Jennings, Brittany – Page 7 – Willow Springs Magazine

“My Father’s Recitation” by Steve Coughlin

MY FATHER RAN THROUGH my mother’s heart attack. He ran through the afternoon my sister was hit by a car, through the ice storm that knocked down our backyard fence. During the Blizzard of '78 my father stood on the porch and ran in place for eighty-five minutes. During the Blizzard of '91, instead of leaving work while the roads were passable, my father ran up and down eight flights of stairs. He spent the night at the factory on a concrete floor. The morning my older brother's unconscious body was found, skull bashed in, drug deal gone wrong, my father ran to his beat-up Mercury from his quarter-inch gear machine where he made miniature gears for boat engines. His brain ran so loud he could almost drown out the doctor's voice. "One, two, three," my father kept repeating. His watch counted each second. His note books, his volumes of notebooks, recorded the distance of each run, the weather and location. My mother, her skin a colorless white, knocked on the bedroom wall, kept calling his name, but my father, clinging to his numbers, was running loops around the high school track. He bought a new wristwatch, another pair of sneakers.

He ran with swollen knees, walked like a zombie into the living room unable to bend his legs. He ran through alcohol addiction, through depression so heavy a short run was the only reason to get out of bed. Past Stop signs, past Yield signs, past Do Not Enter signs. Drivers flipped him off after slamming their brakes. "One, two, three," my father explained. Was it the day of an election, the Challenger explosion? The Thursday my brother was expelled from school for lighting a fire behind the gym? My father's notebook observes, "6.9 miles/ Mostly cloudy/ Iced knees thirty minutes." Monday I delivered newspapers. Tuesday I delivered newspapers. I pedaled my bike and tried to join his recitation: "One, two, three." In twelfth grade I averaged seven-minute miles. I kneeled on one leg and vomited onto the sidewalk. I curled into a ball and waited for the shaking to stop. Never a discussion of shallow breathing, my mother's chest tight as a fist. Never a follow-up appointment with the doctor. Just my father running through the cemetery, past the polished granite of his son's stone. His numbers keeping pace with each long stride.

“Vaya con Huevos” by Robert Lopez

Found in Willow Springs 58

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Two despicables in conversation.

Tempers flare.

I'm the one under the oil painting. The oil painting is mounted on a wall too unblemished for its own good. I want to say this wall reminds me of something but it doesn't. I've never seen anything like this wall.

This evening I will endeavor to put my head through it.

We are two in a room with six others. I don't know the six others but the despicable next to me is friendly with one of them, I think. They kissed each other on the cheek earlier. Perhaps she is the despicable's sister. They look like each other in the way women with legs and feet can sometimes look like each other.

The room has walls and windows and paintings and furniture and I'm sweating and mopping my brow with a handkerchief.

There's nothing sexier than a pregnant woman I say to the despicable, which gets us started. She is the one next to me under the oil painting. The woman that looks like her, that might well be her sister, is on the other side of the room looking at another painting. The despicable uses her tongue to clean her teeth and exercises her eyes back and forth in their sockets. This is the kind of woman my mother warned me against. My mother would sit me down and tell me to keep away from the eye rollers and teeth cleaners. This despicable examines each painting like she is an expert but I don't think she is. Most experts tell you they're experts and this despicable hasn't said anything about herself. She puts her face close to the painting and I'm not sure but I think she is trying to smell what the painting smells like. Oil on wood is what we're told but I don't believe a word from their mouths and neither does she.

Neither of us has been in this house before, knows where there's a bathroom or feels comfortable enough to open the refrigerator and take something out of it. I am not even that comfortable in my own house, which is why I'm losing weight probably. I'm down eleven pounds and can fit into pants I should've thrown away years ago. I hide the weight loss well due to the way I carry myself. I don't know how this is exactly but it's the only explanation. The same people see me every day and no one's said anything.

I don't like it, this house, this room, these people, and neither does the despicable next to me. There is a ceiling fan slowly oscillating like it's running out of gas, like it's about to fall down and die in the middle of everything. The blades resemble battle-worn sabers covered with nicks, markings and bloodstains. Like Indian artifacts someone dug up in Illinois under a mound of dirt. Everyone here looks like this ceiling fan. When I say everyone here I include myself, the despicable, and the six people paired off and spread across this big room. I think this house and ceiling fan belong to two of them but I'm not sure which two.

There are abstract paintings hanging on every wall. There is no way to describe the paintings other than to say they belong on these walls and no place else. Everyone is walking around the room to look at them. We know to move to the next painting when our replacements come to look at the painting we've been looking at. This takes two minutes, roughly. I pretend to look at the paintings the same as everyone else. To really sell it I squint my eyes, furrow my brow, and tilt my head. I saw an artist look at paintings once and have never forgotten how to mimic it. I forget where I was when I saw the artist look at paintings. I don't think it was someone's house but I could be wrong about that. I try to keep out of houses that have paintings hanging on the walls.

When the people talk they whisper instead of talk. It makes me think someone is sleeping, a child perhaps. Adults are always motivated to keep a sleeping child asleep. In this way I can be considered an adult. Whenever I am around a child I do my best not to disturb its sleeping. If a child is awake I excuse myself and go straight home. Some people find this odd but to me it makes sense. I have nothing to say to children and find their company tedious. I don't think there are any children in this house. Still I can hear the whisperers. I hear two of them say the house is two hundred years old and something about negative space.

I don't know who painted these paintings. Some painters sign their paintings or initial them but the painter who painted these did no such thing. You can't blame him or her. I wouldn't be surprised if there were numbers underneath the oils.

There is no way to tell if the painter was male or female. Perhaps an expert could tell but I don't see how. I'm assuming the painter was male or female as opposed to is male or female because I assume the painter is dead. If the painter is alive I'm certain he or she would not allow strangers to view these paintings. I don't think one of the other six people or the despicable next to me is responsible for the paintings.

This despicable is not a pregnant woman. She looks like she could be pregnant if she applied herself. She has all the requisite equipment. Perhaps taking long walks, drinking green tea, and changing her name would help. She is taller than me by two or three inches but most of that's hair and shoes. I don't know who she is but she is next to me under this oil painting. She acts like she knows me. She has put her hand on my shoulder twice and left it there for a minute or two each time. She is not sweating so I don't offer her the handkerchief. Every time I use it she thinks there's something wrong with me.

This despicable could be my wife of two years. She resembles my wife in that they are both women of a certain age with eyelashes and painted toenails. There are similarities in complexion, hair color, and deportment. But I think I left my wife home today. I think we argued over how to get here and when I went out the door she stayed in our living room. She wanted to walk and I wanted to drive was the problem.

