‘86

by Melissa Llanes Brownlee

Space and atomic dreams exploding, our dreams of Mars, our nightmares of radioactive wastelands, the impending apocalypse as Jim and Tammy Faker woo their millions with the grace of their god while We Are the World and Hands across America war with Libya, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, and Ollie North pleads the fifth in court and Margaret Thatcher rallies her troops in a tank as the great Woz talks new Apple computers, perfect for our schools, one to each classroom if we are lucky, as we sit in front of our TVs, music videos of Kiss and Papa Don’t Preach and Addicted to Love and Living on a Prayer, a cathedral of cool, a soothing balm to numb us against the world.

BIO: Melissa Llanes Brownlee (she/her), a native Hawaiian writer living in Japan, has work published and forthcoming in The Rumpus, Fractured Lit, Flash Frog, Gigantic Sequins, Cream City Review, Cincinnati Review miCRo, Indiana Review, The ASP Bulletin, Craft, swamp pink, Pinch, Moon City Review and The Threepenny Review, and honored in Best Small Fictions, Best Microfictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. Read Hard Skin from Juventud Press and Kahi and Lua from Alien Buddha. She tweets @lumchanmfa and talks story at melissallanesbrownlee.com.