Luck

Luck


Sand dunes stretch like frozen waves
farther than Jimmy can see. It's day. It's too hot
to walk anymore. He has learned to hide from the sun
like ice; his only movement, the slow trickle of
his thoughts. He's hiding like what was once known
as a mouse, he thinks; in a small cave
he's burrowed himself into. Mouse.
They're the ones elephants were afraid of.
He's never seen an elephant, knows only that they
were beasts greater than mountains. All dead now.
They wore bells and were eaten by kings.
Their meat was called burgers. Burger kings ate them.
No, that's not right. Cows. Cows wore bells.
His grandfather had one; a cowbell.
Tin, tall and tarnished. It was a dull color like sand
with a metal ball on a string inside.
It rang when he shook it. Grandfather passed the legends
of the things-that-were-now-dead like gas,
farting them out every day. But he lost the bell years ago,
so long ago almost no one remembers it, except Jimmy.
No one believes the old man anymore. Jimmy humors him,
letting part of himself think; maybe.


Heat shoulders its way into the cave mouth.
Jimmy slides out into the blaze and quickly turns,
reenters the cave, and crawls further.
It was like luck, another of grandfather's words;
finding this cave. Luck, the old man had explained,
was like finding food when you're hungry.
Food you didn't make. Not stealing,
this was the hard thing to understand;
food no one claimed.


Deeper inside, the cave opens, allowing Jimmy to stand.
It was stupid to stay out so late, hungry or not.
Stupid is the same word for him as dead.
He will have to wait out the sun.
Patience is the same word as life.
The larger part of the cave smells old and used.
He roots around the floor, which is covered with dust,
out of boredom; a word he doesn't know.
On the other side of the room, he finds something.
It is hard; metal. He thinks maybe he can trade it.
Part of it is long and points one way,
the other part sticks out like a thumb, short and squat.
It is like a pointing finger and a thumb,
with the rest of the hand gone.
There is a hole in one end, and where the thumb would be,
another little part, like a tiny finger, curves out,
with another part curving around it.
He looks in the hole, but it is too small to see into.
While he looks, he plays with the little curving bit.
It is loose and when he squeezes, it clicks.
He points the hole at his eye again and squeezes
the curvy finger part. It clicks. He shakes it.
It is an old thing, can't trade it, he thinks;
no one but Grandfather would want it.
He drops it into the dust, lies down and waits for sleep
to take him, and the sun to forget him.


C.L. Bledsoe

Posted over on Hobart Pulp
This is lovely prose by Bledsoe, a short story. I found a poem in it.
Linebreaks by Glenn Buttkus