Dark Fiction

There was an intentional accident. 

I did it. 

I sat in the yard with the dogs and chickens, picked at scabs on my knee, swatted away the bees circling my head. You would have waited for me if you knew that was my path, but you didn’t. You went anyway so I sat and thought about shooting out the sun overhead. I took the pistol you showed me how to use, I gathered slingshots and old rusty canons and fireworks. I piled the arsenal up on the roof and started my mission, blood dripping from my scab-less knee, chickens clucking and squawking after every round, dogs circling the house. 

The metal felt cold in my hands. I wasn’t sure exactly how high to shoot, what the trajectory would be; I’d never wanted to shoot that far, to extinguish that much, that big, that soon. What would I do without the sun’s shadow making? How could I chase anything I could not see? 

But you know me, I can be reckless, like that one time in the bar with the bottles all lined up in a row. I smashed and cracked and threw until they smashed me across pool table, cracked my forehead against the sticky veneer, threw me out the door. 

This was different. 

This felt like an important job I could handle. You’re always telling me to find the meaning in my life and this is what I found. I would shoot out the sun. I took aim and missed more times than I’d like to share. But there was one. I put down metal and picked up wood. I thought of you as I pulled back the leather, watched the rubber go taut, raised my eyes and stared into the light until black stars swam and popped around my thoughts, over the roof, through the sky. Then let go. 

The marble flew, the sky parted ways, the roof fell from under my feet. The sound of whooshing like the raven’s wings as it passes overheard. I hear the black feathers vibrating in my heart. The darkness comes when I land, the ground hot and hard underneath my sunburned skin. I feel the darkness enveloping me, my life seeping out and forming scarlet mud where the chickens will peck for grubs. The dogs are howling in a tunnel far away, next to my face, next to my softening body. 

They will wake you, wait for you. 

I shot out the sun. I always knew I was good for something.