Kendra Fortmeyer has an MFA from UT Austin and edits fiction for Broad! Her work has appeared in PANK, NANO Fiction, Smoking Glue Gun, apt, Forge, and elsewhere.
Previously by Kendra Fortmeyer: Mermaids at the End of the Universe: A Short Story She has one job, and it is to offer the hero a flower. She says, “Would you like to buy a flower?” and if he says yes, she says, “That’ll be 1 p,” and if he says no, then she says nothing. She is lucky to have options. Her…
Previously by Kendra Fortmeyer: Mermaids at the End of the Universe. What you do not know is this: in the final hours of the doomed city of Pompeii, the gods came down from the smoke-choked skies and said, Okay. We found you a place. The village elders raised their faces from their hands. Yes, anywhere, please! they cried. They had tried everything. The construction of moats, the last-minute sacrifice of a lamb who didn’t…
The first thing to understand is that we are very beautiful. Deploy your imagery of choice. Reach for gemstones, for edibles: crystal skin, laughing emerald eyes, hair like gently burnished gold. Peaches and cream. The blush of sunrise staining fresh water. You may mix metaphors. You will be forgiven. The second thing to understand is that it means nothing. It means nothing because we have been beautiful for years. And years. Think of the highest…
