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Nothing but sincerity

10/26/2015

1 Comment

 
Picture
Picture
he kicks through wet leaves. Orange and red, dying and dead. The streets are empty. All the children, their laughter and their shouts, are safely tucked away for another year. Butterscotch wrappers scattered in the gutters are all that remain. She follows the pools of lamplight, jumping in and out of darkness, like she has for most of her life. Nobody rang the bell again this year.
    Here, she climbs the wooden fence. Paint flaking, boards leaning like old men trying to catch their breath. She can’t hop it like she used to, barely breaking stride. She gets one leg over and her coat catches on a scab of wood. She gives it a yank, the seam tears and she lands on her ass in the dirt of the field.
    Nothing’s been sown here but weeds for the last twenty years and even those aren’t doing so well these days. There’d been some sort of run-off from the factory. Folks just bought their pumpkins from the supermarket nowadays.
    She finds him here at the far end of the field. Stretched out on the earth, his ratty blue blanket tucked under his head. His skin glows in the moonlight. So pale, you almost don’t notice the grey in his hair. His face looks so relaxed in sleep without all the tremors or tics.
    She plays with the torn seam on her coat. New this year, but now as ruined as anything she owns. Just like him. The neighbourhood kids have their jokes. If his failure weren’t so sincere, she’d laugh too. Coming out here, year after year. He’ll freeze to death if she doesn’t bring him home.
    She pulls the edge of the blanket up to cover her brother as best she can. They have a long walk ahead. But for now she’ll let him sleep. The disappointment of tomorrow could wait a while longer.

1 Comment
Bobbi link
12/6/2020 07:12:21 pm

Thanks for sharingg

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    8bitmyths

    Remember when you were a minipop, and you saw that film, you know, the one you loved that never had a sequel? Well, let's say it did. And it was just like you imagined it, only a little bit worse.

    8bitmyths is a series of polaroid fiction that digs through the relics of not-too-distant popular culture.
    The heroes of youth, specifically that neon-hued era of the 1970s and 80s, are exhumed in all their orange shag and velcroed glory. The intent is not to celebrate, but to drag these characters, limping and shambling, into the present – to show the cracks in our idyllic vision of childhood, and also the power of a darker world than we could ever have dreamed. 


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  • Persona
  • Publications
  • Productions
  • Projects
    • GRAVE
    • 8BITMYTHS >
      • TABLE OF DISCONTENTS
    • SATURDAY MORNING RE:RETRO
    • WORLD WEARY ADVENTURES >
      • THE BARBARIC PRACTICES OF ELECTION DAY