Escapism
Ten, maybe eleven, pigeons sit inside a crater in the Arizona flatland. Their
wings gently stretch the empty pocket walls, splitting seeds, the hock-joint-
ed boys club. A rabbit passes by and they screech before realizing it’s just a
man singing a song about one.
An orange ranch home south of the cavity claims to be an Andy Warhol
museum. The television loops a videotape of people trying on wigs. A greasy
tarantula holds my hand like a child and asks for a drink of water.
The shrine underneath the sink holds a candle inside a bucket. Hot light-
ning hits the roof and it all goes dark. Her rumble waves the room like a
wild white flag. The owner wasn’t home. I slept in his bed.
With no warning, the tenth pigeon explodes into a pile of feathers and
twigs. The remaining nine or ten pigeons take turns gnawing at his bones.
The savory beak. He is little more than a withered European mouth in the
dirt. How does that protest music go again?
The dusty Southwest rips through my window like a suicidal blue jay.
My plucky hands tremble, oily with bile. The window slams dark in shame. I
stretch myself flat against the spoiled carpet. It’ll be days before anyone
notices.
Mitchell Angelo is a creative writing major at SUNY Purchase College, and the managing editor of Gutter Mag. His work has previously appeared in Gandy Dancer, Paintbucket.page, and The Westchester Review. His microwave is haunted.