The two connubial years have included several hangovers and a month of Sundays so I sometimes have trouble recognizing her.

There's nothing sexier than a pregnant woman, she repeats.

I do believe that's true, I say.

You're despicable, she says.

And I say something like it takes one to know one and it takes two to tango but three's a crowd and the more the merrier.

For whatever reason we are whispering this to each other. Something about this room turns you into a librarian.

So the woman next to me whispers You're a despicable except she adds the word fucking as a qualifier.

There is a caged dog in the kitchen of this house no one wants to discuss. This dog looks like a mistake of evolution, like a cross between a fox and a South American rodent. The dog's head is decidedly too small for its body and it has a long and furless tail. The dog hasn't stopped whining but no one pays attention to it. Everyone here is afraid of this dog.

What is with this dog, I say to the despicable. Don't, she says back.

The more I look at and talk to this despicabel the more I think she might be my wife.

This happens to me from time to time. I'll forget the route to my favorite restaurant or lose my place in a book or get lost on the way to the upstairs bathroom at home. The wife I think I left home in the living room thinks there is something wrong with me. She thinks I should see a doctor, have tests done. She thinks they should stick me in a tube and not let me out until I can retain basic information like everyone else.

The despicable next to me hasn't mentioned any tests, which might be a dead giveaway.

There is no accounting for what is wrong with me. I've never suffered an injury or a disease that would've resulted in a compromise of both short and long term memory. As near as I can remember I've always been this way. I wasn't allowed to walk to school because the one time I did I went missing for two days. My mother hung my picture on street signs and light poles and went on television to get me back home.

Right after she says Don't with a familiarity I find disturbing our replacement couple arrives. They look like they just got released from a concentration camp. Their limbs are impossibly thin, so much so that I want to hook them up to an IV and have them lie down. They are wearing sandals and have yellow toenails. Their eyes are similarly jaundiced. I don't think either of these people will live another day.

These are great, the male one says. You can tell he is the male one because the other has two emaciated breasts under her tank top.

Aren't they, though, the despicable next to me replies.

They all turn to me as if it's my turn to speak, my turn to say something nice about the paintings, the house, the dog. Instead I say I'm hungry and I wonder what's for dinner.

The skeletons, after consulting each other first, say--I know: we're both starving.

The despicable looks at me in a way I'm sure means something but I don't know what it is.

A fire truck screams by and for a second I expect firemen to burst through the door, administer CPR to the skeletons and liberate the dog. Everyone turns to the front windows to watch the truck drive by but no one is moved enough to go outside. The sirens are loud and then trail off into people whispering things about paintings and the dog's whining.

I haven't been offered a drink and I wonder why not. I see three others cradling glasses on the other side of the room.

There is no indication food will be served any time soon. I don't smell anything cooking and I'm not sure there will be. No one is running into the kitchen to check on anything. I don't know what made me think there was going to be food involved.

The skeletons move on to the next painting and I follow the despicable to a painting hung in the alcove. I can't tell one painting from the next. They are all the same these paintings and I am finished pretending to look at them.

I listen to the whispering around the room. I hear someone say Define a glass of water and someone else say I like it when someone tells me they're a musician and it turns out they're a drummer. Another says I think the composition here is a little obtuse.

In the alcove the despicable and I stand opposite the pregnant woman. There is also a man standing and whispering with the pregnant woman. One assumes he is the sire. The two of them look like they were hand-picked to breed. Both are tall and stout and have fine skin, hair, and teeth. He probably covered her in a stall under supervision.

This is the kind of woman that should be pregnant 365 days a year.

The day after she gives birth to one she should conceive the next.

The despicable positions herself between the pregnant woman and me.

My wife, the one I left in the living room, enjoys the company of other people and seeks it out whenever she can. This is the kind of affair she will drag me to. I have stood in big rooms under oscillating ceiling fans before but cannot say I am comfortable in such environs. I prefer to be in my upstairs study with the air conditioner on and the curtains drawn. My wife calls it the cave. She has never called me a caveman because of how it might reflect on her.

I don't know where she meets the people we socialize with. I don't think they are colleagues. My wife works alone in our house. I'm almost sure of this. There is a table set up in our dining room and people come in and out of the house at all hours.

Secretly she resents me for not having any friends. She tells me this, as she is not good at keeping secrets. I forget what it is I tell her when she says this to me.

I think I do have a few friends but I forget who they are and how to contact them.

Now the word Literally is being bandied about and this bothers us despicables.

These people should be drawn and quartered, the despicable says. They should be shot and hung from the highest pole, I say.

I thought this would be different, she says. I was under the impression this was going to be something else, she says. Then she says, And it 's hanged from the highest pole. People are hanged, not hung.

I say to her, Is it me or does it seem like everything in here is a photo copy? Even the dog looks like he's been left in the wash too long.

That can't be a real dog, I whisper.

A replication of something half-observed and half-misunderstood, she whispers. Then she leans in and whispers Inadequate means to obsequious ends. She puts her hand on my shoulder again and this time rubs it.

This is something my wife does. She likes to rub my shoulders and back and tell me things I don't quite understand. She is an advocate of alternative medicines and homeopathy. She drives twenty miles to buy organic fruits and vegetables from a farmer's market. There are lifestyle magazines around our house, in the bathrooms, the kitchen, etc. I think she might be a masseuse, my wife. This is probably why people come to the house all hours of the day. We do have a massage table set up in the dining room where a dining room table should go. Around the table are crystals and statues of Indian gods. There is a mobile hanging over the table, too. Paper butterflies dangle from the ceiling and sometimes it looks like they are flying.

My wife has strong capable hands but they don't look strong or capable. Her hands are thin and ladylike. Her hands look like a strong wind could blow them clean off her wrists. My mother told me to marry a woman who had hands like this.

I don't say it out loud but I wonder what kind of a massage the pregnant woman gives. My guess is she can rub your muscles into next week.

These people should be run through and handed their own entrails, I say instead.

Extinguished, cleansed, she says back.

Crucifixion, they should bring back crucifixions, I say.

After I say what I say about crucifixions the despicable and I walk toward the front door. I think she is my wife but even if she isn't I might spend the rest of my life with her. As I think this I hear the dog whining but am glad I can't see it in its cage. The pregnant woman and her sire are looking at us and seem upset when I say Vaya con huevos to them. Their expressions resemble both the unblemished wall and the paintings on the wall. There is probably an Indian or Chinese or Russian word that describes how these things look but I wouldn't know it. The other four people, including the two skeletons, are whispering and pointing in our direction. I can't hear what it is they're whispering but I don't have to. I know because it is on their faces. It is all over everyone's faces.

