The narrator coughed and said imagine a double rainbow how the surprise of it is like a traffic accident viewed by the driver of a random red car who had been until that moment slightly bored by his surroundings and the complaining chatter of the woman beside him why don’t we ever stop at hotels they have those long bars with a piano and the man said he had enough energy to get them to McSweeney’s and after 30 minutes driving the car slowed and the man said I could kill for a pint and she kept quiet until he said look there above the carpet outlet a rainbow and she said you mean two rainbows and that’s as far as the narrator got before the man said he was the one who’d spotted the double rainbow and the woman said no, she had, then the narrator coughed and said he couldn’t go on if the man and woman confabulated a rainbow story into a traffic accident, and the driver said, I’m that parched for a pint, and the woman said we never go anywhere nice, only pubs, even though I’m literally run off my feet all day the customers and the narrator told them both to shut up and let him do his job, and the man put on his jacket and the woman said they knew when they weren’t wanted, and after they left I checked the door’s double-locks, lit a cigarette, and leaned out the window, a red car stalled twice in front of McSweeney’s and a man and woman got out and I thought about my ex saying everything happens for a reason that time beauty said to her beast even a jackass writer knows smoking causes cancer until the pack was empty and the double rainbow above the outlet had disappeared.
Roberta Beary grew up in Queens, New York and identifies as gender-fluid. Honors: Bridport Joint 1st Prize for Poetry, Rattle Poetry Finalist, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, Touchstone Award for Haibun. Their work is featured in the New York Times, 100 Word Story, Litro, Atticus Review and other publications. A trauma survivor, they divide their time between USA and Ireland.
Magic Carpet Ride was first published in Litro in January 2020.
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