Fiction | February 01, 2018
The First to Leave Is the Winner
Becky Mandelbaum
For a brief period in my late twenties, I lived alone on a horse ranch at 9,500 feet in the San Juan Mountains. The closest human heartbeat was thirteen miles away, the nearest airport two hundred. The altitude gave me vertigo and headaches and months of spectacular, disturbing dreams, but it was worth it for the sky, which was grandiose and constantly changing, a lava lamp let loose of its goblet. Never had I seen a sky like that, and I haven’t seen one since. Granted, I haven’t been looking.
This story is not currently available online.
If you are a student, faculty member, or staff member at an institution whose library subscribes to Project Muse, you can read this piece and the full archives of the Missouri Review for free. Check this list to see if your library is a Project Muse subscriber.
Want to read more?
Subscribe TodaySEE THE ISSUE
SUGGESTED CONTENT

Fiction
May 17 2022
Gone
Gone Linda Wastila The late May morning I drove east from Chapel Hill, I didn’t pay much mind to the tracts of yellowed corn and soy or the tobacco-curing… read more

Fiction
May 17 2022
The Cadence of Waves
The Cadence of Waves Trent Hudley Leon showed up the day of the blackout in December of 1998, toward the end of some extreme El Niño weather we’d been having… read more

Fiction
May 17 2022
Palace Rock
Palace Rock by Mason Kiser On Mondays, we ruled the sea. Lightning lashed the whitecaps, and thunder shook the hull, and rain fell so slantwise that it ripped to shreds… read more