“Between the Teeth” by David James Poissant

Found in Willow Springs 58

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Jill's had James Dean since college, a gift from her parents before they died--car crash--which makes him extra special to her, a last link to her ancestry or something. For Jill's sake, Dean and I maintain an amicable enough relationship, though there's been tension from the beginning, each of us sure Jill belongs to him.

The courtship was rocky, Jill waiting for Dean to warm to me. Our lovemaking was interrupted more than once by barking and a paw on my pillow. Five years after our wedding, he still jumps in bed between us, growling if I turn in my sleep. More than once, I've had nightmares of waking unmanned.

Tonight, after Dean's been let into the bedroom, he nuzzles Jill's crotch and glares at me in a way that says: I smell where you've been, buddy.

Jill says, "Do you think we're meant to be?"

"What do you mean?" I ask, thinking, Oh, God. Thinking, Here we go again.

"I mean," she says, "what if, in the end, your husband and your soul mate and the person you're supposed to be with--what if they all turn out to be different people?"

"Are you seeing Richard again?" I ask.

"No, honey, I told you. That's over."

''Are you sure?"

"Sure I'm sure," she says, rolling onto her side. She pulls the chain on her bedside lamp and pretends to fall asleep. I reach out and Dean moves to shield her from my touch. He gives her elbow a lick, then looks me in the eye. He will not sleep until I do.

"Jill," I say. Jill offers only a quiet grunt. Dean moves to cushion the small of her back.

Clearly, she's still seeing Richard.

This morning, I roll over Dean in the driveway. Just crush him. An honest mistake--not cold-blooded murder, just bad driving. Backing up without checking the mirrors, the kind of thing that lands a neighbor's toddler in the ICU and you on the evening news.

A simple case of wrong place, wrong time. That, and we had a deal, and Dean broke the deal.

It's my responsibility to walk Dean in the mornings. My only (Jill's word) responsibility when it comes to her (my word) dog. Dean, an old beagle with a nose like a coke fiend, takes his time making his way around the block, stopping every few feet to sniff another dog's piss, to piss on another dog's piss, or to lick the place on his body where the piss comes out. Not a morning person, I never particularly wanted to get up early to walk Dean. The deal, then, was this: I get up and let Dean out. He has free reign of the neighborhood, leash laws be damned. In return, he comes home before I leave for work.

Both parties have found the arrangement amenable: I get to sleep in. Dean gets to take his time, pissing all over whatever he likes. For years we've operated like this, under the guise of what-Jill-doesn't-know won't-hurt-her.

Usually, Dean scratches at the back door just as I'm buttering a bagel or pouring milk over a bowl of raisin bran. But, this morning, Dean doesn't come back. Not after I've finished breakfast and washed my plate. Not once I've made a second pot of coffee for when Jill wakes up. Not even after I stand at the open door, briefcase in hand, and quietly call for him.

I go to the garage, get in my Jeep. I've never had to look for Dean before. I think of Mr. Lancaster, imagine the man chasing Dean out of his vegetable garden, pitchfork in hand. Or, perhaps Dean's made it under Ms. Mead's fence, at last having his way with the hot little papillon that wags her ass at us whenever we walk by. I even envision Dean dead, the target of some gang initiation whereby one must off a dog in order to get his first bandana and biker jacket.

What I don't picture is Dean hit by a car, not until the moment I feel the thud, hear the crunch, the unmistakable sound of beagle bones snapping under 50,000-mile Michelin tread.

It's my first real experience with death. Even my grandparent are healthy as horses. I had a guinea pig once, in middle school. Something was wrong with him and his ass exploded. Really, he started shitting his intestines. It wasn't a pretty sight. But that was a guinea pig, a rodent.

People don't cry over dead rodents.

This is nothing like that. Dean appears unhurt. Only a thin string of red runs from his open mouth. He pants. I place my hand on his side. He doesn't yelp, just closes his eyes. His ribcage feels like a bag of potato chips.

This dog, I think, will never make it. This is a doomed dog.

At this moment, I can do many things. I can tell Jill, or not. I could say Dean ran away, got out the door while I fiddled with his leash and collar. But, then, what to do with the body? A neighbor's trashcan seems risky. There are woods nearby, but boys play there. I could drive out to the country, dig a little hole.

Except there's more to consider than just disposal. I can't bury

Dean while he's still breathing. I mean, I could, but I can't. I'm not that man.

How long does it take a dog to die?

I consider methods of expediting the process: A plastic Kroger bag from under the kitchen sink, a shoelace to hold it in place. A can of Ajax mashed up in raw hamburger. Shovel to the head.

I do own an acetylene torch.

Scratch that. I can't hide the truth of Dean's death from Jill, but perhaps I can disguise it. Another car, I could say. This car came flying around the corner, ripped the leash right out of my hand. I never caught the license plate, too intent on tending to Dean. Used the fireman's carry to bring the body home and everything.

In the end, Jill makes the decision for me. I look up and she's running down the driveway, her worn, red bathrobe held together by a manicured hand. Even without makeup, with sleep caught under one eye and dried drool flaking from the corner of her mouth, as Jill crouches beside me, takes James Dean's head into her hands, I think: You, my love, are beautiful.

Jill won't talk to me. James Dean lies in her lap, legs at odd angles, head loose, jumping with every bump of the Jeep. At each jostle, Jill shoots a look my way that says, Be careful, and, as I slow down, bats eyes that plead, Hurry up.

It’s no short trip. This is upstate New York, an hour north of Syracuse, a half-hour north of civilization. The nearest animal hospital is twenty miles of old roads away.

I reach for the radio, decide it's inappropriate, then change my mind and turn the dial. A fiery host argues with a listener. I was hoping for music. Before I can change it, Jill stretches over Dean, turns the radio off, and we're back to the hum of the Jeep and Dean's panting, the metronome of his quick, shallow breaths. It's the moment where one of us is meant to speak, and I'm still wondering who goes first when Jill interrupts the silence.

"You didn't have to do it," she says. "I would've stopped seeing Richard."

"But," I say, and my tongue catches on my teeth. So it's true. I knew this, sure, but it's different now, the admission making it more real.

Outside, apples bob in the morning light. We thread the orchard, then up a hill, and suddenly we're facing clear sky. From a field, a man on a stick waves a hand of hay, a crow for a hat, and I remember what it was like to be a boy, before my life turned into all this shit.

Jill is crying. "How could you do this?" she says.

“Jill,” I say, "It was an accident. I would never--"

I look at her. She looks back, searching my face for clues.

"Come on," I say. "Don't you know me at all?"

