Free Market

by Ravi Mangla

He was a dyed-in-wool communist who attended right-wing speed dating events on Monday nights. It might have had something to do with the way they buttoned their top button, took the daintiest sips of vaguely alcoholic drinks with names like cheap motels. He kept eye contact, listened to stories about their cats. Nodded politely. He whispered laissez-faire, like silk on his tongue. During the closing prayer, after the gong had quaked a final time, he imagined the sensual caress of a million invisible hands.

6S

Ravi Mangla is affiliation-blind. His short fiction has recently appeared in Dogzplot, elimae, Boston Literary Magazine, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He blogs here.