the fingers and decided to carry the hand back to where we were standing, me cowering behind my mother. When he got close enough so that we could see what he was carrying my mother and I turned and ran again, back to the car. That was where we were when he caught up with us. I saw the hand in his hand and I locked all of our car doors, locking him out. He knocked on my mother’s window. She opened the window but only a crack. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“He’s got a wedding ring on,” my father said. “I think we should take the hand to the police.” And then turning to me he said, “He might have kids.”
“Put the hand in the trunk,” my mother said through the window and she reached across the driver’s seat to pop the trunk open. I leaned forward as far as I could away from the trunk. I thought that hand was the hand of death and I didn’t want it to creep through the ventilation system and grab me.
The light in our attic has properties similar to those of the sand after a storm. The gray light coats and obscures things, for example, hands of death or drawers of type, in the gray darkness. The attic is long and narrow, filled with junk from floor to ceiling, so that when I reach the top of the stairs looking for the fonts there is a moment when my eyes have to adjust to the attic’s darkness. That moment paralyzes me because I can’t see so well until my eyes adjust to the light. The moment opens wide like a door, and in that frozen moment I see a man standing in the gray against the back wall of the house. The man looks at me and then cocks his head slowly to the left. He stares like water in a way that lets me know that if I don’t do my job as a mermaid, somebody else will, a bounty hunter from the ocean. He lets me know that the water is coming for Jude or maybe it is coming for me. I know this man. I stop breathing. I try to make a sound for help but with no air there is no sound. Despite being frozen in place, my eyes adjust to the dark and as they do the man dissolves into a lamp with a guitar propped up behind it, an illusion of bad eyesight. I make a mad dash for the drawer of Palatino and the closer I get to the drawer, to the back of the attic where the man had disappeared, I notice something that I wish I hadn’t. I grab the drawer and look once very quickly. I shouldn’t have looked. There are footprints on the attic floor and they are wet. There are wet footprints where I saw the man. I run.
THE CS
I think I will never make it back to the stairs. I am running and so the letters are spilling out of the tray. A B D E F H H H H H H. Some letters spill under my feet while I run. An H is my two legs, my two arms, and the bridge between. A whole compartment of Cs bumps from the tray and they roll under my feet. At the top of the stairs I trip on the letters. I Z, Y, N. I C on my back at the bottom of the stairwell. I hit my head, slamming it straight into unconsciousness.
When I wake up at the bottom of the stairs my mother and grandfather are there petting my head, saying, “Honey, honey, wake up honey.” I try to move. The drawer of type has spilled below me, cutting letters into my skin. The attic stairs creak and the spilled letters cut me.
“Oh,” I say, “Ouch.” They help me up. My grandfather is old and not too strong, but he gets me into my bed. “You guys, someone was up there, something wet,” I tell them.
“Probably the rain,” my mother says.
“No,” I say. “Go look for yourself.” But they don’t. They are scared. My head hurts so badly that I just want to close my eyes. My grandfather pets my head so I do close my eyes. I fall asleep and even though my mother wakes me up once an hour making sure that I don’t have a concussion, I sleep through until the following morning.
The bruises that form one day later are in the shape of the letters I fell on. By afternoon they grow into one big black and blue, like an entire essay. These bruises are so odd
“He’s got a wedding ring on,” my father said. “I think we should take the hand to the police.” And then turning to me he said, “He might have kids.”
“Put the hand in the trunk,” my mother said through the window and she reached across the driver’s seat to pop the trunk open. I leaned forward as far as I could away from the trunk. I thought that hand was the hand of death and I didn’t want it to creep through the ventilation system and grab me.
The light in our attic has properties similar to those of the sand after a storm. The gray light coats and obscures things, for example, hands of death or drawers of type, in the gray darkness. The attic is long and narrow, filled with junk from floor to ceiling, so that when I reach the top of the stairs looking for the fonts there is a moment when my eyes have to adjust to the attic’s darkness. That moment paralyzes me because I can’t see so well until my eyes adjust to the light. The moment opens wide like a door, and in that frozen moment I see a man standing in the gray against the back wall of the house. The man looks at me and then cocks his head slowly to the left. He stares like water in a way that lets me know that if I don’t do my job as a mermaid, somebody else will, a bounty hunter from the ocean. He lets me know that the water is coming for Jude or maybe it is coming for me. I know this man. I stop breathing. I try to make a sound for help but with no air there is no sound. Despite being frozen in place, my eyes adjust to the dark and as they do the man dissolves into a lamp with a guitar propped up behind it, an illusion of bad eyesight. I make a mad dash for the drawer of Palatino and the closer I get to the drawer, to the back of the attic where the man had disappeared, I notice something that I wish I hadn’t. I grab the drawer and look once very quickly. I shouldn’t have looked. There are footprints on the attic floor and they are wet. There are wet footprints where I saw the man. I run.
THE CS
I think I will never make it back to the stairs. I am running and so the letters are spilling out of the tray. A B D E F H H H H H H. Some letters spill under my feet while I run. An H is my two legs, my two arms, and the bridge between. A whole compartment of Cs bumps from the tray and they roll under my feet. At the top of the stairs I trip on the letters. I Z, Y, N. I C on my back at the bottom of the stairwell. I hit my head, slamming it straight into unconsciousness.
When I wake up at the bottom of the stairs my mother and grandfather are there petting my head, saying, “Honey, honey, wake up honey.” I try to move. The drawer of type has spilled below me, cutting letters into my skin. The attic stairs creak and the spilled letters cut me.
“Oh,” I say, “Ouch.” They help me up. My grandfather is old and not too strong, but he gets me into my bed. “You guys, someone was up there, something wet,” I tell them.
“Probably the rain,” my mother says.
“No,” I say. “Go look for yourself.” But they don’t. They are scared. My head hurts so badly that I just want to close my eyes. My grandfather pets my head so I do close my eyes. I fall asleep and even though my mother wakes me up once an hour making sure that I don’t have a concussion, I sleep through until the following morning.
The bruises that form one day later are in the shape of the letters I fell on. By afternoon they grow into one big black and blue, like an entire essay. These bruises are so odd
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