I could pretend that she still lived, that I had won her soul back from the cat and all was the way it had been. I could still kiss her flesh where it remains unmarred. But Maya’s flesh isn’t all of her. It isn’t what I loved, much as I begin to hate myself for that. Otherwise, I could have lived with her shadow, invited the cat to curl at the end of the bed while we slept.
I wrap her in the sheet where we made love so many times and lift her. Maya must sleep in the mill tonight. Tomorrow I will dull my axe and pound it back into a spade. I will dig her a grave among the maize. But first I have to rest.
I hear a purr, like that of a lover. In the doorway, stretching languidly among shards of glass and globs of cream, the cat.
I count the tails: four. I killed one of its souls. And I’m sure it will find that mine is long lost. It will have to go hunting.
The doorway’s shadow tries to hide from me the nightmare I can’t help but see in the cat’s loving eyes. The axe is at my feet. The rubies gleam.
Copyright © 2011 Michael J. DeLuca
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Michael J. DeLuca brews beer, bakes bread, hugs trees, and curates a precolombian thought broadcast out of the back of his head. He graduated from the Odyssey Writing Workshop in 2005, belongs to the Homeless Moon writers’ cabal, volunteers at Small Beer Press, and operates Weightless Books, a fledgling indie ebook site. Look for more of his short fiction upcoming in Space & Time, Pseudopod, Basement Stories, and the Homeless Moon Chapbook #4, due out at Readercon in July 2011. Read his blog at http://www.michaeljdeluca.com/.
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COVER ART
“Fly High,” by Tina Marie Lane
Tina Marie Lane is a Environment Designer and 3D Artist with eleven years of professional experience in designing architecture and retail environments. Her freelance work delves into these areas as well as fantasy environments for games and literature. Recently her work has appeared in 3D Artist Magazine and can also be found at her website www.toyrocket3d.com. She fashions her worlds, both real and imagined, from Dallas, Texas.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
ISSN: 1946-1046
Published by Firkin Press,
a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Literary Organization
Copyright © 2011 Firkin Press
This file is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 U.S. license. You may copy and share the file so long as you retain the attribution to the authors, but you may not sell it and you may not alter it or partition it or transcribe it.
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