The Sixes

***

IF SHE’D BEEN smart, she would have just backed off, concentrated on her work and on things that couldn’t be taken away. But she hated the fact that she’d been shut out of doing any writing and editing. So she bided her time for a bit, mulling over her options, and then went to an English teacher who seemed to like her. She had an idea, she said, for a quarterly poetry magazine with a twist. There’d be no selection or rejection process. Everyone would have the chance to have one poem published in it. “That’s a lovely idea,” the teacher had said.

There was hardly anything special about it, and some of the poems that were submitted were like the stuff you found in greeting cards. But it was a success in terms of volume and participation. The first issue debuted at thirty-one pages long.

Four days later the note arrived in her mailbox. “You think you’re hot shit, don’t you? But you’re not. You’ll see.”

Below the words, the writer had drawn a tiny wheel.