Kazden Bracket
Fieldwork
The girls were outside, we were in the house, trying to remember why we loved the girls. There were two of them, two of us. And we were thinking.
Sitting on the floor, even though there were chairs around, drinking beer slowly because it was hot, very hot. So hot in fact the beer warmed up, and then what’s even the point?
You think of anything yet? I asked him. Yea, George said, George being my best friend. He said, I was thinking that when I’m with her, I don’t necessarily have to be with someone else. That's not a good reason, I said.
The house kept burning, a beam in fact crashed down sideways. Crash! but that was in the hallway. I think we should go, he said. Relax, I said, looking around, most of the structure still intact anyways. What about, I said, and George looked at me hopefully. What about, I said to buy some more time, but then he could see I had nothing. Well, he offered. After two years it does get repetitive. Them? I asked. No, I mean, life too, he said. Like generally speaking.
He waved his arms around, watching these ugly pleated curtains to our left go ablaze. But what about specifically, I said. I don't know, he said. You start to wonder why you do the things you do, even breakfast. I wondered if his brain was feeling a little melty like mine.
What do you eat for breakfast? I asked. I don’t eat breakfast, he said, the chimney behind us starting to lose its bricks. I scooted over a little.
Like ever? I asked. He shook his head as his shoe caught fire. He stamped it a few times down hard on the wood. It went out.
We should probably, he said and took a deep breath, which was pretty incredible considering the way the flames made the air. Fine, I said.
Covered in smoke we came out into the garden, police
everywhere. The girls were glad we weren’t dead yet. They dusted our hair a little, told us to get into their separate cars. Now. So long, I called. Till Sunday, he said.
On Sundays we watched the game together until the power went out. Everywhere. The whole world went out, so it wasn’t just us. Or our fault.
We wondered if this sudden darkness had anything to do
with fate, or maybe I just wondered that. That given this sudden darkness now we could say some things that normally we wouldn't say. I waited a few beats to let the new world sink in before, Thought of anything yet? I asked. I heard George sigh somewhere in the darkness.
One thing, he said eventually, like he didn't want to go into it. You don’t have to tell me, I said. It’s just, he said, tapping his wedding ring on the neck of his bottle. It’s not anything that happens outside
of us, he said. Okay, I said.
What do you think the players are doing? he asked. Probably wandering around in the dark, I said. We waited. The lights came back on, the referee resumed the game.
Apparently, a meteor the size of a pear had crashed into a satellite splintering it instantly into a billion orbiting pieces that, on hurtling around the world, crashed and destroyed all the other satellites and space stations in the sky.
They estimated that about ten astronauts (the Russians were rather vague) were in the sky at the time of the tragedy.
Ten or so astronauts, dead or dying or drifting through space
trying to catch or hold onto something no longer there.
After the game was over, we walked outside. The girls came
back from their night out drunk and stumbling. We hugged, not all together, you know what I mean.
George and Rana walked to their car, George snatching the keys from her, as Eve and I stood there.
First, watching them drive off, then, for a little while, looking up at the emptiness. Well, Eve said, I know where they'll be next.
Nothing changed for a week or so besides the new breath of autumn. It blew the vents of my jacket as I uncorked my telescope.
The hill, a good hill, as close as possible without any danger of being seen. I adjusted my front pocket so it hung better, my telescope trained on where the tree line ended.
When I saw them emerge, she had a few broken daisies in her hair, they were running a race she had started, a race in which she was caught by him. The meadow had been planted the year before, so the grass was new and sharp as he threw a chequered blanket into the wind.
His ashen skin coated his youthful features making him look like he was dying of one of those youth-killers like TB or cancer. Her skin fresh against his.
I looked to their hands, their fingers. I watched their glances
and glares, how often they spoke. I looked down at the little blue ribbons running beneath her skin out of her wrists. Her arms
stretched high and wide as he stripped her.
I put my telescope down. It would be the same thing now
for a little while. The same movements, even if varied. The same outcome, even if varied. Of complete disinterest to us.
I turned to Eve, her telescope also orphaned in the grass in front of her. That’s not our problem, she said. We both know that, I said. Maybe, she said, so I looked sideways at her, hopefully. Her face twisting.
Maybe we need to get fatter, she said. Fatter? I said. Yea, they
both weigh like a little bit more than us, she said. Maybe the
weight... That's ridiculous, Eve.
Well, you’ve said nothing all day, she said angrily. She stood up, picked an acorn off the ground and chucked it, hit me in the head with it.
I continued to lie on my stomach, squinting at the couple in the distance, as Eve kicked grass. But she lay back down quick when I said, they're done. We picked up our telescopes. The couple were
florid and vermilion, figuring out how they wanted to fit together, probably saying, you get the fruit, no you get the fruit.
He broke the cork inside the wine, shoved the broken end
down into the wine with his thumb. She reached over his chest for apple slices, and to ruin the hair he’d just fixed.
He ate cheese directly off the knife, tearing bread from the loaf. He handed her the wine bottle, she spilled a little on her blouse by lifting the neck too quickly.
I watched methodically; Eve watched carefully too. We watched them as the sky turned from blue to burning. We watched them be together all the way till the sun fell, and they left.Henry Woodland
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G 32 22 32
Colton Karpman (Founding Editor)
Editor’s Note
Dilara Koz (Art Director)
Em Bauer (Illustrator)
Isaac Zamet (Poetry Editor)
William McGuire (Prose Editor)