Pushcart 2026 L: Maria Kuznetsova, “Floating Around” from Threepenny Review #178

It just so happened I was tired of being a physical creature. I wanted to get the upper hand before my body had a chance to inflict more damage upon me. To put it bluntly, three children were extinguished in my womb over the course of five years and I wanted to shed my rogue body and its treacherous movements and waning power. I never wanted to look in the mirror and blanch at my hollow stomach and eyes again. Luckily, I had an experimental scientist and adjunct physics professor for a father, who could be of use in this tricky situation. The set-up is right there in the opening paragraph: Yulia is fed up with how her body has betrayed her over and over. She doesn’t want to die; she just wants to live as a non-corporeal being. Her father, after some discussion and counterproposals, helps her accomplish this, and she flits and flies around the universe as a small glowing orb. A lot of it is fun. She doesn’t really mind that her husband remarries and, more to the point, has the children…