It's so much to explain, but I tell Jill about the deal and the walks. How, for years, this is how we did it. That I messed up. That I wasn't leaving for work. That I went to find Dean and didn't look both ways before I backed over him.

We continue down the road, the landscape mutating into a town. A drugstore here, post office there, and suddenly we're in Rosemont and the small animal hospital comes into view. It's an old house, green shutters, plank siding and peeling, white paint, that's been converted into a business. Out front, a sign features a caricature of a cat with a thermometer in its mouth. I pull into the parking lot. I'm afraid of what comes next.

"I'm sorry," Jill says.

"I'm sorry, too," I say.

"Do you think..." Jill begins to cry again.

"I don't know," I say. "Let's take him inside and see."

How I caught Jill and Richard last year: I came home from the firm early. Isn't that the way it always happens? I'd had a bad lunch with a client, awful conversation over lukewarm tortellini, and I'd been throwing up about once every hour since. There was no car in the driveway, no trail of clothes down the hall, no noise, even, to give me pause as I pushed against my bedroom door.

What I found was not fucking, just two topless people sitting beside each other, reading from the same book. It was the most intimate moment I'd ever seen Jill in. Nobody knew what to do. Then I threw up all over the floor. How I wish I had opened the door to mindless, unbridled fucking.

The vet's office is beige walls and wax plants, track lighting and tinny music piped through cheap speakers concealed behind flowerpots.

I'm filling out forms when Jill returns from a back room. She sits beside me on the long narrow bench that takes up one wall. She looks terrible, her face puffy and red, her hair like Medusa's.

"How is he?" I ask.

"I don't know," she says. "They won't tell me anything. They're doing X-rays. They asked me to leave."

Jill raises a hand to her face and traces the outline of one eye with a single knuckle. She mumbles something I can't make out.

"What's that?" I ask.

"I think I'm pregnant," she says.

When you hear something shocking, I mean something that just lays you out, you have a choice. You can accept it immediately, react to it, or not. I tend to stall.

"I'm sorry?"

"Pregnant."

"But, when? How long have you known?"

"I don't know. Maybe a month?"

"But we've hardly...... "

"I know."

"Hold on. Do you mean--"

"I don't know," she says. 'I'm just not sure. I'll have to go to the doctor, do the math."

I stand. I sit. I stand, walk once around the room, sit again.

"Honey," she says, and it’s her turn to be the levelheaded one. "Calm down."

"Are you going to leave me?"

"What?"

"If it's Richard's, are you going to leave?"

"Of course not," she says. She takes my hand and squeezes. "I mean it. It's over now."

"So, what would we do with it?"

"Things can be done," she says.

I consider this and a shiver runs down my back. I try to picture it, try not to. What would we call this, in our case? Extermination?

I won't raise another man's child, and yet, I don't think I could kill it either.

"What if I told you it wasn't an accident?" I say. "That I ran over James Dean on purpose?"

"What?"

"If I meant to hit the dog," I say. "Would you still want me around?"

Jill eyes are wide. She lets go of my hand. "Did you?"

"No."

I want a song to soar through the waiting room, suddenly meaningful and ironic. "Your Cheating Heart" or something. Something to make Jill cry. Of course, this doesn't happen. The same soft, classical music comes out of the speakers, some concerto or other. The thing swells, peaks, then falls away in a shimmy of violins.

"You," Jill says, "are an asshole."

The first time I met Dean, I was drunk. Jill's parents had just died. We'd been to the viewing, then gone straight to a bar a few blocks from Jill's place. We were bracing ourselves for the funeral the next afternoon.

We were still in school at Syracuse, had only known each other a few weeks, but standing by the caskets, Jill introduced me to one relative as her boyfriend. Looking back, it is as if there were never a choice in the matter. Neither of us had the chance to turn down the other, as though, in death, something had been decided for us.

Jill and I stumbled into her apartment and groped on the couch. I was supine, Jill on top of me, taking off her shirt.

I looked to my right and there was this animal, brown and white, broad-shouldered and squatty. His tail stood up in the air like a middle finger. He was about six inches from my face.

"Jill," I said. "Jill."

Jill pulled her shirt away from her face and looked down. "Oh," she said, "that's James Dean. Say hi, Dean."

Dean growled. His teeth were white, but his gum line was black.

He didn't bite, but he let me know he'd like to.

"Dean," Jill said, “you be nice." Then, to me: "Don’t worry, he’s really friendly once you get to know him."

We made love like that, Jill on top of me, the beagle beside me.

Dean did not take his eyes off me the whole time.

The veterinarian, tall and thin, forty or fifty, is not a bad man, but he's the bearer of bad news, and I think we both hate him for it. He frowns, but his handlebar mustache curls upward in a smile. He's probably given this speech so many times that it no longer holds meaning for him. They're just words, what he was taught to recite before he got his diploma.

"I'm sorry," he says in conclusion, "but there's nothing else we can do. It would be cruel to draw this out any longer. I think the best thing we can do for"--he pauses, glances at his clipboard, looks back at us and reassumes an expression of sorrow--"Dean, at this point, is to let him go. We can help him do that. It won't hurt. It will be like falling into a peaceful sleep."

I look at Jill for confirmation, but she's gone, beyond words.

"Would you like to say goodbye?" the man says.

I turn to Jill. Nothing. I look back at the man and nod.

The euthanization room is dim, punctured by weird, halogen lights that cast everything in an unsettling yellow-green glow. James Dean is on his side on a steel table. He's been muzzled and an IV tube extends from one paw to a bag hanging from a hook on the wall. The steel table looks cold. I touch it, and it is. There is something alien about the scene, like he's not even our dog. I expect Jill to burst into tears, but she displays no emotion.

"Here," I say. I unclip the muzzle and pull it away from Dean's snout. Suddenly, he looks more like the dog we both know. I pet his head and he sniffs at my hand. He tries to shuffle forward, but his lower half doesn't follow his front legs' lead and his nails scrape futilely against the table.

"Would you like to step outside?" I ask.

"Yes," Jill says. She moves toward the door.

"Wait," I say. "Jill, I'm really, really sorry about this. All of it."

She stands at the door, her hand on the knob.

"Whatever you want to do," I say, "I'm your man. We're in this thing together."

Maybe it's the classical music corning through the thin walls of the next room, or that our dog is dying on top of a table in front of us. Perhaps it's something else entirely. But before Jill walks out the door, she smiles. She gives me a look that says, At least we have each other. That seems to say, We can still make this work. A look that says: Don't worry. Love won't let go.

