Entry #11

Through a Clean Circle
by Kaye Gilbert


Logan pushed his fingers hard against his ears and fell to his knees. He closed his eyes and lifted his face skyward. He could still hear her scream. The same way he had heard her scream for the past eleven years, since the night she died in her bedroom giving birth to a stillborn baby, with four-year-old Logan as her only companion.

The scream died with the call of a crow. Logan removed his hands from his ears, rose to his feet, and started for home on the powdery dirt road.

“Dad, I’m home,” he called, as he stepped inside the dank house.

“In here, Logan,” came the nearly inaudible reply. “I…I’m resting a bit.”

He made his way toward his father in the darkness of the room, gently kicking the wine bottles from his path. Wind chimes, thought Logan, when they clinked together softly. He sat down on the edge of the couch and touched his father’s hand with his, and then kissed his hollow cheek. His father’s face was cold and sticky.

“I’m feelin’ good today, son,” his father slurred. He pulled a frayed afghan over his father’s chest.

“I’ll fix you something to eat now,” said Logan. “Borscht okay?”

A bit of light shone into the gloom of the kitchen, as Logan prepared the beets he had grown himself. Through a clean circle on the grimy window above the sink, he looked out upon a pale gibbous moon in a late afternoon sky.