Miss Jasper

by Jeff Harvey

Delaney Van

Momma asks her best friend Edna if she’d help color her hair with a box of dye she got from the discount rack at Fred’s Dollar Store, andwhile the color is setting Momma lights a Winston and says Miss Jasper next door doesn’t have kids since she never hooked a husband and has to work for AT&T all day saying Number Please with nobody to talk to when she gets home, says shelives off TV dinners and drinks fancy wine while watching Dynasty, says every night she takes a bubble bath and reads trashy novels then irons her catalogue clothes that never go on sale, says Miss Jasper will wind up in Hell because we invited her to our church and Miss Jasper said, not my style, Momma says, that’s a depraved life, and Edna nods in agreement.

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Jeff Harvey lives in San Diego. His work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Moon City Review, Ghost Parachute, SoFloPoJo, and Your Impossible Voice. He’s the founding editor of Gooseberry Pit Lit.