Short Fiction

Longlisted for the 2023 Bath Flash Fiction Award. Published in Dandelion Years.

How Do You Say Goodbye Forever in Portuguese?

Speed: 100 kilometres per hour (depending on cellulite and how many brigadeiros I wolfed down at the resort last night). Drop: 164 feet. Language: Brazilian Portuguese, as the ride’s operator instructs me to “Cruze os braços no peito, senhora.” 

So I cross my arms over my chest like I’m in a beige, tubular, plastic coffin, which reeks of sweat-stained South American sunlight. While my friends trek the Tijuca National Park and give Christ the Redeemer a high five, I’m counting down—about to rumble with one of the world’s tallest water slides.

One.

This operator guy has no walkie-talkie, no Mickey Mouse safety barrier. Apparently, 1 out of 3 people chicken out at this point.

Two.

“Has anyone ever died on this?” I ask my pseudo-executioner.

He shrugs from under his Nestlé-logo-stamped sun umbrella.

Three.

I clamp my eyes shut, nudge forward, and repeat my mantra: please don’t get your chubby ass stuck, please don’t get your chubby ass stuck, please don’t be that girl who gets her chubby ass stuck.

I plunge, yelping, “Elijah!” Water rushes up my sides. “Elijah!” Some into my mouth too, so that I half gasp, half gargle my next completely-out-of-my-control “Elijah!” 

Splash. I land in the “welcoming” pool at the end. 

Thump. Toes hit the bottom. 

Whoosh. Head breaks the water. 

Then, humming. 

On the sidelines, Luiz serenades me while dry-humping a palm tree. “She wore an itsy-bitsy, teenie-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini. . .”

And I know I have to break up with him. I just need to ask Google Translate how.