snaggletooth magazine

actual thoughts i’ve had emptying the lint trap (or: anxiety dream #293)

sometimes i dream of the smell of smoke mixing with saltwater. the house by the sea engulfed in fire brighter than the sunset.

everything moves as if trapped by the water of the fireman’s hose. fluid flames dance. i jump out a second story window in slow, languid motion. the water stifles my voice as i steadily and surely speak to a 911 operator. even though the script says it’s “hysterical.” sirens rumble through the scene, muffled and muted.

it is always me who pays the price for the fire. hubris, happenstance, it doesn’t matter. i always know. the guilt carries me through the dream, through the once-yellow house blackened with ash, and out the other side.

Olivia Dimond graduated from Bates in 2022. She studied theater and spent her free time in Professor Anthony's fiction classes. This summer, she taught creative writing at The Telling Room in Portland, and now she teaches middle school theater in Denver, Colorado. She continues to write and anxiously daydream about horrible scenarios. You can follow her movements at oliviadimond.com.

Najá Crockett is a double major in American Studies and Rhetoric from Washington, DC. He has taken art classes and exhibited work at the New York Studio School, Torcuato Di Tella University in Buenos Aires, and the Washington Studio School. In his free time, he likes listening to music and hanging out with his dog!