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A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part II)

You take a deep breath, not sure whether to believe this man named Micah, but what choice do you have? You cannot stay locked in his bathroom with a pair of nail clippers forever.

As you trudge out of the bathroom, he offers you a weak smile – not the generous grin from before. “You’re not a mutant,” he says, as if that’s going to make you feel any better.

“Gee, thanks,” you mutter.

He shrugs. “I’m trying here.”

That’s when it hits you with all of the strength of a bullet train. Yes, you might have slept with Micah last night, but you’re in a relationship.

Your girlfriend won’t be mad. She probably is sleeping with someone else too, but she will be jealous you slept on silk sheets and the guy you slept with has a bidet, which probably cost more than your rent and monthly utility bill.

Anyway. You should probably hurry back to Shiloh, but right now, you have more questions than answers, and he’s out of bed and making eggs that smell to die for.

Finally, you say, “What do you mean you know all about the feathers on my finger?”

He turns to you, flipping the omelet. “I mean,” he says in a pedantic tone, “I know what they are. Why they showed up.”

You want to find out more. Your mouth is watering. You’re hungry. You’re not sure if you’re hungry for details or for the cheddar-and-ham omelet he is preparing like a three-star Michelin star chef. But before he can elaborate, your phone begins to blare your familiar melody, “A Seraphic Metamorphosis”, by your favorite band, Compensated Endeavor. He grins and grabs you by the waist, grinding against you.

You smile, the tiny wings on your pinkie fluttering. Sheepishly, you jam your hand against the skin of your hip, wishing you were dressed. “It’s my ring tone,” you mumble, “I better answer that.”

Shiloh’s voice floods your ear, breathless and frightened and small, “Hey,” she says, “it’s your mom. Something with her heart.”

You listen to her breathing and can hear your own heart whooshing in your ear. This is not good. You look down at your hand – the flittering feathers have vanished.

Like they were never there at all.

… to be continued.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

News about my Chapbook & Novel!

Hey there!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated, but if you follow me on social media, (which I highly recommend you do) you’ll know that my chapbook is almost complete! We have a title, my publisher and editors have polished it, and I just have my final checks to do before we take it to print. That being said, we’re doing some pretty unusual and cool things with its formatting that I think you all will be excited to see once it’s in print. I’m so excited to share this labor of love with all of you.

Speaking of labors of love, I’m currently going over the first round of edits for Catching Dreams that my publisher has sent over before sending it to the publisher. The first round of edits involves tightening up the prose, tidying up some redundancies, and just overall polishing it up. From there, it will go to the publisher’s editors, go through more editing, and then, hopefully, we’ll start drafting up a cover and it will – fingers crossed – hit the bookshelves in 2025!

I am so excited to share with you the progress of my journey. Also, while I have been away from my website, two of my poems were published in a local literary magazine called Perspectives. If you are interested in receiving a copy, please let me know and I can send you an autographed copy.

That’s all for now, but be sure to keep checking my website for more updates!

Isabelle Palerma

2023: a Year of Independence

To recap 2023, I moved to Independence, Missouri, in the last few weeks of December 2022 and started the new year with a brand new beginning. I left everything and everyone I knew to try a fresh start.

I lived with a roommate in Independence for a couple of months before we quickly learned how incompatible we were. I had a couple of jobs and worked on my writing.

For a few months, I just kept my nose to the grindstone, job searching, writing, making new friends, and creating art.

All the while, I was dealing with a bully who spread rumors about me and devastated my self esteem, which resulted in me tearing down this website and rebuilding it from scratch.

I let her erode at my self esteem until there was nothing of me left, and I was hospitalized. I was hospitalized twice last year because of my issues with my mental health.

I struggled immensely with being so far from my family and my loved ones, but I found a way – I continued to work hard and got a publishing offer on my debut novel and my poetry chapbook.

I made new friends while living in Kansas City and met a lot of great and memorable people. I experienced a lot of amazing things, whether meeting film directors and actors from genre films who encouraged me to shoot my own movies or going to see an aerial performance in an ice crystal cave.

I met people like the Mormon who wanted to marry me or the girl who took me to expensive lingerie boutiques and went swimming with me long after the pool had closed.

It was a year of ups and downs, but most importantly, it was a year of growth and new experiences.

We’ll see what 2024 holds.