BY SUSAN TEPPER
When you screw open the water bottle it rips the skin on your palm. There are lines in your palm there, but not your life line. That runs higher. The rip is in that fleshy part you call your oasis. You think about water under there, a whole city of date-palms and sand and low clay hovels with people squatting outside cooking on small fires. It bothers you to have this shallow wound puncturing your oasis. Your life line doesn’t seem all that long anymore. When you were younger it seemed endless like it stretched off your hand into outer space. Now you rub the wound with your other index finger. It’s bloody and slightly raised. When you get to the oasis, will there be a place for you to stay?
***
Susan Tepper is the author of “What May Have Been:Letters of Jackson Pollock & Dori G” (with Gary Percesepe) published by Cervena Barva Press. Other books include “Deer & Other Stories” (Wilderness House Press, 2009) and the poetry chapbook “Blue Edge.” Tepper was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2010 by Gargoyle magazine. It is her sixth nomination.
A-Minor 
Wonderful writing, Susan – so rich. Makes me think of my ownortality.
Fos, thanks so much for saying this. I think you have some time before you have to worry about your mortality. Get that capuccino site going!
cheers!
very nice susan… so much in so few words.
Gay, so sweet of you to comment, I appreciate!
Lovely and poignant.
Jules thank you!
your oasis sounds quite lovely. Hope we all get there.
Estelle we will all get there! As long as we don’t murder or steal or lie! Ha ha! Thanks for reading!
I really liked this Susan. I especially liked your opening lines.
Gloria so glad you liked!
What wonderful images you present, quite believable and the ending is great.
Wonderful, just wonderful, and so more poignant as my 11 year-old son has taken up reading palms. He also enjoyed this story – and learned about the oasis. Peace…
I just have to ask you…JESUS CHRIST…how do you do it?