John Paul Stadler
Malapropos
On the road to Topeka my parents ask me when I want to die. We are alone in the car, and it begins to snow. I tell them, Soon, and they are quiet. There is limited vision. We have to use the periscope to see.
When we grow tired, we stop at Wall Drug in South Dakota, where we are accosted by the jackalopes; they ravish mother and browbeat father. My parents die slowly. The snow falls slowly. I tell them I like them and this seems to prolong their passing, so I tell them I lie. They ask me when I'm coming, and I say, Soon.
The jackalopes watch along with me, and when it is over, they turn to me, cock their heads, and lick my cowlicked hair. The proprietor gives me a bag of souvenirs, post cards, bumper stickers, and a hatchet. He says I can kill the jackalopes—avenge the carnal act—but I tell him I will not.
I continue driving to Topeka alone. The storm turns to blizzard, and snow drifts cover the highway in waves. The earth is prehistoric, but we are not. Families park their cars by the highway and build igloos and snow men and drink cocoa and pelt each other with the frozen stuff. But I do not. I drive until I am blinded by white. I jump out of the car as it putters away, taking only the hatchet with me.
Tramping down the vanished highway, I come upon an abandoned farmhouse. Outside the farmhouse, a camel stands, shaking. It grazes in the snow. I stare at the camel and it blinks. I stare at the hatchet and it blinks. I tighten my grip. I know what I must do.
Potato, Potato
After my parents die, the house mysteriously burns down. My sister Carol sells the charred remains to the Church, and they rebuild the house exactly to form from a drawing I make on a napkin, only now it's called an asylum. My sister and I move into the barn, but during the day we work in the asylum. She is an orderly, I am a cook. I shuck corn, among other things. One day not long after our arrival, my Aunt Lilah is committed. She says it's good to be home and locks herself in my mother's reproduced room. She doesn't come out for two days, so on Wednesday I take the door off its hinges and enter. I offer her some rice pudding.
“Who's she?” she squawks, then throws the pudding at the wall. "Who's she? I'm hungry!"
“I'm your nephew,” I say, but she doesn't look up.
My hair is long, so I trim it, thinking Aunt Lilah will recognize me. The next day I bring her oatmeal. “You really should eat this,” I say, but the oatmeal too, she lobs at the wall. This time, wailing, “That hair! That hair!”
I shave my head and collect the clippings in an envelope, lick the seal, and place it on a tray. Newly bald, I bring Aunt Lilah a bowl of apple sauce alongside my hair. She flings the sauce on the wall, onto the collage of dried pastes, then shreds the envelope. The strands of hair disperse, waft to the bed and the floor like cotton wisps.
“I'll have what she's having,” she whispers, done with her tantrum. I throw my hands up and turn to retreat, when I see the figure: the statue of the Virgin Mary, hidden behind the door. She stares at us reproachfully, her pitch black hair silhouetting an ivory face, and in her mottled hands, a bowl of mashed potatoes steams.
John Stadler lives in Boulder, where he finished his MFA in May at the University of Colorado. He currently teaches composition at some college in town. Rad. John's fiction has appeared in The American Drivel Review, Bound Off, Dogzplot, and Spring Gun Press.
