They say the forests adopt the children of fathers who have disappeared, and mothers who have succumbed to melancholy. To me and my brothers, this was true. We had been placed and replaced like furniture with blemishes - discarded because of our tiny imperfections. And in every car ride, from limbo to limbo, I would see the trees waving to me - the willows always looked like they were dancing - and I would wave back.
My brothers, though, they couldn’t see them, I don’t think, they would just stare at the same hand-me-down shoes they had for the past year and half. Michael would bite the gold necklace he had, nursing on the virgin emblem. And Samuel would spin the ivory bracelet that was beginning to strangle his wrist.
“Robert, will we ever see mom or dad again?” Samuel looked at me with the same look my mother had the last I saw her.
Michael spoke before I could even breathe in, “Of course they won’t, they tore everything apart. They knew what they did was going to lead to this, and they had enough of an emptiness for us to abandon us. That’s why we’re bastards now, that’s why we’re orphans - and fucking undesirable!”
I couldn’t deny that fact myself, so I kept quiet. I know that only disappointed Samuel more, maybe he was the most fallen of the three of us - he had a hope, and it was shattered. I knew though that I had to save my brothers from this constant life of being tossed away - we were like rags. Maybe the willows would save us.
So, in the evening of one moving day, I stuck a towel into the gas tank, and lit it. I grabbed my brothers and held them close. I didn’t anticipate, though, the pressure of that explosion. We were all immediately launched backward, the blast hitting the clients and social workers too, my chest felt like a car tire hit it, and my ears rang and felt like a thick bubble had burst inside. Samuel lay face first clutching his stomach, and Michael had his head laying on a step. I grabbed them both in a rush, pulled them up, and had them run toward the trees.
“Run! Run! Run to the forest! We’ll hide in there!” I had them sprint in front of me so I can guard them from anyone trying to catch us. “Don’t stop running! Don’t look back for anything!” I could hear angry screams coming from behind, and dogs.
I turned to see two Rottweilers coming up behind me - my breath felt like acid. I pulled a Chinese firecracker from my pocket and lit it immediately. I turned and threw it toward the first dog, I saw it land on its nose, and ~crackle, pop, pop, pop~ it whined and rolled on the grass, scratching at its eyes. We kept sprinting, I felt like the winds stop, as if it was only us and the dog, stuck still in a limbo.
We finally reached the trees, “Hide right now! And grab whatever you can to use as a weapon!” I myself grabbed the first stick I could find and readied myself for the second dog. As soon as it reached me, it charged with its mouth open, and I swung at it, but it caught my stick - so, immediately, I slipped a paint can from my trousers and sprayed its eyes into a black blot, it whined and shook its head vigorously.
“Kill it!” My brothers rushed out from behind the trees, and we began beating it. It cried and it yelped with every one of our strikes, until it stopped in a silence, but we kept beating it even after for a few more minutes - I felt so alive. Afterward, we lost ourselves, finally, into the trees.
We sat underneath a willow.
“I feel tired Robert, can we sleep for a bit...” Michael said with a drop in his voice.
“I want piojitos from mom...” Samuel laid his head on my lap, and I pulled Michael’s on the other. I combed their hairs, and scratched their heads, like Samuel wanted.
I wonder if I could still find their tiny lumps at that foot of the willow.
“Education, connection. Separation, divorcion!”
The ex-wife turns to the husband from across the lawyer’s table, “Will you please shut the fuck up? Divorcion isn’t even a real word.”
The ex-husband slams his hands on the table and pushes his head toward her in a rage, “Fuck you! How bout you make me!”
She turns to the lawyer, “That is consent isn’t it?”
The lawyer pauses a bit, “Technically... yes.”
She turns back with a gleeful face of spite, “Gladly.”
She takes her ex-husband’s ear from across the table and drags him face-first through the lawyer’s office, and grabs him by the hair and belt - holding him in a crouched position.
“Agh! What the fuck are you doing!”
She bends her head to his ear, “Exactly what you’ve always wanted me to do, listen to your shit!”