Now, it's just me and Dean. It's hard to look at him, so I look around the room. It's small, not like the offices where you take your pet for a checkup. No tins of doggy treats or posters of breeds on the walls, no plastic models of organs on the countertop. This room is reserved for death. There are two chairs, a big padded one for the doctor and a white, plastic chair, an old piece of patio furniture. I pick the plastic chair, which seems to open its arms to accept me as I sit, then grips my hips so tightly I wonder if I'll ever escape.

I force myself to look at Dean, and Dean looks back. He's got his head balanced on his front paws. If you took away the IV tube, he'd look like one of those dogs you see on calendars with titles like Beautiful Beagles or Purebred Hounds.

"We had a deal," I say. Dean doesn't say anything, just watches me with his big, sad dog eyes. "We had a deal, you fucker."

Dean winces, and I know that he must be in terrible pain, that it's time to get this over with. As if on cue, the veterinarian walks in. He carries a small tray with a stiff, blue cloth draped over the top, like I won't guess what's underneath.

"If you're finished, Mr. Michaels," he says, ''I'd like to go ahead with the procedure." The procedure. He says it as one might say spatula. There's no inflection, no hint of what is contained in the syringe and what it will do to the dog.

''I'll need you to step out," he says. His face is kind, but his voice is firm.

"No," I say. "I think I'll stay."

"We generally don't recommend that."

"I want to watch you kill my dog," I say.

"Sir," he says, but there is nothing else to say.

"If you want me to sign a waiver or something, I will."

The man frowns. He pulls away the blue doth from the tray, revealing two shots. "I'm afraid I'll need to put the muzzle back on," he says. "He tried to bite one of my technicians."

"Sorry about that," I say.

The vet steps forward with the muzzle. Something churns inside me. It seems undignified, like Dean deserves better. I may not like this dog, but all living things deserve to die decently. I believe that.

I jump up, the chair clinging to me for a second before clattering to the floor. "Wait," I say. "Don't put that on him. I'll take care of it."

The vet looks at me skeptically, then puts the muzzle away. I step up to the table and crouch so that Dean and I are eye and eye.

"Well," I say, "this is it, buddy." I make a fist around his snout and nod at the vet. The first needle goes in and Dean whines, struggles under my grip.

Quickly, the vet retrieves the second syringe. When the needle hits Dean's hide, though, he thrashes, pulls his mouth from my hand and bites down hard on my thumb. The vet injects the last of the toxin, pulls the needle out, and, still, Dean doesn't let go. I try to pry my hand from his jaws, but he holds on tight.

And he dies like that, my bloody thumb caught between his teeth.

For the first time since we met, he looks happy.

Issue 89: Elizabeth Vignali

About Elizabeth Vignali

Elizabeth Vignali is the author of the poetry collection House of the Silverfish (Unsolicited Press 2021) and three chapbooks, the most recent of which is Endangered [Animal] (Floating Bridge Press 2019). Her work has appeared in Willow Springs, Poetry Northwest, Cincinnati Review, Mid-American Review, Tinderbox, The Literary Review, and elsewhere. She lives in the Pacific Northwest on the land of the Noxwsʼáʔaq and Xwlemi peoples, where she works as an optician, produces the Bellingham Kitchen Session reading series, and serves as poetry editor of Sweet Tree Review. You can find her on Instagram at: @Random_Acts_of_Lineness or at her website elizabethvignali.com.

A Profile of the Author

Notes on "Family History"

Like so many poems I write, “Family History” started out as a coping mechanism. I wrote it as a way to manage my unease over my sister’s hysterectomy, and as I wrote, it progressed into both a celebration of female animals’ life-giving organs and an elegy of the ones that fail us. Bodies are so incredibly complex, it frankly amazes me they work as often as they do. So much can go wrong. My sister’s uterus has caused her great pain throughout her life, and our mother died of endometrial cancer years after she survived breast cancer. It brought me a measure of comfort to imagine my sister’s surgery as an opportunity for them to connect once again.

Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.

I’m a total procrastinator, so let me just tell you all the things I did instead of getting this little profile finished in a timely manner. I’ve started taking piano lessons again after a 20ish-year hiatus, so I worked on learning “My Father’s Favorite” from the 1995 movie Sense & Sensibility. In the garden, I rearranged a few of the boulders that used to hold our house up (now the house is on a real foundation, yay!) and planted daffodils and hyacinths all around them. I watched Six Feet Under and played the world-building game Civilization and listened to the podcast Heavyweight. I finally put away the clean laundry in the corner of my bedroom that the cat has adopted as her bed– but don’t worry, I left her a pile of mismatched socks she can still nestle in. I finished reading Hamnet, eventually stopped sobbing, and started reading The Yield. I made black bean and avocado enchiladas with mole. I embroidered glasses on a photo of Frida Kahlo. And then, having once again proven to myself that I’m never more productive than when I have something else I’m supposed to be doing, I sat down to write this.

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“Family History” by Elizabeth Vignali

Found in Willow Springs 89

Back to Author Profile

I stir turmeric into the milk in the orange pot on the stove.
Honey. Cinnamon. Ginger. Black pepper. Cayenne.
Fry eggs in butter in the iron skillet. Animal gifts

from the once-mothers. From the would-be. Treasures
of womb and duct and nipple. Down the street
at the hospital my sister’s womb is being lifted

from her body. Velvet drawstring sack stuffed with sparkling
fibroids. Her spirit floats above it, maybe. Witness to
her own surgery as some accounts say. Our mother suspended

there with her, ten years after her own uterus killed her.
Twenty years after her breasts couldn’t finish the job.
A two-hour reunion while they watch the surgeon’s hands

gloved in rubber and blood and then she’ll be alone again,
breastless wombless mist of a once-mother. My sister will be
back in her body, solid if a little emptier than before,

driven home and cared for by our womb-free aunt.
I eat eggs, butter toast, stir spiced milk into my coffee. Check
my phone over and over. Tonight I will kiss my daughters

in their beds. Fall asleep as I always do with one hand
on the soft bulge of my stomach, unconscious elegy,
and dream of black caves guarded by dragons.

“First Human Head Transplant” by Alyse Knorr

Found in Willow Springs 89

Back to Author Profile

On this very day they are planning it! While I drink a Kölsch called Julia’s Blessing with my beautiful wife

who for convenience calls the body Bill and the head George and asks: which is the person and which the meat?

The weather is so nice it doesn’t matter. The pastry truck man on the corner hands out shepherd’s pies,

kids throw Frisbees again on the quad, the campus DJs tell fart jokes, and The New York Times has not texted me even once.

The only acceptable conversation topics: it is February and 70 degrees outside, and how many minutes until brain death?

