Women standing in doorways where have the men gone?
The children lice scratched and sniffling playing in piles of burnt out trash chasing vermin with sticks.
A hunting party in hand-me-downs, the grey plumes of the factories swallowing up a sickly sky.
And the women are no longer beautiful. The have been tricked and forgotten. Everything hanging loose like dusty idle chandeliers. These once youthful women no longer so. Crossing their arms in darkened alcoves, quite terse; a second hand patchwork of cloth and wire and nicotine themselves.
I look into their eyes and there is nothing. Only the children remain.
And the mice and the sticks and the factories forever waiting.
Jumped In
There was a sense of belonging that was nowhere else a family to fill the void so he agreed to let them beat him for an entire minute: six young kids beating one other kid, stomping him with their boots as they had been stomped because nothing was ever any more than it was.
Ryan Quinn Flanagan is a happily unmarried proud father of none who presently resides in Elliot Lake, Ontario, Canada. His work can be found both in print and online in such joints as Your One Phone Call, In Between Hangovers,Horror Sleaze Trash, and Dead Snakes. He has an affinity for dragonflies, discount tequila, and all things sarcastic.