Jessica Klimesh: THE BODY SHOP • Cleaver Magazine

Flash by Jessica Klimesh
THE BODY SHOP

I find a pair of arms in my size and put them on, then exchange my middle-aged ears for some keener ones since Lyle says I don’t listen, says it’s just one of my problems. I swap my green eyes for blue, and try on countless hands, but they’re all too tight, too loose, too flimsy, too awkward. Not me at all. But that’s the point, I remind myself, as I settle on a pair of hands with slender fingers, the kind my mom always said she wished she had, wished I could have inherited. Then on to the legs and feet aisles. My whole life, I’ve been too short to run properly, taking two steps for everyone else’s one, so I eagerly snap up the last pair of extra-tall legs, ones that will surely endure for miles. And then feet without bunions. I can picture Lyle’s face, an aroused smile, his eyes looking me up and down as I step out of the shower, sleek and new.

When the sales associate hands me my receipt, she tells me I have thirty days for a full refund. “Keep this,” she says sternly, waving the slick paper at me. “Oh no,” I say, “I won’t be bringing anything back.” But I can see from her raised eyebrows and rigid nose that she doesn’t believe me. “They all say that,” she says, shaking her head. So I take the slip and walk out of the shop. So simple, I should’ve done this years ago. I whoop with glee, performing a grand jeté with my new legs, then toss the receipt into a bin upon landing. Just wait until Lyle sees me! And now he won’t have to lean down so far to kiss me, an effort he’s ceased making anymore anyway, opting instead for a cool peck on my forehead.

I strut into the house, yell, “Surprise!” but am met only with unsettling stillness. “Lyle?” I say, then follow the sound of muffled murmurs into the bedroom, where I find him on top of my old body, stroking her and breathlessly moaning my name in horny thrusts of delight. He doesn’t even notice me in the doorway. But my old body does, and she eyes me with callous disdain.

“Who are you?” she says.

Jessica Klimesh is a US-based writer and editor whose flash fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Flash Frog, trampset, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, and The Berlin Review, among others. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. Learn more at jessicaklimesh.com.