How to ensure blood flow and reattach nerves, and what is my own utility, when the trees are thesis statements,

the forest the very essence of language? In the shower later I look at my feet and wonder why they are my feet,

and then in my towel I google the two-headed dog and ask: why keep the front legs, sprouting from the lower dog’s shoulders

like antennae? Why not the head alone? Did the two get along, during their month of shared life? Which was Bill and which George?

But these are aesthetic questions—every dog I have known has been only one dog. Now as the mad scientist studies

his circuitry map, now as the lab scurries with head-swapped mice, now as Happy Hour draws to an end, I am left to wonder

what kind of ship will carry me past my narrow horizon. What kind of logs must I saw? And when I tell

my mother tomorrow just to have someone to tell, I can hear already her questions, the ones

only death trivia can prompt: How is this possible? Who is in charge? And, from deep within the forest: Why?

Issue 89: Alyse Knorr

About Alyse Knorr

Alyse Knorr is an associate professor of English at Regis University and, since 2017, co-editor of Switchback Books. Her most recent book of poems, Mega-City Redux, won the 2016 Green Mountains Review Poetry Prize, selected by Olena Kalytiak Davis. She is also the author of the poetry collections Copper Mother (Switchback Books 2016) and Annotated Glass (Furniture Press Books 2013); the non-fiction book Super Mario Bros. 3 (Boss Fight Books 2016); and four poetry chapbooks. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, Alaska Quarterly Review, Denver Quarterly, and The Georgia Review, among others. She received her MFA from George Mason University.

www.alyseknorr.com

Instagram: spikeskywalker12

Facebook: Alyse Knorr

A Profile of the Author

Notes on "First Human Head Transplant"

I wrote this poem after having a happy hour beer with my friend Erin, who is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the university where I work. Erin was teaching a class on personality at the time, and we were talking about different theories about where personality comes from and how it’s manifested. She mentioned offhand that the class had been discussing, as a case study, a proposed human head transplant procedure. I immediately latched onto this idea and asked Erin everything I could about it, then started Googling and learning more about how the procedure had already been attempted in dogs and mice, and how there was a surgeon and a volunteer ready to do the human version at any moment (the volunteer has since stepped away from the project).

As I wrote the poem, I kept thinking about the context in which Erin and I had the conversation. It was a beautiful, unusually warm day, and we were sitting out on a patio drinking beer and talking about personality while somewhere out there this mad scientist sharpened his scalpel. This happens to me a lot—I get obsessed with dark or gruesome stories and find my head spinning with constant questions and imaginings that take me out of the moment—out of the beautiful day or the hot shower I’m taking or whatever it might be. I’m very bad at being “present” when I latch onto an idea or an image or a question that fascinates or horrifies me, as was the case here. And so I think this poem explores all those tensions, and with the limits of the human imagination in the face of the truly uncanny or horrific.

Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.

I love this question! I’m going to use this space to proselytize one of my favorite TV shows ever, The Leftovers. It’s a supernatural HBO drama that aired 2014-2017 and I think it’s one of the most underrated TV shows of all time. I made my wife watch it, I make all my friends watch it, and I’ve even got a podcast project in the works about it. The central premise of the show is that there is a global event called the “Sudden Departure” in which two percent of the world’s population disappears into thin air. But it’s not a religious rapture kind of situation—no one can figure out where these people went or why. And that’s not really the point of the show either—the point is about following the lives of the people who have been left behind, and how they grieve or try to make sense of the world by joining cults or attempting to restore order or believing in really superstitious stuff. It’s an utterly gorgeous show—form the soundtrack to the writing to the acting—and full of beautiful symbolic mysteries. It’s a show that feels more like a poem to me than a novel. I think about it all the time and each time I watch it I get something new out of it. I should also mention that it’s by the makers of Lost, but they TOTALLY stick the landing—easily the best series finale I’ve ever seen on a show. So there’s some lovely redemption there for those showrunners.

“First Human Head Transplant” by Alyse Knorr

Found in Willow Springs 89 Back to Author Profile On this very day they are planning it! While I drink a Kölsch called Julia’s Blessing with my beautiful wife who … Read more

Found in Willow Springs 89

Back to Author Profile

The first time I watched it, I remember being floored

that Iron Town’s ruler, Lady Eboshi—who I actually

kind of liked, even though I maybe wasn’t supposed

to, because she wanted what she could name—

really shoots off the Forest Spirit’s head. I didn’t believe

she’d follow through with it once she sees him

with her own eyes. Now I’m like, Seems about right.

I suppose we all want to show everyone we know

how to kill a god of life and death. We can all be

short-sighted sometimes, and we’ll do anything

to feel in control. I thought about the Night-Walker,

the Forest Spirit’s nocturnal form, the other evening

when my boyfriend and I went a little wayward

on a nature trail after we lost track of time. The sky

was violaceous. The sky was amaranthine and studded

with bats flying more like moths than any bird until

it darkened suddenly as though from under a spilled glass

of wine. Neither of us cared. My legs ached pleasantly.

Sweat drizzled between my breasts. We were alone

in our own minds, in the memories we translate

to each other that’ll always remain slightly mythological,

as in both a solace and a warning. The whole point

of stories. I thought about why the Forest Spirit changes.

When I was young I perceived him as the night sky

within a body that reflects and guards. He was the God

I believed in, watching over us, and I felt righteous

and secure. Now I wonder if he wasn’t doing anything,

just walking around. During the day plants burst

fern-like from his steps. His body, a deer’s with a great

furred chest. Instead of antlers, his head’s a tree

with many branches. His face, a mask with direct eyes

and an omniscient smile. His blood cures wounds

but won’t lift curses. Some acts even a god can’t amend.

Lady Eboshi, I’ve been meaning to ask you for years

now: What did you think was going to happen?

How do you really kill a god? Dark on darkness

surrounding us almost makes us light. A rabbit sounds

larger than it is. Lavender wildflowers glow against

their eclipsed field. I believe a god is every generation.

Like people, his search destroys everything he touches

until they give him back his head. I thought about

how the forest grows again but is never going to be his.

Are we supposed to feel comforted? Are we supposed

to feel afraid? Maybe the whole point is to feel

neither, to surrender to the story’s end. Movement

even within shadows. We watch deer leaping into night.

Issue 89: Anne Barngrover

About Anne Barngrover

Anne Barngrover's third book of poetry, Everwhen, is forthcoming with University of Akron Press in 2023. Her poems and creative nonfiction have been published in journals such as Arts & Letters, Guernica, and Ecotone, among others. She is currently an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at Saint Leo University, where she is on faculty for the low-residency MA program in Creative Writing. She lives in Tampa, Florida.

