editor for Angels Flight * literary west, nominated twice for Best of the Web, a Pushcart Prize, and winner of the Gigantic Sequins prize for fiction. She's been published by CCM, Seal Press, Cleis Press, Heinemann Press, Spuyten Duyvil Press, as well as Vol 1: Brooklyn, Bloom/The Millions,Salon, Entropy, The The Daily Beast, The Nervous Breakdown, Hypertext Magazine, The Doctor T.J. Eckleburg Review, The Manifest-Station, The Forge Literary Magazine, BUST Magazine, Angels Flight * literary west, and others. Her latest book: How to Travel with Your Demons is published by Spuyten Duyvil Press, 2015. She founded BEDLAM: New Work by Women Writers, a reading series @KGB Bar. MA from NYU. @laslugocki

Leave a comment