And she launches his ungrateful asshat head into a CRT TV.
~Fin~
You loved me so fiercely before I never thought I could actually feel that kind of warmth inside me But that has receded so quickly, hasn’t it I’m sure your’s has flickered away But I’m still left with that pain To passion for you
I want to always keep that writhing sting That burning iron should always be lit So let me burn that iron on my skin Let it fizzle the arm hairs, they don’t matter I want to be as bright as you used to have me All I want is to feel that burning, that heat, those hugs holding me again
But now, I’ve just been left scarred These pink marks embarrass my skin in all moments of the day A reluctance has grown in me, an impatience Ashes caress and float down my face, and my chest, and my spine All I have left of her is this faded sticky note
~Goodbye to my Red Sun~
“Want to see the stars align?”
The father draws a string connecting the dispersed white ticks making the black glow blue. And in one motion, one pull of the string, a tiny ~thun~ vibrated and straightened all the stars to create a line of bright pearls - and he hangs the new necklace around his daughter’s neck.
“Wow! It’s so pretty! How did you do that?”
“It’s just a simple trick, you could do it too one day, you just need a passion for whatever it is you want to make. And girl, always remember to say thank you, ok?”
“Oh right, sorry. Thank you so much!” She said caressing the smooth lights warming her collar bone. “What can I make one day though? What will I have a passion for?”
The father stood and walked to his bench, grabbing a hollow frame with a long neck divided into frets, “Whatever you want. One day you’ll find yourself loving to do something with your hands, and your head will tell you how to do so, and your eyes will show you where to twist, where to tighten, where to carve, and where to pluck.” He turns to her holding an oaken guitar with palm leaves etched onto its face, and he hands it to her.
Her eyes became wide - as vibrant as her necklace - and her mouth had a slight surprise to it, “I think I want to sing.” She fingers one of the strings and it hums like a choir, with a slight crackle of fire underneath its voice - she matches the pitch with a tiny gasp. She plucks, and she strums, and she begins to sing.
~Doll, go sleep with tiny dreams, In deep pillows a bean will whistle, To wake the morn’ with coffee and cream, And water the reeds to sing with thistles~
“Very beautiful Calliope.”
“I like what your wearing, but I like your voice even more, and I bet you love to hear yourself too, don’t you? Tell me a story.”
“What do you wanna hear sweet thing? Drink up.”
“Tell me about the scariest thing you know! I wanna feel like a scared little girl again. Mind you I’m pretty superstitious, and this doesn’t help to be brave like people say it does.”
“It has seven stars molded onto its chest, like a hot iron had stamped a black point onto the ridges. It has a smile so sly that it beckoned the women nearer, and nearer, and on him - but not wanting. It has ears like pecans, wrinkled and chafing, with a slight downward tilt making sure that it can’t hear them, so no one else would hear them. It’s fingers are wet, and its nails have burrowed red mud from digging into the beach too harshly, a smell so keen and pure - with a potent musk - so much sweat from a screaming sun. There is a rash in between its thighs, and its calfs, and atop the veins of its forearms that tiptoe fingerprints up to its neck. It has a mask with a trunk draping over it - yes, a sightless thing - dripping a foul stench and oozing a sour bell - spitting loogies to swing onto the tongues it pulls. It’s lips are like a sponge, able to suck you up, and lick the filth from underneath your plate - and underneath your filthy shade. Its eyes hang a neon “vacancy” sign with a black mildew lining its edges. It always has a pinch of a scorpion’s tail hiding underneath its tongue for when it kisses a sweat young thing. And it speaks in a rhythm that catches a good eye, or catches a good ear, with a voice like Edward James Olmos - si sabes? - so kind, so sultry, so fatherly, and stern. It loves to hear itself. Come, it invites you, listen to its tiny story of a broken girl meeting a dim-lit suit speaking to itself when she thinks it’s speaking to her... Here, lemme get you a drink.”
“One whisky and one tequila.”
“Here’s your mezcal sweet thing, they could only fit the scorpion tail into it.”
