Before
the bomb shattered the building, anointing the protestors’ heads with a cascade of glass, & expunging all physical proof we ever had the body,
our
diamond-tipped scalpels parted the seams of the creature’s carapace to access the organ hiding behind the thyroid: a gordian tangle of muscle & high-tension strings
which
—had the thing not collided with an airliner—would have allowed the angel to speak to everyone on Earth. Not to us as we know ourselves, but to those dormant things
under
our skins that squirm and rustle & bide their time, & wait for us to sleep, so they can see the world through eyelids we assume are shut.
| Jonathan Louis Duckworth is a completely normal, entirely human person with the right number of heads and everything. He received his MFA from Florida International University and his PhD from University of North Texas. He is the author of Have You Seen the Moon Tonight? & Other Rumors (JournalStone Publishing) and his speculative fiction work appears in Pseudopod, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Southwest Review, and elsewhere. He is an active HWA member. |  |