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Pif Magazine: Kept
by Kirsten Clodfelter

"The Storm" by Jennifer Flynn

“Kept,” by Kirsten Clodfelter, is short but sweet. This story doesn’t try to be an expansive epic condensed into jot of flash fiction. Instead it’s a piece of flash fiction that reveals intimacy, love, and the fear those things bring. From the opening line, “The girl was wearing one of his undershirts and nothing else,” we’re shown a moment where a girl loves a man even as those feelings are undercut by potential problems.

Clodfelter writes, “She would never tell the man, but she kept reminders of him in a box on her dresser: a flower, now dried, that he plucked from a planter outside of the drug store where they had run in to buy condoms, a short list of groceries he had jotted down on a napkin, a keycard to their motel room that she had taken from his jacket pocket.” These little pieces of their relationship show how much this girl cares. They also show us how transient and fragile their relationship is.

Between age and obligations, this relationship is probably doomed. That’s why “she was careful to never mention him when she talked about the future.” At one point she wonders if there are plastic key cards where he took his husband. It’s a good symbol; she wants to know if his relationship with his wife is represented by plastic. She wants to know if it’s real, even as we see her very true feelings.

Take some time and read the story. What do you think about the relationship?

About the Reviewer
Jeremy Trimble is a graduate student at Sacramento State University in California. He is a writer working on his first novel.

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