Ramona
by Carlos Alberto Valencia
“Saw you at church in the crowd with a big thing of flowers in your arms like an armor."
A swarm of insects is expected to descend upon a rural town near Lake Erie, New York, carrying a deadly virus. The insects breed in the ground and, once every ten years, take flight and descend across the region. Ramona, a transgender woman, is the proud owner of “Ramona’s Flowers,” a charming florist shop that is her home and at present, her refuge. Carl Sanchez, a Colombian guy’s guy, has lived in this rural town for nearly three years but has had difficulty connecting with the tightly knit community. Today, Ramona and Carl are pulled together under the grim, almost supernatural, specter of the deadly insect swarm, and are pushed to reimagine who they are at heart and calibrate their moral compass.
