A few of us have been playing a game of consequences, each contributing a 250-word story that begins with the last sentence of the previous entry. The theme is “Abandoned Landscapes,” and my piece is the last of eleven. Here’s what came before: 1. Sam J. Miller, 2. Jade Park, 3. Jane Voodikon, 4. Lisa Silverman, 5. Anna Shapiro, 6. Mark Krotov, 7. Wah-Ming Chang, 8. Alex Chee, 9. Viet Dinh,10. Lucas Green.
Especially if the other guy is your son. Especially if the other guy, hangdog and big-eared in the front yard, grinding his teeth the way you’ve always ground yours when life opens its jaws at you—especially if the other guy, leaning against the rock with a concavity in its windward side, as though the wind itself had carved a limestone substitute for the embrace the father cannot afford to give the son—especially if he, heat-dazed and sullen, says, “But you’ll think of me sometimes, won’t you, Bill?”
Then, “Never, Oscar,” you have to tell him. “I’ll never think of you sometimes, and neither will your mother, and if that old tabby comes around again, I’m sure she won’t think of you sometimes either.”
This finally gets him moving, gets him to yank the goggles down over his eyes and ascend by means of rope and pulley, with a heroic flourish that leaves you startled, to the deck of his dirigible, gets him off your lawn and away from this mean ghost of a city, the city you built and let slide into ruin while learning to despise everything you create.
Afterward, leaning into the limestone, seeking what warmth your son left there, you are proud of him, so proud, because you know he’ll return under the enemy’s banner, and perfect with brute will the devastation you begat with mere neglect. And when you stand against him, and fall, you’ll know him precisely as well as you know yourself.
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Fin!
