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Toes

Story by Darby Larson (Read author interview) March 18, 2009

Photography by Alicia Christin Gerald

My cellmate spits, says, what’s outside? I say, see yourself. My cellmate spits, wipes, walks, says, a girl. I say, oh? My cellmate says yes and I say, oh? My cellmate says yes and I say, oh? My cellmate says fuck you and steps on my toes. The anger transfers; the anger, the envy, the hilarity all up and in the bones of my toes.

You sit in the park. You drink something that isn’t water from a water bottle. I see you through the tiny cinderblock window that breathes a little of the outside air into our cell, the air that flips your hair a little, the air you take and make smoke with, the oxygen the tree behind you uses to make love to your carbon dioxide. It’s red or something, the thing you drink, bloody.

My toes, trapped in my socks, scream; no one hears it but my knees. My toes scissor my socks, sever themselves, march away, two by five formation, up the wall, out the window, past the shadow of our cinderblock box.

In the park, my toes greet the toes that peek from your trendy shoes. My toes rape your toes. My toes cut your toes with their sharpened nails. My toes disappear into the tall grass.

My cellmate says, them some angry fucking toes, and I say, oh?

About the Author

Darby Larson’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in New York Tyrant, No Colony, Wigleaf, Pequin, Night Train, Opium Magazine, etc. He edits the online journal ABJECTIVE.

This story appeared in Issue Twenty-Four of SmokeLong Quarterly.
SmokeLong Quarterly Issue Twenty-Four
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