I’ll always remember the smell of Lilt home permanents and cigarettes, in my grandmother’s tiny kitchen. My mother and I visited on Saturdays. They drank Maxwell House coffee, smoked Kent cigarettes, and applied the Lilt to each other’s hair.
At the time, I loved playing with Matchbox cars, small but incredibly detailed vehicles with trunks and doors that opened. But I didn’t take those with me to Grandmother’s house. Instead, I played in the big, pottery ashtray, moving butts through to create roads in the ashes, the butts serving as the vehicles. A city of sand in the ceramic valley.
Brian Christopher Giddens (he/him) is a writer of fiction and poetry. Brian’s writing has been featured or is pending in Raven’s Perch, Litro Magazine, Silver Rose, On the Run Fiction, Glass Gates Collective, Roi Faineant, Flash Fiction Magazine, Hyacinth Review, and Evening Street Review. Brian is a native of Seattle, Washington, where he lives with his husband, and Jasper the dog. Brian can be contacted at BrianChristopherGiddens@outlook.com, and his photo haikus can be found on Instagram@giddens394.