Word Bohemia Journal Issue 1

Being Eleven and Immortal

by Jerard Fagerberg Every winter, the farmers flooded the bogs.

None of us knew why, but when the early-morning frost made the water a mirror thick enough to skate on, the mystery was lost.

Dad told the story of a boy who'd slid cross the Charles in a Styrofoam cooler back when he was a kid.

There was a groan, and the ice opened like jaws full of black water.

A fisherman found his mittens that spring.

But we took caution as dare.

With every press of a skate, we carved teeth and baited the bog to swallow us down to where the cranberries lay dormant and purple, and make fables of us.

But our challenge was met with no more than scraped palms and knee bruises.