Snapshot
by Meg Tuite
Carnal colors infiltrate a cloud in silence within a city no more yellow than before. A man clutches a girl’s twisting body. Her tiny face harbors an invincible battalion that smacks of war. She is thrown into a van. The locked door is a weapon.
The tall man puts on loud music and drives. There are smudged lacey window drapes along the back of the van. She slits one open. The windows are painted black. The man is laughing. He’s watching her in the rearview mirror. She won’t remember the color of his eyes.
A video of a herd of buffalo stopping traffic for miles in a town with mountains. She watches it over and over. All those cars stuck and the passengers stand outside to capture the event on their phones. Hope drags its ugly head when her dog gets hit by a neighbor’s car a week later and dies.
The man drives through a McDonalds and gets a happy meal and three orders of fries. “Here, Princess,” he says. “What’s your favorite food?” he asks. “If I had to have a last meal it would be a gallon of fries.”
The mountains love animals. She wants a monkey, a llama, and at least four goats. The suburbs pretend space for everyone with fat lawns and attics, but she is confined to a tiny room next to her parents. The dents in the plaster get bigger every time her mom and dad scream.
How did this man find out she wants to run away? Her older brother already moved out. He sends her postcards, even though she dreams he is still sleeping in the attic.
Dear Sister,
Stay in your room as much as possible. Mark off the years. You have to get through two years of grade school, and four years of high school. Everything is street and full of itself and wants to destroy. Close your blinds.
It is all trees and no sky. Bird squawks blast through the dead wood. The man clutches her by the waist as their shoes crunch deeper into the forest. She knows an endless line of girls has stepped here before her. She never realized how easy it is to disappear.
Meg Tuite is the author of four story collections and five chapbooks. She won the Twin Antlers Poetry award for her poetry collection, Bare Bulbs Swinging. She teaches writing retreats and online classes hosted by Bending Genres. She is also the fiction editor of Bending Genres and associate editor at Narrative Magazine. http://megtuite.com
