1994 HOLY LAND

vii.

▇▇ THERE IS A MAN
who steps into the diner. it is eight in the morning.
he looks happy. wrong. it was wrong. the waitress
asks him if he wants tea.

while watching the two of them, he scoffs. the man
was going to get tea regardless if he was going to
decline.

the man says, "yes."

good choice, he thinks, but the man says something
else that makes his blood run cold.

"unsweetened, please."

the waitress screams and points her finger at him.
the rest, join in. the man is melting. second time
again.

he, who is sat at the far side of the diner, turns
around in his seat and drinks his sugared tea. he
stares at the woods in front of him while lifting
the cup to his face. he ignores the screaming.
the people run across behind him. they stab the
man with anything they've got. he closes his eyes.

he ignores it because he doesn't want to see what
happens. not again.

▇▇ ON TOP OF THE HILL,
located behind his house and where the moon casts
its eerie glow and where the sun burns his skin to
ashes, he sits at a picnic table. the wood has gone
weak, with scratches of letters, numbers, words, and
crosses scribbled across in a fashion. the grass under
it is dry and dead. it crunches under his feet like bones,
skeletons of people who sat here until the end of their
time here in town.

it is cloudy, drained of life. the sun is dressed in a
wide, sharp-toothed grin – always watching every
small movement you make. thankfully, he is not
under the gaze of the sun, the heavy storm clouds
blanketing over his head. he is only sat there,
blankly staring directly in front of his line of sight,
not knowing that there is something flying to him.
something black. a crow with red eyes.

he snaps out of his mindless trance. he stared at
the crow, who stares back. it stands completely
still, not blinking or perhaps not breathing. he
wasn't sure.

a wave of misery washes over him, dirty water
being spilled over white floors. he too, stands
still, afraid to make a sudden movement to startle
the bird. but, it flies away. his eyes track the crow,
watching it fly in a circle before leaving him to his
lonesome.

he looks down and sees the picnic table, now
completely untouched and clean, except with
four, heart-stopping words carved onto the wood.

pretty things can rot too.

▇▇ A WOMAN GIVES HIM AN APPLE.

"it's good for you," she says.

her smile has too many teeth. she keeps smiling.
smiling. she has too many teeth. too many. they
look sharper than normal. too many teeth. yellow.

the teeth are everywhere. under his skin, inside his
pockets. who is this? her eyes are red.

"thanks," he responds. his voice sounds off to him.

he ignores it and accepts the apple from her pale,
wrinkled hand. if he had squinted, he would have
seen dust within the creases.

"pretty things rot too," she says.

it sets his stomach in a haunted twist and he can
feel his heart speed up. he walks away and feels
eyes on him even when he's home.

when he gets home, the house creaking as he
closes the door, greeting him, the apple is brown
and soft. how much time has passed?

his head snaps up in alarm as something bangs
against the window, ricocheting off the glass and
the blood-curdling sound dripping through the
window. there is a large red stain on the glass.

he swallows, setting down the apple and walking
over to the far side of the room, opening up the
window. he finds a crow, lifeless on the dirt. he
peers up and finds two more dead crows on his
grass, wings spread. he looks across the backyard
and sees four more birds.

the urge to throw up hangs over both him and his
shadow. he slams the window shut and turns away,
scrunching his eyes close. he still sees the crows.

he wakes up under a willow tree. his skin is rotten.