A Fist(Short Story)

Its the fist to the gut, as a fist to the wall. The sudden pain of useless fighting, i find myself beneath the shelf. Where things are laid to be forgotten. I would run, if not for the wasting sickness in my lungs. That makes me weeze, makes me cough, then choke, haggle and yoke. This one burden I do own. So I sit below the shelf, in the dim light. You can catch the scent of this flower, a putrid green tower, of the lesser half of likeness. Making weary all this foolish business. I burn. Yearning ever vigil in a cold steady aim, which preceeds each blood-colored stroke of all the words I wrote.



Yet... yet still you would see more, pages burned, the ash that floats in a dusky room. You were the lone rider, happened upon a dead town. Your horse frisked nervously, eyeing all the dark corners and you felt it shudder as it could not watch them all. Feeling the weight of your body as you hit the ground upon your dismount, you straigtened youself slowly you took careful examination of the whole town. It only consisted of a few admistrative buildings, perhaps one inn housing a tavern. In the silence you heard the echoes of life that resounded the stillness quaking it to thunder. It was so loud. You carried on, hardened your heart, made fast your steps, you were confident becuase you were the only one in this dead town. You paced across the baked earth, hearing it crack beneath your shoes. You made a path of broken dirt to the only house, it's face leaned haphazardly and the windows where broken glasses covering black eyes. You happened upon a room, with fist holes in the wall, dry wall bodies, crumbling to show their insides. It was feeble support for the rotting shelf. Where below sat a limp and dusty puppet. Its vacant button eyes stared past the revolving stillness, through your shoes, and into a world far beyond the one you inhabit. He saw the future, the present, and the past. What he is to be. What he is and always was. His stubborn stitches would stretch, wither and fray. In time he would lay lower even more limp, even more dead. Not disposed to live, but to lay upon the dust still staring blank. But he would always be a puppet, even if one day he was only found to be cloth and cotton. Still he would be a puppet, even if his button eyes one day laid upond a small mass of decaying material half-eaten and destroyed by insects and scavanger birds.

Having pity on the lifeless toy you pick it up in your arms and hold it close. It was the only object resembling anything of the people who once lived in these empty tombs.