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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4103 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention In the Rough Graeme Mullen I wake up to a blaring hangover and stumble to the sink for a shave, not for cleanliness, today I just need the scrape of a razor to freeze my bloody eyes from wavering. And now with each rinse, stubble falls onto the sink, black specks that pattern out like iron filings. They remind me of the grass piles that lined the edges of the golf course, the one in our town where the mowers gnawed on the backs of the greens every four o’ clock, crawling and buzzing like swarmed insects, terrifying the water-birds into squawking, flapping frenzies. One summer, when I was fourteen, I caddied there with my friend, Adrian. There was a day when it looked like rain, so I left early. He stayed, hauling his heavy bag until the clouds were dark blue, the color of heron eggs lodged in shade. It was a swollen blue that sucked up warmth from the sand traps, stored it in those brooding shells until it was enough to force cracks open. And then lightning trickled down, hot electric yolk that spat from one pile of wet cuttings to the next, blackening the blades with oily heat- A wave of it leapt into the bag of clubs. Adrian crumpled like a cut rope, fell kneeling in a cloud of burnt smells- grass and hair and skin. I made it to the hospital a few hours before he died. When I came in, he was smiling. Through the white bandages- charred lips, leering like spat meat wrapped up inside napkin folds. This is God being direct, he kept saying, and now, as memory seems to condense as drops on the cold glass, trails down in rivulets that streak and fade like old words, my hand strays, nicks a spot on my left cheek. I look down to see the razor’s glint, mean and sharp-white, like the hunger in a thief’s eye. |
