Milky Ways (Flash Nonfiction, August 2020)

The week before Christmas, an Italian guy from the Internet scoops you from your white house in a red car. You climb in and fold your hands over your legs, wishing they were bare so you could feel the warmth of your skin. It is cold, though people keep saying that winter here doesn’t begin until the solstice.

Within minutes, he says I knew you weren’t from Iowa, and you feel that you should ask how?