The Groupchat Version by Caroline Kahlenberg

Sammy stands atop his mattress, arms-crossed, chin-out, and declares he’s not tired, “not even a yittle bit.” It sounds cute but it’s 10:23pm and we’ve been here an hour, and egg-free/dairy-free/gluten-free cupcakes for tomorrow’s Valentine’s party char in the oven, so when Sammy bends his knees to jump, I reach up from my make-shift bed on his rug, grab his flailing wrists, and shout, go the fuck to sleep. That’s what I say, like I’m quoting the book that blew up my “Badass Kindergarten Mamas” groupchat last week, when Jack-the-Biter’s mom linked it with, omg this is gold, to which I typed and promptly deleted, only a man could get away with that title. 

Now my fuck echoes against Sammy’s chipped yellow walls, like it’s threatening to tear apart the family portrait hovering over his bed, a circle for the mother and a stick for the boy. Sammy’s wrists pulse in my palms. When I drop them free, I pin a grin to my cheeks like it was all a joke, like, ha we were wrestling! Like, ha Mama said fuck! But Sammy doesn’t smile. He sinks into his Bluey bed and silently sucks his two middle fingers until his breath grows heavy. My heart turns to salt, my body a beached whale on his yard-sale rug. I scroll through the groupchat to self-soothe. Last week, Jack’s mom locked Jack’s bedroom door from the outside after lights-out. Yesterday, Henry’s mom gave her twins a two-hour bath to meet an 11:59pm deadline. 

I press my thumbs to my phone because I need someone to tell me I’m within the range of normal. And they will, because in the groupchat version I didn’t shout at Sammy, only whispered; and in the groupchat version he was already half dreaming. In the groupchat version I didn’t devour the entire pan of blackened cupcakes afterwards, didn’t stress-vomit twenty minutes later, didn’t return to his room to sleep on the itchy rug that was always meant to be temporary. In the groupchat version Sammy laughed, and I did too.

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CAROLINE KAHLENBERG — Caroline is a writer and historian based in Charlottesville, VA. Her fiction has appeared in Streetlight Magazine, Five on the Fifth, and The Orange Rose.

Art by ABEL JOHNSON THUNDIL — Abel is a research scholar at the Department of English and Comparative Literature at Central University of Kerala, India. He has written a novel and an anthology of poems. His works have appeared in The Hooghly Review, Terror House Magazine, Lothlorien poetry journal, etc. When he is not working on his PhD or writing, he loves to create art, although Flash Frog is the first venue where he has presented his work publicly.