excerpt from "Safety"
by Dylan Clark

Did all fathers have a bullet casing in their head? Jamie couldn’t tell, because he had never seen his father. But he’d seen the fathers of the other boys at school. He’d seen Doug’s father.

All of those fathers had a bullet casing. The top of their skull had been replaced by a bulbous, glass fishbowl, within which rattled the casing. When they walked, or shook their heads in slow disapproval at Jamie, the casings would clink, clink, clink on the glass. When they laughed—whenever one of the boys made a clever joke, say—the casings would hum like satisfied wasps. Doug was good at those jokes.

Each had only one casing in their skull, of course. The caliber and metal had to be carefully chosen to represent your identity. The casing separated men from boys.

 

 

 

From The Malahat Review's spring issue #226