Red Light, Green Light

RED LIGHT, GREEN LIGHT / Marcia Southwick The woods lock them in. Leaves click shut around them, the children playing Red Light, Green Light. "What should I do?"— a few words drifting through my window are loud enough to halt the children's voices, which vanish like snuffed-out stars. Pushing me back in, holding the door ajar, she said, "Stay here. Here." Don't move, there's an overflow of woods. Or sprouting from a crack in the floor, the light, and four walls sealing me in. She shoved me back into my body, a door slamming, "There, remember this." It's the way the wind stops, and the children playing Red Light, Green Light scatter forward. The one who's Jf says Red Light, her voice a sliver of white ice ringing the air. The Missouri Review · 52 ...