You wake up in the morning and get out of bed. The carnival is in town. The signs are unmistakable. The calliope song. The smells. The excited voices.

Your husband is making breakfast. He is humming something to himself. You would rather have silence, but you will not say anything.

Your last year’s footprint is this year’s mudslide. The pawns are running an election to select the king. You receive your own radio transmission from the future. It is encrypted, you don’t know the cypher yet.

You go outside. The bright red sunset is the same as the last time. Perhaps it’s the same day. Perhaps it’s the same you. Possibly, it’s the same world.

-A. Molotkov,
Your Life as It Is
(Accents Publishing)

Born in Russia, A. Molotkov moved to the US in 1990 and switched to writing in English in 1993. Published or accepted by The Kenyon Review, Mad Hatters Review, 2River, Perihelion, Word Riot, Identity Theory, Pif, and many more, Molotkov is winner of New Millennium Writings and Koeppel fiction contests, and a poetry chapbook contest for his True Stories from the Future. He co-editsThe Inflectionist Review and serves on the Board of Directors of Oregon Poetry Association. Molotkov’s new translation of a Chekhov story was included by Knopf in their Everyman Series.