The first and we stop, they are the lions. The lions are first. Mom and dad pull me up there, to the fence, the bars that I put my hands on. The mama lion is sleeping and the daddy is sleeping too and he yawns, this big lion, and he has dangerous teeth. His open mouth and it is big, he could swallow me, all of me. That is what dad says he says HE COULD SWALLOW ALL OF YOU IF YOU’RE NOT CAREFUL, and I don’t want to be swallowed, I don’t want to think about him this lion swallowing me with his dangerous teeth. I cover my ears. When my dad talks I sometimes cover my ears. I use the flat of my hands with my fingers out and I cover them up and I can’t, when they are covered up, hear anything.
There was green grass in our yard when he told me that if I didn’t put up my hands in front of my face like I was ready the football would crack my nose. He said THIS GODDAM FOOTBALL IS GOING TO CRACK OPEN YOUR FACE IF YOU DON’T GET YOUR HANDS UP.
And it was when the tree had broken from that windstorm we had the night before, when the house felt like it was lifting and going up, that was the same day, the next morning, when my dad said to me that my bones could break like those trees. YOUR BONES CAN BREAK LIKE THESE BRANCHES YOU KNOW. I covered my ears. When he said that, when he said I could crack my nose with a ball and my arms or legs might break like tree branches, that was another two times that I used the flat of my palms to cover my ears, my fingers laid out. That was another time I didn’t want to listen to my dad.
And too I flew a kite once and it was up and going, it was really going, and there he was, my dad. He was standing next to me and he was watching me, like we watch those lions and he didn’t say anything. I didn’t cover my ears because he didn’t say anything. I was waiting for him because he was standing there next to me, my dad, and I was thinking that he was going to say that the kite would catch the wind and would carry me into the sun, something, that it would take me to the sun and I would burn up, that I could light on fire and burn, but he didn’t. My dad didn’t say YOU ARE A FUCKING FIRE KID. He didn’t say anything. He just looked and watched me fly the kite. He watched until the kite lost the wind and did a nosedive into the yard. It was a sunny day and he just stood there, until the kite hit the ground, and then he went back in the house and slid closed the glass door.
The daddy lion closes his yawn and watches nothing. I look where he is looking and there is nothing. I thought at first that he was looking at this little girl with a red balloon, this little red with a balloon tied to her wrist and floating above her, but the lion is looking at nothing. The lion, the daddy lion, he is not looking at anything. I thought maybe that he was looking, this big lion, this daddy lion, was looking at his own reflection in the glass, but he wasn’t. I was watching him and he wasn’t looking at anything. He was just staring. The lion just looking out into nothing, both of them. I don’t think they are watching anything.
J. A. Tyler is the author of four chapbooks, three novellas, and countless stories and poems. He is the founder of mud luscious (magazine & press). He is deeply in love with the ampersand and profoundly at odds with publishing pictures of himself. He blogs here.
Story archived at http://girlswithinsurance.com/index.php/prose/flash/53-jat-0709-lions
