SmokeLong Quarterly

You thought you used to live in this house. You thought you used to laugh in a corner. There were sticks piled on the living room floor and a can of kerosene. You thought your father put them there while he went to find the matches. You thought the moon was there but you couldn’t see it through the window. The moon was always there. You heard your father’s footsteps but you couldn’t tell if they were inside.

You thought, Should I laugh? Is it time? If your father couldn’t find the matches he would continue walking until the sun rose. You thought you might have hidden the matches so your father couldn’t find them. The moon is a ball of ice, your father said. Let’s warm this place up. And he brought the pile of sticks and dropped them on the floor.

You see how the earth’s shadow eats the moon? your father said. We live in that shadow.

Don’t introduce the subject of your mother. Your mother was only a doll. One day, your father thrust it into your hands. Here, he said. It’s your mother. But it was only a doll with plastic limbs and a broken face.

You thought your father buried your mother in the backyard. You thought the backyard was behind another house. You dreamed you dug up your mother and handed her back to your father, who cradled her gently and asked, weeping, What must I do now?

Your father’s footsteps approached and receded. A tree branch knocked against the windowpane. The branch obscured the image of the moon, whose white glow brightened behind the tree’s silhouette. The shadow of the tree descended upon you, and you shut your mouth tight against the coming scream. But it was your father’s arm, his flat hand against your face.

I found the matches, he said. Let’s light this place up.

Don’t mention the subject of your brother and sister. You only dreamed them once and they stayed with you. You used to laugh when they hounded your father and mocked him behind his back. He would turn without warning and your brother and sister would flee to the hiding places you had made for them.

There was a hole under a rock, an abandoned shed in the woods, and an empty swimming pool covered with a tarp. You showed your sister how to climb into the hole. You said, Hold your breath so he won’t hear you. You showed your brother the screwdriver in the corner of the shed and how to slide it like a bolt to lock the door from the inside.

There were beer bottles scattered around the pool. Someone had thrown a party when the neighborhood used to be there. It was a real teenage birthday party. There was a shoe lying on its side. There was a bathing suit in a heap. There was a cake with candles.

You dreamed your sister lit a match and set the house on fire. You thought it was your father’s hand, but your sister said, No, I’m doing it myself. She took a wet match and struck it against the side of the box and the flame sprang forth.

Is it dangerous? you asked.

Fire? she said. Is fire dangerous?

You struck one match after another while your sister counted but none of them lit. He’s coming, she said. You looked up at the tarp from the bottom of the pool, at the pale moonlight filtering down like dust.

You ran.

You heard your father breathing behind you and you turned. The shadow of your father’s arm descended upon you. You heard somewhere the sounds of a radio, the sounds of talking and laughing. This was the neighborhood where the people from school lived. You heard splashing in a swimming pool and laughing, girls and boys, jokes and shrieks, and you clutched your side where the bruise spread in dark green and yellow and you crawled around the corner of the house and into the backyard. Happy birthday! they shouted.

You thought you used to live in this house. You thought you used to laugh in a corner. But the corner was in another house and you were hiding there, and the laugh was not a laugh but had the sound of laughter.

Your father told you, Stop, stop.

The moon was always there, even when the shadow of the tree descended upon you, even when the laughter filled your mouth with dirt. The matches, your father said. Let’s burn. Let’s mouth. Let’s branch. Let’s stop.

Your father’s footsteps receded and returned. He found the matches. He found the matches wet. He found the matches wet because you had drowned them in the river along with your brother and sister who didn’t exist but were hiding in the places you had made for them. You often joined them there. You often joined branch to tree to moon, house to match to fire, dirt to mother to father.

Stop, stop, your father said.

But you couldn’t stop. Your dreams had grown less memorable since your thirteenth birthday when you had thrown water on the cake because the candles were burning. Your father gave you your mother as a birthday present, carefully wrapped in old newspaper. The headline read, Conflagration Kills Five.

Your father’s footsteps returned and receded. The newspapers piled up and the people from school drained the pool and left the neighborhood. It was your fourteenth birthday. The shadow of the moon had eaten the earth. The candles were burning. Your sister opened the window and grabbed hold of the sash as she sat on the sill with her legs out. Dare me to jump? she said.

Your brother stood below with his arms raised.

I dare you, you said, and something like laughter, blood, dirt, flame poured from your mouth.

 

“Conflagration Kills Five” was the SmokeLong Dark Fantasy and Psychological Thriller pick for 2025.