SUSAN TAYLOR CHEHAK

Taxidermy

PUBLISHED IN FOLIO 2024: VOL. 39.

An old man lives over down there, near the river, where they've gone and put up all those new apartments or condominiums or whatever you want to call them, high-rises climbing to the clouds to block the sun from this insignificant part of the world, on what once upon a time had been open prairie, then farmland, and after that a cramped community of simple laborers, a tract of land cut up into narrow streets, packed with those scrappy shacks that got built after the war to house the families of the workers at the plants on the other side of the river, and that rickety old footbridge offered easy access, so everybody would be able to show up and clock in on time, day or night, twenty-four hours, pumping out beef and pork and corn and wheat to feed a world that used to be a world away from here. But all that brouhaha is gone now, leaving the old man's cottage, one of the originals, the last to go, to stand its ground as best it can all on its own. Stone walls, slate roof, chimney at the rear, it sits back from the road, shaded by benevolent trees at the start, then guarded by soaring cranes, now overwhelmed by colossal buildings that rise up on all sides, where rows of lit windows twinkle overhead like stars in a painted sky, gazing down as if the cottage were no more than an empty space, a pinprick abyss in the galaxy of modernity that swirls around it on every side. Behind the stone walls that old man lies in his bed and fumes, rage simmering in his muscles, his bones, and his blood as light slips in through a window left open because now it's late summertime and it's hot the way it's always been, but what at one time were the breezes from the river now have been lost to dead air, thick and moist and settled, bringing no relief to anyone anymore. 

His creatures—for they are his creatures now, of his own making it seems, as under the artful influence of his hands and his blade they've been made more beautiful in death than they ever were in life—his creatures, with their sharpened claws, gleaming teeth and glowing eyes, they keep watch over that old man who has pulled a pillow over his head and is trying again to get some sleep, though he's old and he's not well and he's in pain, because his pills—illegally obtained from a young man in an alleyway downtown, who had a look of empathy that the old man appreciated, though it may or may not have been sincere—the pills only help a little, as out on the street someone seems to be shouting at someone else, loud laughter echoes in the alleyway, and music fills the air from afar.

And then the rains came, days and days of storms, one after the other, a threat to all the sinners, a warning for all the greedy billionaires, a message to all the thoughtless customers, the careless and the blind—doomsday, apocalypse, an immanentized eschaton, a cleansing so urgently needed, desperately dreamed of, long overdue. After two centuries, the river rose and began to break its banks, and our one hundred year flood plain was engulfed again at last. The skyscrapers went dark, sirens wailed, firetrucks and emergency vehicles roamed the streets, evacuation orders came in, megaphones bellowed: "Vacate the premises now!"

The old man struggled, but two policemen lifted him off his feet and carried him away, abandoning the astonished faces of his creatures, eyes glowing, teeth bared, claws out.

Some time has passed now, though it's hard to say how much, a week, a month, a year, and the old man spies his own reflection in a store window, closed up, battened down, a sign on the door marking the building as unsafe or condemned, or for sale, or for rent, he doesn't know which and he doesn't really understand what's happened or where he is or even who he is anymore. His home now is nothing more than an alcove off the alley, where he has a sleeping bag that's warm enough and dry enough and a bottle of something in the pocket of his coat to muffle the ache in his legs and the pain in his feet, the fire that burns beneath the surface of his chapped and grizzled skin, and he ought to stay put here, get some rest, wait for the sun to rise again, but sleep won't come and he can't keep still, so instead he wanders aimlessly through a ruined downtown, from one street onto another, or is it the same street, the same block, over and over again, it's easy to get lost, easy to become confused, as he turns a corner and looks this way and looks that way to see that he's in a better part of town now, uphill a ways, some distance from the river and the ravaged neighborhoods at its putrid banks, and here is a corner that's familiar, next door to what he thinks might once have been a candy store, he's certain he remembers that, himself a child, his mother's hand, and the quarter he was clutching in his fist. 

Light spills out onto the street from what's now a thrift shop or a pawn shop or an antique shop, and there in the window is standing one of his creatures, the magnificent black raptor with her golden beak and razor claws, as perfect in its restoration as it was in its original creation, alone and gazing back at him from behind the tinted glass. The quarter in his fist is now a brick and he lets the brick fly and the brick breaks the glass and the glass collapses with a sigh so now he's able to scramble up to take back what's his, to bring  her close, to cradle her in his arms, to kiss her and caress her until she begins to stir, until she starts to struggle against him, until a claw snags his face and he falls, until he opens his arms and releases her, until then again the sirens wail. 

And so that old man lies here now, on this back on his bed, his eyes closed, his jaw hanging open to expose the dull patina of his teeth, the pale glisten of his gums, the meaty bundle of his tongue rattling there against the back of his throat as he inhales and exhales, slowly, and we can see by the look of him now that he's going to die, that sooner than later he'll be gone. We can can pull a chair up closer to his bed to sit with him, to keep watch over him, to lean in and lay our head down on his chest, we can listen to the whistle and the hoot of his breath, the drumming of his heart, the creak and groan of his decomposing bones, we can become what he's made of us, we can live and breathe again, we can lift our wings and fly away from this place, and then maybe we will happen to be free.

Susan Taylor Chehak is the author of several novels, including The Great Disappointment, Smithereens, The Story of Annie D., and Harmony. Her most recent publications include two collections of short stories, This Is That and It’s Not About the Dog, and a novel, The Minor Apocalypse of Meena Krejci. Her stories have appeared in Bryant Literary Review, The Coachella Review, Green Hills Literary Lantern, Hawaii Pacific Review, Landlocked Magazine, The Literary Nest, The Magnolia Review, Maryland Literary Review, The Minnesota Review, Moon City Review, Nelle, Packingtown Review, Pennsylvania English, Sandpiper, Think Journal, Wrath-Bearing Tree, and others.