An Uninspired Kidnapping ~ fiction by Lucy Zhang

When I was kidnapped, I wore a denim jean jacket with a front button placket, point collar and two button-flap chest pockets—one for my phone, the other for a twenty-dollar bill. I figured one day the twenty dollars would be a useful bribe, or if I was feeling generous, a donation to the street musicians in the city. But twenty dollars wouldn’t save my life, nor would my inability to say no to anything or my ability to depersonalize from my body. My gaze was always trained elsewhere, at the clock tower or the German bakery or the smoke emitted from the factories up ahead.

I watched my body collapse into a leather suitcase. Humans don’t fit the rectangular form factor. No matter how condensed and space-efficient a fetal position can get, heads jut out and feet don’t fold inward. So you hack them off. My head fit snugly in…