Didi Wood
I’ll drift down the darkening streets towards your happy-slappy home,
I’ll skip along the dotted line splitting the lanes,
I’ll glide past the Shake Shack knockoff where your son wears his paper cap like a crown and holds court beside the fryer, the grease-fugged king of sizzle slurp scrape, supposedly saving for college but most of it goes to your daughter’s girlfriend Sam for pot, it’s not a huge problem yet but you might want to check behind the dusty Hardy Boys books on his bottom shelf, number eleven, While the Clock Ticked, he’s as resourceful as you were, a chip off the old block, how proud you and what’s-her-name must be,
past the mid-century modern monstrosity where Sylvia, the neighbor you fucked last Halloween, right next to her overflowing bowl of full-sized KitKats while pirates and princesses rang the doorbell in vain before stomping away, sits watching Jeopardy beside her husband, not thinking of you, in case you were wondering,
past the burnt-out streetlight you keep forgetting to call about and so does everyone else, what is it like to feel so secure you don’t need the city’s lights, to have enough light already in your luminous illuminated lives,
past your locked mailbox and over your rattling gate and up your porch steps and under the cobwebs what’s-her-name has been nagging you to do something about, can’t you just do it, what do you do with your time that you can’t attend to even these small things, to say nothing of the rest,
through your deadbolted front door because I’m a ghost and I can do shit like that, no bones or skin to snag on splinters of matter and it’s almost worth it, being dead, not to have to knock and wait for admittance, for permission, for anything from you,
into the kitchen where what’s-her-name sautés onions and garlic and celery and carrots with My Favorite Murder in her ears and your daughter huffs a sigh through her gem-studded nose because Algebra II is hard, it’s so HARD and nobody helps and she’s supposed to be FaceTiming Sam right now but no, she’s stuck HERE in this oppressive haze of happy family healthy dinner bullshit, stabbing at the pages of her notebook trying to show her work when who cares, who even CARES,
down the hallway to your office, where you pretend you’re working but really you’re playing Hades, trying to bash your way out of the underworld and getting your ass kicked over and over, your burgeoning bald spot lit like a target under the LED desk lamp, and look at you there, look at you playing with the shades of the departed, like you care what they say, what anyone could tell you about your past or your future, or the present you’re missing, you’re missing it all,
but no, it’s no use, I’ll feel myself fading, perhaps it’s enough that you’re there alone fighting imaginary ghosts, and then what’s-her-name calls, “Ten minutes,” and you snap back, “I’m BUSY!” and I’ll remember how you shook your head and said I don’t know what you want even though I was right there telling you, and when I said I was scared you snorted and said I think you’ll survive and then you laughed, you laughed,
so I’ll gather myself, these scraps of me festered with you, and I’ll plunge into you, I’ll shriek through your bloodstream, I’ll squeeze what’s left of your greedy heedless heart and BOO! I’ll scream, BOO! motherfucking BOO!
#
Didi Wood’s stories appear in SmokeLong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Fractured Lit, Okay Donkey, and elsewhere. Her work has been chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50 and nominated for Best Small Fictions. More at didiwood.com.