Jacqueline Hyaat
Prose, Judgements
He was a judgmental man. He was the type of man that you would see walking down suburbia with a prissy poodle, his iron pressed polo shirt still on from the morning’s golfing with the other country club members. He was the man who crossed the street to avoid you if your perfume was too strong, or if your shirt was too colorful. He would knock on your front door to say hello, but only because he wants to remind you to take down the Halloween decorations or to mow your lawn.
You wouldn’t know that this man once had a daughter, a daughter with kind eyes and a sweet smile. It had been so long since he’d seen her, the curls of her strawberry hair so long gone, that he was starting to forget her face. Or maybe, he’d never paid enough attention to that beautiful face, that beautiful smile. Now it was too late, and the man walking across the street can do nothing but turn his nose up at you. To admit that you look just like her, smile just like her, would be too painful.
Jacqueline Hyatt is an undergraduate at Arizona State University. She writes about the complexities of human relationships, growth, and the consequences of apathy. Her recent work has been published in The Penmen Review, The Orange Rose, Nettle Literary Journal, Still Here, and Quirk. She volunteers as a fiction editor with Blood+Honey.