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Brew City Magazine | |
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Guidelines About the Magazine Editor-in-Chief:
Managing Editor: Associate Editor:
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He wouldn’t stop trying to kill himself. Every time I looked away, he buried another nail into his head. “I dislike the shape of the sky.” At first I was apprehensive. But eventually I started rooting for him. The nails were long and exacting and clearly pierced his brain, even when he pounded one in through his chin. Yet his brain continued to work. Blood poured down his cheeks. “My heart is a crooked exclamation point.” One of his feet had shriveled up and browned like a rotten banana. I didn’t know how it happened. Nor did I know if the foot was the cause of his depression. Was he even depressed? I touched the foot. My finger pierced his skin. There was sand inside. “My mother was an Indian. She went like this.” He dropped the hammer and struck the O of his mouth with a palm. The war whoop scared a nearby itinerant. Shaking hysterically, he scurried up a tree and hid in the leaves. He picked up the hammer. He brandished a fresh nail. “Let’s try something new.” He placed the tip of the nail against an eyeball, twisted it into the pupil for footing, steadied his breath, wound up, steadied his breath, wound up, wound up, and swung the hammer . . . He missed. The hammer hit his jaw, shattering it. He had to yank it out. “Let’s try that again.” Same drill. This time he hit his mark . . . once, twice, three times . . . With each blow, the jelly of the eyeball artfully spit from the socket. Finally the nail was in. And he was still alive. “They use femurs to play the drums.” I shook my head. I shook his hand. As I walked away, I heard the itinerant yelp as he fell out of the tree . . . |