Amy DeBellis hit my radar not long ago with her story Camera Obscura in Vol. 1 Brooklyn. She’s a pretty accomplished short-form writer. As I do with new music discoveries, I decided to learn everything I could about her. Believe me when I say it was eye-opening. Stick with this post till the end, you’ll be glad you did.

First, the fiction. She does amazing things with ultra-short-form work. Possession, in five paragraphs, tells a story that has stayed with me for days, with unbelievable efficiency. Paragraph one:

I don’t believe that my husband is dead. The dead cannot walk, but every night he shuffles into our bedroom and lies down next to me, swamping me with his exhale of stale corpse air, breathing with lungs that I know are as black and wrinkled as rotten plums. His smell cloying like the flowers he used to give me after cheating, all that sweetness gone bad.

It gets creepier and darker from there and ends with a satisfying ambiguity, like a classic Twilight Zone episode.

In a similar vein is the story Final Ingredient, in a publication called The Molotov Cocktail. The first sentence is all you need for a hook: “Dinner service is such a rush that it takes us a while to notice the dead cook.” It’s another sub-5 minute read that might haunt your dreams, or at least your next meal out.

But I buried the lede a bit here I guess:

Her most compelling stuff, by a wide margin, is under the heading Creative Nonfiction on her bibliography page. There are four pieces linked, and they give us a look at a survivor, in more than one sense.

Beach Tree, Tutant Meenage Neetle Teetles (not a typo) and Teeth are about domestic violence. I read these first, and they shook me pretty hard, especially the second one. It wastes no time on the whimsical setup:

If you’re having an argument with your partner, no matter how heated it’s getting or how angry you think you are, just say this phrase —‘Tutant meenage neetle teetles’ — back and forth in high-pitched voices. Neither one of you will be able to stop from laughing, and the fight will soon be over.

I come across this advice on Reddit, of all places. I screenshot it and send it to you, and you acknowledge the message with a thumbs-up emoji, but I suspect you’ll forget soon enough. The next time we argue I’ll make sure to bring it up.

But when you throw a slipper across the room at my head, it doesn’t feel like the right time. Nor when you turn and accidentally knock over the full coffee pot and order me to clean it up: your voice like stone, my heart frantic like a bird in flight. Nor when you call me stupid bitch and look at me with iron in your eyes, your words flat with hate.

Read it now, then come back.

That’s incredibly upsetting stuff, and incredible writing from someone that hasn’t turned 30 yet.

But the last piece: holy shit the last piece. It’s called Oblivion, and it’s about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, brought on as a sidekick to Long Covid. It’s eye-opening and terrifying:

During my first year of being bedbound, I enter a decline that seems like it will never end. I’m in free fall, my baseline sinking lower and lower each month, and I can only watch as it continues, this slow process of my life being chipped away. I’ve been trying to deal with it in a plucky, stiff-upper-lipped manner. I’ve been telling myself:

            Ok, I can’t lift weights anymore, but I can go for walks.

            Ok, I can’t go for walks anymore, but I can read a book.

            Ok, I can’t read a book anymore, but I can listen to music.

            Ok, I can’t listen to music anymore, but I can use the Internet.

            Ok, I can’t use the Internet anymore, but I can text a little.

            Ok, I can’t text a little anymore, but I can lie in bed with my eyes closed.

So this is what I do.

This story hit me like a bus. I was holding my breath for some of it, and I had to close the laptop when I was done just to get myself back together. A harrowing, vivid, waking nightmare. And it appears that this piece is pretty much memoir, and she was writing a lot of this flash fiction while at her lowest.

She has found her way back from a near-death case of CFS, and is preparing to publish her first novel in early 2025. What an incredible recovery, and what a talent it takes to be able to put out work like this while suffering like she has. Stay well, Amy. You make the world a richer place.

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