Rattler (2026)

I just called emergency services to check on my disabled neighbor. I was alone in my apartment, and I heard a throaty rattle coming from the ceiling. I hung up with 911. I felt terror lift the feeling from my feet. Then I was in my grandmother's bedroom, her hand in my hands while she was dying of cancer. She looked asleep. The walls shook.

The floor drew farther away. I had recently traveled to Vegas for a convention. The guy in front of me at the airport car rental was in the attendant's face. He had a blown-out rattlesnake tattooed on the back of his neck. He insisted on a Ford-F150 they did not have.

Ma girl's not gonna let me through the door without that Ford-F150! The concrete walls shook, and his neck veins swelled. I felt terror lift the feeling in my feet. I held the bandage to my girlfriend's face with my fingertips. She had gotten FFS three days ago. Or a year? The bandages had to be taped to her hair because her skin was mangled. I kissed her bruised lips and wiped them with my thumb.

At the convention, a close female friend jokingly groped me. I was submerged in my friend's mom's bathtub in 1998. Or was it 2004? Different hands. I dwell here often, sunk to the bottom.

The police's pounding fists break me out of another spiral.

Silence. The throaty rattling had ended.

POLICE. We're checkin to see if you're okay, Ms. Pulida.

Hah?

Ms. Pulida. You in there?

Tentative knocking. Then brazen pounding.

Jesus—I'm in bed! It's gonna take a while!

Ms. Pulida? What time is it, Hernandez?

It's noon, sir.

Give me a break! I work third shift.