Letter to Isadora Duncan
100-word story
The Dribble Drabble Review
Fall 2022, Issue VI
Nominated for the 2023 Best Microfiction Anthology

Your elderly brothers lived upstairs, in my grandmother’s Astoria apartment building. As a child, my mother feared them. Crotchety, they kept to themselves, while you shared your soul with the world. When you died, Gertrude Stein said, “Affectations can be dangerous.” Affectation? You
rejected ballet’s fairytales, choosing instead to reveal the truth. You spurned tutus and toe shoes and danced in flowing garments and bare feet. The night of the Astoria fire—you and your brothers long gone—we huddled on the sidewalk in flannel PJ’s. I like to imagine you were there, dancing your truth beyond siren and flame.

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