unforgiven prose

He panted ashore on the bank in the crook of the river where willows sway. He was shivering. 'I need my sweater', he thought, 'that crazy lady' at the Haunted Manor tearing the cardigan in double fistful and running it up her flagpole. Her mischievous laughing echoed in the purple distance.

He'd sent her the lone copy of the double-spaced manuscript, and she said she buried the mangy, disgusting manifesto, seeding it with hot embers. "It's a children's story for crying out loud", he cried out loud to his own ears. He heard more taunting laughs.

Her vision must've been so blurred with spotty type. The life of an at-home-do-it-yourself editor. She'd taken an oversize flour sack full of unloved prose and a shovel, rowed across the way and dug a grave. A printer's grave. Covered it with dead brush and set it ablaze.

He found the resting place, everything ruined and undistinguished, the air smelling of burnt oil from a 1913 Harley. The fire felt good as he shuddered, his soaking trousers cinching up his manhood tight enough to make a grown man cry. A dog barked in the distance. He turned, and through the trees he saw Willow Manor was dark now. No more laughing. He wanted his sweater.

photo by Agustin Berrocal