Short Fiction
position on a hot pink yoga mat with her eyes closed and her mouth stuck in the slight grin of a funeral-prepped corpse. The woman was crudely superimposed atop a prototypical mountain peak with multicolored ribbons of incense smoke encircling her like a stretched-out slinky, and the tiny fountain loomed large in the foreground and was splashed with the words, “Makes Real Mountain Spring Sounds.” She set up her meditation sanctuary beneath the bedroom window because it got the best light and because he lay on the couch in the living room all day, slipping in and out of consciousness and periodically getting up to eat and relieve himself. So for an hour a day, her fair skin pinking in the morning sunlight, she would channel the woman on the box, trying to achieve the serenity the picture promised. At first, it was difficult to unclutter her mind. She couldn’t keep her eyes from boggling around behind her lids like toddlers fighting sleep. She thought about how over-priced the yoga mat was, how the fountain would probably end up being one of those products you use only once or twice before it breaks. She would have thought about dinner. Then she may have sunk deeper into the moment and began thinking about her body, how her rear end felt flat and sturdy like a tree trunk, how the tension in her arms and legs was gradually diffusing with each deep inhale and exhale, how her breath expanded and contracted her lungs, her ribs, her stomach. And her face would have begun to relax. *** They stood outside the black vulture pen. It had been so long since they’d done anything nice together. He stood in front of her with his eyes closed, holding a baby vulture by her delicate talons. The baby frantically flapped her bald peach-fuzz wings and screeched, trying to escape. The other vultures in the pen were mad. There were seven of them, and one-by-one they were taking wing from plaster rock formations and hurling themselves into the netting between them and the baby. He mumbled something with his eyes closed, but all she could hear was what sounded like the roar of rushing water. “What!” she yelled. “What is that noise?” He didn’t hear her, and he stood there mouthing something inaudible, staring at her with the baby vulture fluttering in his hands.
Atticus Review│Get Lit: Round 1
Page 11