Flash fiction
By Karla Denisse
It was a cool August night when they slipped away from their friends’ judging eyes.
The party was so big, so carefully planned, so crowded with drinks and noise that no one would notice they were gone. They stole a small plate of cheese, grapes, crackers, and some red wine. They climbed up to the roof, then to their secret hideout: that place where city lights blurred into distant stars and the buildings turned into mountains painting the skyline.
Up there, everything felt softer. No whispers about the tension between them; no curious glances. Just them, unseen, watching the world below.
In the hush between laughter and stories, her beloved kissed Babi gently—as if life itself wasn’t in a rush. Lips soft as feathers, a hand resting on her thigh, and endless possibilities traced in quiet talks of a shared future.
Years later, the memory caught Babi off guard as she brushed her hair the way her grandmother once did. Her hand still bore the faded trace of a tattoo she got in her youth, when life was laughter and drinks and drama and infinite horizons.
She remembered it as if it were yesterday: the thrill of going against the grain, of loving her beloved so fiercely it almost hurt. Loving a woman taught Babi to savor life’s brief, sweet moments. Before her beloved, she had defined herself only by what she’d lost.
Losses that once felt immense, now small enough to slip into her pockets: the favorite aunt who turned out to be homophobic; her mother gone when she came out as bisexual; fleeting friends; her body that changed; the hometown left behind; the car she crashed; the shaken self-confidence; fragile fragments of health. But not her beloved.
Over the years, strength faded—not just in muscle but in spirit. Her heart grew weary of goodbyes. Plans, worries, choices left unmade became heavy columns around her soul.
Babi had always been, in some quiet way, a deeply sad person—understandable, given all she’d endured. Yet her essence survived the whirlpool of swimming upstream. Then, somewhere between turning 30 and attending her mother’s funeral at 56, she chose to keep living fully—and she would choose it again a thousand times over.
All because, for Babi, loving her beloved made aging stop being about loss. Thanks to her, Babi knew what it meant to have a home. The happy memories painted her blue sky with yellow light. Then she found the strength to keep searching for herself, to defend what she wanted, to keep living new memories and resisting the world’s hate they had once faced together.
And right there, on the verge of what some would call her final days, she understood at last: her youth had been about learning, stumbling, resisting. To grow older was to return to herself—to meet each new version of who she had become.
Reaching 70—once her dreaded age—had cost them 399 and one more blows, but without each other, the journey wouldn’t have tasted the same.
“For the ancient Mexicans,” Babi thought to herself, “death was not an end but the beginning of a new form of existence.” But why wait until death? Death may be rebirth—but aging is happening now. And maybe, just maybe, it means coming home to yourself. You have to choose it, every day.
She turned to her beloved wife, smiled softly, and whispered: “Come on, let’s live.”
Karla Denisse, a bisexual, gender-fluid storyteller and marketer is drawn to gender equality, LGBTQ+ inclusion, and the quiet power of creativity. Queer activist, dreamer of safer spaces, believer in small revolutions. Beyond advocacy, you’ll find Karla enjoying films, poetry, croissants—and soft afternoons with her dog.