After dinner, I\u2019m cleaning dishes. There\u2019s a witch in the backyard burying something in the garden\u2014probably someone\u2019s heart\u2014when my children start screaming and biting each other in the basement. It\u2019s not long before they\u2019re in the kitchen, my children, with red semicircles up and down their arms, arguing and soliciting punishments for each other, which I\u2018m wont to officiate. The next morning, or maybe it\u2019s early afternoon, I take notice of the birds on the shed\u2014crows and vultures\u2014as my dog runs, spinning circles and barking in the yard. It\u2019s clear from her legs, muddy up to her chest, the dog\u2019s been digging in the garden, and she\u2019s unearthed something, a large bag of some kind. Upon closer inspection, it\u2019s probably a human torso, free of everything but an arm. The dog\u2019s excited by my attention and grabs the arm at the wrist, dragging at the body\u2014she wants to play\u2014but it\u2019s too large. It\u2019s a small hassle shooing the dog away from the body, but once she\u2019s free of it, I rise to see the charcoal witch standing at the fence of a neighbor\u2019s yard, three houses down, watching me. I wave and abruptly return inside with the dog, dragging her by the collar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A week later I\u2019m at the Target looking for mouthguards for my children when I see her again, or I think it\u2019s her, crouched down and sorting through some small animal traps and rat poison. She\u2019s wearing a red-colored shirt and khakis, her grey-black hair tucked awkwardly into the neck of her shirt, and she smells like ash. She catches my eye briefly and begins following me around the store as if I\u2019ve stolen something and I leave without the mouthguards or the prescription I was supposed to pick up for my wife.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next morning, as I\u2019m shuffling to get the children into the car for school, I spot an owl carcass on the roof of our home. My children don\u2019t notice it, and I don\u2019t say anything, but as I\u2019m backing the van out of the driveway, I look at the bird, bigger than I\u2019d have guessed, crumpled among common debris from the overhanging trees. I catch myself talking under my breath and refocus on driving, it\u2019s nothing, and we continue up the street, back on task, but turning the corner we approach and pass a dark-haired woman walking in front of us on the sidewalk\u2014the witch\u2014and I look steadily ahead to avoid the chance of eye contact. The drive progresses poorly, for me, unable to shake another appearance of the witch, while the children struggle and gnaw at their seatbelts. Preoccupied, as I\u2019m dropping off the second child, Goodbye, I love you, the witch enters the backseat of the car from the opposite side. She sits silently behind me and I hesitate before I begin driving again, but I begin driving again, because there are parents dropping off children behind me and I need to keep the line of cars moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t say anything and the witch doesn\u2019t say anything. The car is thick with the smell of mud and burning. It\u2019s a few minutes before I pull into a gas station and abandon the car with the witch inside. It\u2019s cold and I haven\u2019t dressed for the weather, but I trek back, past a shopping district and through our neighborhood, my knuckles red as I finally arrive at our home. The owl remains taunt me from the rooftop. I find my wife, she\u2019s just had a bath, and I tell her that I\u2019m being stalked by a witch. She tells me to get over myself, leave the witch alone, everyone\u2019s seeing witches these days, and they\u2019re probably not even witches. I consider this possibility for a moment and feel a little guilty for calling the charcoal woman a witch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Did you see the torso in the backyard? I counter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No, she says, is it still out there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t think so, I concede.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, later that afternoon, I bundle up and walk back to the gas station, where I find my car. The woman, possibly a witch, is no longer in the back seat. I fill up the car with gas and pickup my children from their respective schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Weeks pass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The children bite each other and the furniture in the house less frequently. I encounter various dead animals in the yard, but not enough to cause alarm. The dog is muddy, but manageably so. I go to the Target to pick up cheap fruit, prescriptions, and various plastic items. There\u2019s a wooded area near the Target, just beyond the parking lot, and as I\u2019m returning to my car I think I\u2019ve seen something moving in the woods. I enter my car and slowly drive the perimeter of the lot, before exiting, and glimpse again, I think, a woman dragging something heavy through the trees. She leans, shuffling backwards as she pulls. Could it be the witch? Is it a body she\u2019s dragging?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m idling in the car at the edge of the parking lot, well after she\u2019s out of view, I\u2019m not sure why, until I make a decision that I can\u2019t explain: Slowly I roll up over the curb and into the forested area in my car. I proceed gingerly atop the soft earth and yellowed grass, navigating between the trees, sideways across a small hill, and then slowly down into a gulley. The heater\u2019s running and I can hear the grass fold under the car. It\u2019s cloudy grey outside, that off-dark period just before nightfall, and I find myself unable to proceed through the trees any further. It doesn\u2019t matter. There\u2019s no one out here. It\u2019s been a hard year, I think to myself, what does it matter? I really am tired and I don\u2019t care anymore, how did I ever care this much in the first place? I lean my face against the window and wish for sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
________<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nick Francis Potter is the author of <\/em>New Animals (Subito Press) and <\/em>Big Gorgeous Jazz Machine (Driftwood Press). He teaches writing, comics, and video games courses at The University of Missouri.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After dinner, I\u2019m cleaning dishes. There\u2019s a witch in the backyard burying something in the garden\u2014probably someone\u2019s heart\u2014when my children start screaming and biting each […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1622,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hexliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}