12/28/2022 0 Comments Dont starve together critters![]() ![]() A red rash of pennies peppering our ribs, dimes scattered across our bellies, a honeycomb of quarters sprouting between our thighs. Burn my body, donate it, dump it the goddamn ocean, I don’t care. Tomorrow, they’re gonna strap me to a table and I won’t get up, I accept that, hell, I welcome it. The doctor recognized me, and well, here we are. Someone had taken blurry video of one of my “dates.” They had some bullshit name for me–Lady Death or the Sorority Strangler. The doctor got this funny look when I asked him to dinner. I went in for an x-ray and the negatives showed ribs of interlaced branches, the faint shadow of my organs picked out like leaves against a starless sky, and there, inside my heart, an acorn. I’d stand on my tiptoes, fingers brushing the tips of their kicking feet, feeling alive.Īfterwards, I vomited blood, organs, even bones sometimes. The tree would snatch them up, quick as a heron gulping down frogs. Lots of men will follow a young girl into the park, some women, too. It got easier after that, especially after I turned eighteen. Once, I saw Raymond’s picture on a milk carton and almost got kicked out of the house for laughing. I remember him staring from the bushes, eyes like quarters, then he just disappeared, twisting away like he was on the end of a rope. One night, I opened the curtains to give the creep a real show. I had this foster brother, Raymond, used to hide outside my window while I was changing. I would wake to it tapping on my window, wanting more, wanting me. The tree followed me to foster care, its bark the rusty brown of old blood, leaves plump and shiny. People say I killed them too, but I was nine for god’s sake. I think it was the screams that brought my parents running. I used to play in the woods nearby, passing judgment on squirrels and starlings, the tree my executioner. The story was it’d been a hanging tree back in the day–men, women, even children had kicked out their last seconds under its branches. In my earliest memories, the tree was an old thing, dry as driftwood. At night, I dread the moment when the heater clicks off and all that’s left is the rustle of leaves in the vents. I see it sometimes–out in the yard, beyond the prison fence–waiting for me. Then I could chop the damn thing down, but the tree don’t work like that. Even my lawyer keeps asking where the bodies are buried. I’m reaching out because I got no one else. I deserve to die for what I’ve done, just please don’t bury me. Second Place: Legal Tender by Stephanie Malia Morris narrated by Alexis Gobleįirst Place: Two Step by Drew Czernik narrated by Austin Malone Third Place: The Taking Tree by Evan Dicken narrated by Karen Bovenmyer ![]()
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