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'before the first bite' by Melissa Llanes Brownlee
chitchitchiterring in the corner, in the dark, piercing me with the ting tang of rotten rambutan, rancid lychee, scritchscritchscritching along the wall, along my bed, black earth and moist vegetal matter, oozing with worms and fungus, eaters of life and death, and I stuff my head under the light covers of the bed, the mosquito netting, once flowy in the evening cross breeze from the open window, now taut as the phwickphwickphwicking phwicks itself up it, the netting parting, gossamer strands, melting beneath clickclickclicking clackclackclacking and the sweet smell of a corpse, a squashed durian, garlic and garbage, drowns me
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Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work published and forthcoming in Prairie Schooner, Moon City Review, Redivider, and The Adroit Journal, and honored in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfiction, and Wigleaf Top 50. Read Hard Skin (2022) and Kahi and Lua (2022) and check out her new collection, Bitter over Sweet (2025), from Santa Fe Writers Project. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.