Twitter: @Anne_Barngrover

Website: annebarngrover.com

A Profile of the Author

Notes on "Princess Mononoke Hits Differently Now"

I barely remember the summer of 2020. We couldn’t travel, of course, and my usual week-long teaching programs switched to Zoom, so the normal markers of summertime just don’t exist in my memory. But I remember my routine—watery, tropical Florida days that consisted of writing poem after poem, baking lemon poppy seed cakes that kept sticking to the pan no matter what I did, and taking sweaty evening walks with my partner around our neighborhood. On those walks, we’d discuss which movie we were going to watch that night; we were going through some Top 100 list. In that first pandemic summer, I was never alone, which surprised me. The trajectory of my life has bent towards solitude, but ironically, in a summer of great aloneness, I was not isolated, I was not lonely. Still, my world felt very interior. Time seemed slippery, untethered. Or maybe it didn’t, and that’s just how I remember it feeling.

One night, we watched Hayao Miyazaki’s Princess Mononoke—the first time I’d seen it since viewing it as a teenager, when my high school boyfriend and I also went through some Top 100 list one summer. Even though the film is animated, I remember being shocked by the physical violence that first time around. The gore didn’t really affect me the second time (maybe I’ve been desensitized by Game of Thrones) and yet, all I felt was loss. How could the forest regrow when the people had killed their gods? How do you reconcile hope with the point of no return? Maybe what’s surprised me most about this poem, and about that summer, is that I still don’t know how to feel about the time when a story leaves us. I don’t know if “end” is the right word.

Music, Food, Booze, Tattoos, Kittens, etc.

Ok, seriously though—why do some cakes lift up from the pan and some just won’t? Sometimes I feel like there isn’t enough PAM or parchment paper in the world; I suppose that, sometimes, things just get stuck. You learn and try again. It’s cliché, but I’ve gotten really into baking during the pandemic, especially cakes. I’ve been making my way through Yossy Arefi’s pragmatically decadent Snaking Cakes and cycling through every season of The Great British Bake-off. I admire the creativity and imagination of these bakers and how they find inspiration for colors, textures, sculptures, and flavors from unlikely sources in the world around them. A few months ago, I was hiking on a cold, marshy island off the coast of Provincetown, Massachusetts. I couldn’t get over the bog’s combination of colors and textures—the sponge-like, mint-green moss crossed with snake-like, cranberry-red vines. If I were on GBBO, I thought to myself, and if I actually knew what I was doing, I’d make a cake that looked like this landscape. I say all this because I just love how creation—whether it’s writing poems, film-making, or baking cakes—can allow one world to easily transcend into another.

“Princess Mononoke Hits Differently Now” by Anne Barngrover

Found in Willow Springs 89 Back to Author Profile The first time I watched it, I remember being floored that Iron Town’s ruler, Lady Eboshi-who I actually kind of … Read more

Found in Willow Springs 89

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Do you like this river, Superman? Mama comes here to wash our clothes. Today, Uncle came to our house. I have not seen him before.

-Go to the river. Swim there with the other children.

-I want to play with you, Mama.

-Come home when it’s dark.

I don’t like this river anymore. A ghost lives here at night. But we must go this way to reach the dump. Mahmood says poisonous snakes are there waiting for me.

You can tie up the snakes. I must find some tins and bottles. You can help me find them. I’ll sell them for 50¢. Mama will say, what a clever boy! Then I’ll buy two seeds and grow two banana trees. Mama will sell the bananas for $2. With $2, I can buy eight more seeds and grow eight trees. Mama will sell all the bananas. After one year, we’ll have enough money to pay a man to bring us to the land far, far away. Mama wants to go there.

If a ghost comes now, you’ll scare him with your laser ray, OK?

Last year, Mama took me to the city. We sat in the bus for two hours. In the city we met White Uncle. He came home with us. He bought us many lotus dumplings from the street stall.

Do you know White Uncle was very rich? His hair was gold. If he were poor he can cut it off and sell it. His eyes were not black like Mama’s or my eyes. His eyes were like the sea. White Uncle also had a funny smell. Like a lamb. He talked funny. I didn’t understand. Mama also didn’t understand. Mama nodded her head—like this—and said, yes OK.

I can say those words too, yes OK.

When White Uncle lived in our house, I slept in the small bed. Mama didn’t play with me. Mama only told me stories at night to help me sleep.

-In the land far away, they have big houses. Not like this one.

-Are the houses made from wood? I asked.

-No, they are stone houses built from a special blue marble.

-Are they three times bigger?

-They’re ten times bigger! Each house has twelve rooms.

-Wah.

-The carpets are so pretty they run across the floor like paintings.

-Do they have a cinema house? Like in the city?

Mama laughed.

-Many cinemas. Too many cinemas. Lots of Superman shows.

-What about a river?

-You can read the sky when you look at the river. There are no muddy rivers like ours.

-What about dogs?

-The dogs have shiny, beautiful coats like velvet. There are no smelly dogs with fleas scratching all day long. The dogs are so clever. They are trained to use the toilet.

-No, they’re not.

Mama smiled. She kissed me. Whoo. Whoo. She blew out the candle.

So dark.

Superman is more powerful than Batman, yes? You can fly and shoot laser rays from your eyes, yes? Batman has no superpowers. Batman throws the weapon, it smacks the bad guy and flies back to him.

-Say “Boomerang.”

-Boom-rang.

White Uncle gave me a weapon. A Batman weapon.

-Say thank you, Mama said.

-Thank you, Uncle.

-Go play with the other children, Mama said.

I ran to the field. The old slide sat in the burning sun. Its ladder was broken. To get to the top, we climbed up the slide.

Crack crack crack! Mahmood and his younger brothers stomped on the snails crawling along the slide.

-What’s that? Mahmood asked.

I whistled, pretending I didn’t hear him. Mahmood followed me. I walked across the field. Weeds scratched my legs making red lines like glow worms.

-What are you looking for? Mahmood asked.

I picked up the tin with both hands. Mama said I’ll die if I got a sting from a rusty tin. I put it on top of the fence. I aimed the Batman weapon.

Bang!

-Wah. Can we play? Please? Please? asked Mahmood’s brothers. They had never seen a Batman weapon before.

Suhaimi and Raja found more tins. They made a tin pyramid. Bang! All the tins fell. The crows on the trees flew away. Suhaimi and Raja cheered. They picked up the tins and built a taller pyramid. What fun!

But Mahmood acted like a spoilt baby. He squatted below the pyramid. He pretended rain clouds were coming.

-Let’s go home. It’ll rain soon.

