Exit Sign
by Madeleine Semple
Photo by Cottonbrothers
The vows ChatGPT had written for him were in his camera roll. Facing you, suddenly, was the unbearable greyness of life: the film of grime that had settled gradually over the whole world without you knowing it, the flimsy polyester of your Value Village dress lying limp against the beige-and-brown community centre carpeting.
And then those months that you had struggled through like an animal in a trap, dragging the whole mess with it: the mangled leg and the razor jaws too, pretending it wasn’t already dead. Turning off the car at night and slumping against the wheel with the blue vest and name tag still on. Waking hours later with the back of your head pounding to come in to an empty pizza box and sweet Bill asleep in his chair. Better that he’s not awake—you can’t stand when he stares right through you, hands twitching where his legs used to be.
You used to read his manuscripts, but now you just watch him drift further away—distant, dead-eyed. As long as we have each other, you remind him, we’re okay. It wasn’t fair. Everybody knows it: both of you giddy and stupid the night he put the ring on your finger, drunk off a bottle you couldn’t afford even then, the exit signs sliding by. He only looked at you for a second, eyes all wet and doting, but it was too long. The report said two cars, two survivors, but now you think they overestimated.
Madeleine Semple’s “Exit Sign” received first place in the BCPW’s 2025 Flash Fiction Contest. Madeleine attends Martingrove Collegiate Institute.