When We Left Cuba

by Chanel Cleeton

I don’t feel anything. He could be a stranger on the street. And the truth of it hits me, the realization that somewhere along the way I have built him up in my mind until he has become a caricature of himself, likely more cunning, more intelligent, more formidable than he is in real life. He was the villain lurking under my bed, the ghoul in the closet, the proverbial monster used to scare children into good behavior, and the reality doesn’t live up to the machinations of my imagination.