Fumes
by F. S. Symons
An old car arrives, leaks
in its exhaust system,
holes in the rusty floorboards.
Inhaling carbon I cough in the lube pit and
shout, turn off your engine. Through the floor,
I see the driver’s long pale legs, inches
above me, safe in the pleats of her khaki skirt.
Years ago, my friend Kyle
had been wearing a khaki shirt,
in our classroom turned shooting gallery,
bright red oozing out of the bullet
hole and dyeing the cloth.
Too slow to unscrew the oil pan plug,
I scald my arms with the car’s spewing
black oil. The mechanic’s blowtorch
points at me for a second. I could be
incinerated in this pit, shaped like a coffin.
The woman’s car is dead now. It
disgorges differential fluid.
I pour in a serum, molasses brown
to nurture it back to life.
Her engine oil stinks of burnt carbon,
unlike the new gold blood I inject.
Her coolant oozes out pinkish and
I replace it with orange liquid, but first,
curious, I lick a drop. It is
sweet.
I finish the job, wipe the oil
off black greasy cuts on my hand,
wounded like my faith.
I observe the woman as she sips her milky coffee.
Her car roars to life, the nutrients flowing.
She pays, the wind nips her
receipt out of her hand and
she’s gone, just a customer, a piece
of receipt paper now,
carried away like a voice in the wind,
like Kyle, like the fumes of this pit I live in.
==============================
Two stars
by F. S. Symons
Today she feels heavy—very heavy,
the child in her belly like a lead balloon—
so she just lies down.
Around her, the same dirt, same sharp rocks, same
glaring sun as the last trailer park,
same social workers kicking up the dust.
It’s so long since she’s seen anyone
and the loneliness weighs
like the heavy body
of her now-dead soldier.
She lets herself outside with her dog,
her half-wolf only friend.
Teetering in the blistering sun,
rings swimming before her eyes and
off in the distance, fleeting silhouettes,
maybe children, the supermarket
or cars, it’s hard to tell.
Her body hits the ground
like a piece of driftwood, and she hears
in her head a sharp noise
like a gunshot.
She pushes herself to her feet,
stumbles, falls again, and a scorpion and two beetles
watch her crawl inside on her hands and knees.
Through her dazed eyes, sparks burst
forth from the leaves, the stones,
even from the end of each of her nails.
Finally she gets onto her feet but then
the waters seep out beneath her and she falls again
whimpering, unable to walk, the waves of pain
the loneliness filling up the mobile home,
spreading in terrifying silence.
Opening knees, her arms hugging her watermelon belly,
holding it in like a belt. Slowly, instinctively,
her arms begin kneading, doing their work
of expulsion, forcing long, feverish chills
through her limbs. Then suddenly,
she’s no longer alone—the baby at her breast.
The dog’s eyes shine out
into the shadows like two stars, as if their light
were enough to keep the world at bay.
F.S. Symons, MPA, PhD, has published his short stories online at opiummagazine.com, gloomcupboard.com, among others and non-fiction in academic journals such as Economic Geography (distributed world-wide) and Canadian Communication. After being tinker, sailor, soldier, spy and foreign correspondent he studied and moved on to telecommunications at the UN and the Canadian Federal Government. Married with six children and two grandchildren, he likes sensual, natural world-based prose and poetry.
I hope this helps. -- FSS
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