Emergency Contact

by Mary H.K. Choi

Fiction was fine, but real life was the true freak show.

“What kind of question is that? It’s fucking art, man,” he said, scowling. “You don’t choose it. It chooses you. If you waste that chance, your talent dies. That’s when you start dying along with it.”

Loving someone was traumatizing. You never knew what would happen to them out there in the world. Everything precious was also vulnerable.

Finally, if you’re wondering if it counts and it feels like it counts, it counts.