{"id":12596,"date":"2023-02-15T01:24:27","date_gmt":"2023-02-15T01:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/?p=12596"},"modified":"2023-12-09T17:06:03","modified_gmt":"2023-12-09T17:06:03","slug":"swallowed-by-angela-carlton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.everywritersresource.com\/shortstories\/swallowed-by-angela-carlton\/","title":{"rendered":"Swallowed by Angela Carlton"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Swallowed<\/h2>\n

Swallowed<\/h2>\n

by Angela Carlton<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been caught up in your lies. I\u2019m not the spider but the bug who waits to get swallowed in your web, those delicate strands. Yes, I\u2019m wrapped inside where everything tends to hang.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my husband calls,\u201d you say, \u201dTell him, we were at the sports bar or I was at lunch with you on a chilly day when the gust of wind kept us tucked away inside a cozy booth. Right, I was stuck inside that booth with you\u2026remember?\u201d When you laugh on the other end of the line, my brain swirls like the fierce, grey tornados I\u2019ve seen on the television set. On a Tuesday, you might meet me for lunch to give me a rundown of your calendar as if I was another character in your shady plot.<\/p>\n

The next week, I learned, you meet with the “other man again,” again and again. Sometimes you\u2019d call to fill me in on whatever was next but over time, I stopped listening. I was too busy looking out toward the garden, the one I planted with my own hands as I waited for the Spring harvest, my reward.<\/p>\n

When the rains came and washed winter out, some of your friends gathered around to celebrate your five-year anniversary, but I wasn\u2019t there. Instead, I sat on my bench surrounded by the aroma of jasmine and honeysuckles waiting for the cucumber and zucchini, the yellow squash to break through that rich, fresh dirt.<\/p>\n

I waited for it all to emerge.<\/p>\n

###<\/p>\n

Angela Carlton is a Georgia native. Her fiction has been published in EWR, Everyday Fiction, Pedestal Magazine, Long Story Short, High Noon, Third Iris, 50-wordstories, and Friday Flash Fiction. In addition, she won the reader’s choice award with Pedestal Magazine in 2006. When she was a child, she wrote a book called, The Magic Fish and tucked it away in a box for safekeeping. Her collection of stories, “A Jigsaw Life,” was released in December 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve been caught up in your lies. I\u2019m not the spider but the bug who waits to get swallowed in your web, those delicate strands. Yes, I\u2019m wrapped inside where everything tends to hang.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[425,265],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contemporary","category-short-story-relationships"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t