Erika Veurink

Erika Veurink is a writer living in Brooklyn by way of Iowa. She is currently earning her MFA from Bennington College. Her work has appeared in Entropy.

GATSBY EFFECT by Erika Veurink

The first time I had pneumonia, I wanted it to be seismic. I wanted it to almost kill me. Being fatalistic felt grown up. I laid in the West Village, drank gin from a jar and stared at where the wall hit the ceiling, the cross-like convergence, forever.  “There are crosses everywhere.” That’s what my basketball coach told me once before a game. If I was nervous or worried about a freethrow, I would look for a cross–in the rafters, the painted lines of the court, the referee’s stripes. And salvation meant something.  The first time I had pneumonia, when…

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