MUNGO by

Catherine Xue

Somebody put him in charge of his flesh. Asked him nothing of what he thought and wrapped his little accordion rib cage up in this new skin, all red and gleaming It hung off him in a weird way, flaccid and sad like a dog wrapped in Christmas paper. But he made it a rare sort of handsome. Like a Polo Ralph Lauren ad in the paper, or the fine threading of a mohair sweater

He was always close to his father, worn by him like a little Russian bear rug and treaded over like so. He was careless and only touched when it was time for cleaning, his father's scrubber peeling back old skin to new, angry-red epidermis He lied to himself that he was his parents' mantle prize the little gold trophy on the brick, who’s head had gotten snapped off in the hurry of the years; the one that had gotten smashed on the floor when his mother found out about his father’s fake-blonde paramour. Now that he was in this beautiful new skin, he danced in nothing but it around the house. He shimmied down the hallways, goth-danced through the rooms like he was rockstar, caught sight of himself with his lips two inches apart from each other he and himself in the mirror like startled lovers, and frisked all the way to the laundry room where he let himself die down in the hamper of nylons. He rubbed his body all over, letting the silk give him the warm illusion of a blazing fireplace and not of one filled with blackened butts of wood.

Then he ran back up to his room, red like a cherry pie, and dove into his purple anorak that hung like a kangaroo pouch all the way to his knees. His mother had cut out his pockets in fear he’d hide bad things in them and so now his hands poked uselessly through the holes in the fabric. They hung like dead doornails. Oh come on you [redacted]! he screamed at the low ceiling and laughed like a wolf Haaaaa-ha, and not like normal people haha’s

He roared for hours until his face turned a shiny, grape-y purple He looked like his mother's prize bottle of wine the one she touched so tenderly to her chest when Saturday night drunkenness slicked her down like an addition to the leathery brown couch. When he remembered this, he was done being a wolf. He sat back on his mattress with its little blue quilt. He stared at his dirty body through the frayed holes of the anorak. The soft brown hairs on his flesh. The ugly chicken plumes. He tapped his foot like a proper English businessman. He shook his head like he was fifty-five with hairline issues, like he was fifteen and dumped by his girlfriend, like he was five months old in a high chair after his spoon had fallen a world away onto the floor. He shook his head, deeply unsatisfied, deeply troubled. Then he marched to the bathroom, stepping over his parents' discarded underclothes, and turned on the water. Once the tub brimmed, he sat down in it and scrubbed his body with his fingernails until it was all red and gleaming again.

Impending Future by Sunny Cong