Phenomenology

I rub a thumb over the knob of one ankle, smooth and cold as a river rock, sitting on the bank. There’s no shore here, just grass, manure, bullied through the fields. The bottom of my feet hurt. Flat and pink and bright, hot and tender, burned and ugly.  

The soles of my shoes melted.I didn’t think they’d do that. 

They make no sound, thrown into the water, and they float, which is upsetting. Cheap shoes, plastic soles. Knocking together like idiot ducks as they go downstream. I hope they’re caught at the dam, pulled down in the under tow. I want them to drown. 

I’m cold now. 

The wind, it’s high, and peaked, and covers any sound of the commotion, but I can see my mother. The dark stripe of a braid down her white bloused back, and the way it shakes, swinging, when she turns. She raises her white arms up, palms out to the white sky, begging. 

I took her favorite sewing needle from the dining room table. Its wide, flat eye doesn’t hurt as I push it down, under my fingernails, cleaning out the dark. 

Liz runs out of the house next, alive, but with something wrong in the way she’s moving.  

I did tell her, last night, to get gone. 

We used to watch the clouds together, making stories. But I can only make this smoke look like smoke. But I’m supposed to be gone. 

I spent hours, thinking of my mother, and the urn she’d pick out for the ashes they’d presume held something of my body. It’d be small, and blue, and no bigger than a fist. Small as the ones for babies, so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Sitting on the fireplace mantel of a new apartment. Uptown, insurance money. 

His, not mine. 

I didn’t think about the soles. Stupid. 

But I’m a good boy and they know it. I’m a good boy. I walk old women’s dogs on Thursdays. I’m a good boy. I ran to get help. Panicked, mute with terror. Burnt feet, confusion, and running to the neighbors. Not so bright. Wall eyed.  

I can hear the sirens. 

At least I did one thing right.