-If you want to play, Mahmood, you must help arrange the tins.

-I don’t want to play with your stupid Batman weapon.

I let his brothers play with it. The three of us took turns. Mahmood started jumping up and down.

-If it hits me, I’ll break it, said Mahmood.

-Then go away. It’ll slice you in half.

It was my turn to throw the Batman weapon.

-I’ll stand anywhere I want.

Mahmood stomped on my toes and snatched the Batman weapon. He ran across the field towards the forest.

-Stop!

I chased him. I pulled his singlet. It tore. He struggled to break free. I pinched his ear.

-Ahhh, he cried.

He flung the Batman weapon. It flew higher and higher until it landed on Mount Everest.

-Heehaw, heehaw. Mahmood laughed like a donkey.

I punched his nose.

He cried.

Mount Everest was the tallest coconut tree in the field, too tall to climb. I shook it. The Batman weapon sat still. I looked for a pole to poke the tree. I didn’t find one. I became sad. Then scared.

What if White Uncle saw it?

I went home. I didn’t tell them I lost the Batman weapon.

I slept beside Mama in the big bed. I smelt the lamb smell. I missed my Batman weapon. Will White Uncle bring me another one next time?

-When is White Uncle coming back?

-Soon. He will bring us to the land far away. He comes from there.

The other uncles don’t give me presents. They always call me, hey, little boy. Sometimes they ordered me to pour them tea.

Mama would say go and play outside.

Mama was sick.

-Go away. Please!

Mahmood and his brothers didn’t let me play with them. I didn’t have my Batman weapon anymore. That’s when I called you, Superman. You have supersonic hearing. You heard me and came to play with me.

-Where’s White Uncle?

Mama whipped me with a cane. I wanted to cry but I didn’t. Then she whipped the air.

Whip!

Mama whipped the vase, a present from White Uncle. It fell to the floor and smashed into many pieces. Mama called me a lazy boy. I wasn’t lazy. Mama was lazy. She got fat. She screamed she couldn’t go to the land far away because of me.

White Uncle! He saw the Batman weapon hanging from Mount Everest. I looked at the pieces of rainbow patterns on the floor. Afterwards, I swept them into a dustpan. I kept all the glass in a box. One day, I’ll invent a magic glue. Anything broken will become new again.

Last night, Mama was too sick. I was scared. I ran to the doctor’s house.

-Doctor, please! Come quickly.

Nenek Zurina had snow white hair. A bowl of hair had fallen out from the middle of her head. She wore a teeth and garlic necklace.

The doctor followed me home. I wanted to go into Mama’s room. She was crying.

-Fetch me a pail of hot water, Nenek Zurina said.

I lit the charcoal in the stove with a match. I boiled two pots of water.

I fell asleep near the bedroom door. I dreamt that Nenek Zurina left our house with a bundle. Pushing inside the bundle was the disease that made Mama sick.

Superman, are there ghosts?

Mahmood, Suhaimi, and Raja used to swim here. They liked to dive from the rocks.

-What are you all playing? I asked.

-Cat Catch Mouse. I’m the swimming cat, said Mahmood.

He threw a stone. It flew past my head. He was still angry I pulled his ear that time he stole the Batman weapon.

-Can I play?

Mahmood looked at me. He folded his arms like a gangster. His brothers paddled behind him. They splashed water at each other.

-You cannot play with us. You came from a rotten egg. We came from good eggs. My mama said so.

Mahmood was only one year older but he was so dumb.

-I didn’t come from an egg, stupid. Chickens come from eggs. Are you a chicken?

Suhaimi and Raja laughed. Mahmood’s face turned into a storm cloud.

-Then where did you come from?

I shook my head.

-Where do you think? My mama found me at the dump.

This is true, Superman. This is why I don’t have a papa. You came from another planet too. Your mama and papa found you in a field.

-Also cats can’t swim, I said.

-Yes, they can.

-No, they can’t.

-Yes! Yes! YES!

Mahmood swam to the bank. He was clumsy and slow like a water buffalo. He jumped into his wet sandals.

Flip flap flip flap flip flap flip flap

He ran home. Hah! I played Cat Chase Mouse with his brothers. I was the mouse that escaped each time.

Mahmood raced back, huffing and puffing. His tummy bounced up and down. He cuddled Comel, his pet. A white fat cat. Fat like Mahmood.

-Gentlemen, clear the river.

He tried to speak like a prime minister. With a deep voice. We climbed up the rocks. We squatted. Mahmood walked to the middle of the river.

-Gentlemen, I’m present here today to teach you a lesson. Watch and learn.

Mahmood lifted Comel and pointed her paw at me. He whispered to Comel. He stroked her. She shivered and meowed.

Was he that dumb?

He talked some more to Comel but before we could say No! No! Stop! Mahmood flipped Comel in the air like a magic trick. Comel spun and clawed. We yelled. She couldn’t catch hold of anything.

For a second Comel floated in the water.

-Haha. See, I told you. Haha, see, Comel can. . . .

Gone.

The river washed Comel downstream. Mahmood screamed.

-Swim! Swim back up!

Now, Mahmood’s voice squeaked so high he sounded like a girl.

-Comel, swim back to me.

Mahmood waded downstream. He sobbed.

-What is Mahmood eating tonight? asked Suhaimi.

-Tonight, Mahmood will have Mama’s special cane pudding, said Raja.

-What else is on the menu? Let’s see. Mama will serve him cane soup, cane pie and cane cream. Mmmm, so yummy.

His brothers made smacking sounds. I turned away to hide my laughter. It wanted to blast out like a cannonball.

-You! You’re an evil boy. You killed Comel!

Mahmood spat at me. It hit me on the chin. He chased after Comel along the bank. His brothers followed him. Before he ran off, Mahmood gave me this warning.

-Comel will turn into a ghost. She’ll come back and haunt you. You killed her.

I’m not a bad person. If Mahmood listened to me, Comel wouldn’t have disappeared. I think Comel didn’t like him. When she reached the sea, she became a goldfish and swam away.

Are there ghosts, Superman?

We must hurry up. It’s getting dark. Please use your X-ray vision to find the tins and bottles. Tell me where to look.

What? Here?

I think so.

What’s over there? It’s . . . so white. It’s floating. What evil eyes. It has a long tail. Are those claws?

It’s flying to us.

Quick! I have a stick. I’ll beat it up.

Ready?

NOW!

Hahahahahahahahaha.

Did it scare you?

Yes, you got scared, Superman. Scared of an old plastic bag. I won’t tell anybody.

Let’s put the tins in the plastic bag. Good. We must fill up the bag. I can sell them for 50¢. Just a few more.