I can fit her in that box, I said.
No reply.
What if we just left her here? What are the odds we would be caught?
No reply.
Are you going to help at all? I yelled. I slowly slide the panties back up her legs and over her thighs. The baby birds surrounded by solid pink we wrapped tight and snuggled in the tropics around her pussy.
He finally spoke. Let’s burn the house down. His voice a smoker’s cough in church.
Now we’re talking.
I put her hair back over her eyes. I hate that stare they give, so cold, nothing to add or contribute anymore, the remains of a once great meal that fades into the forgotten memory with each passing moment.
I have matches.
That’s good. He zipped up, put on his jacket. He stared at that box.
I want to burn that too, I said.
Fuck it. Fine let’s burn it all. We’ve been devils now lets be gods and wipe the slate clean. He poured some lighter fluid over her. It was her last bath.
He picked up the shovel. I lit a match and let it drop as we went up the stairs.
The fire was slow to grow. The clock spun and we sat outside in the tender line of the forest and drank as the flames slowly climbed the house. Four beers in by the time the flames met the kitchen. If you die in a fire you are either crippled or deserve it, I said.
No reply.
The branches hummed a melody when the smoke rose up their spines. It sounded like How Great Thou Art was creaking out of the woods for all the creatures hidden to hear.
The smoke left the trees and greeted the clouds.
A whisper remained.
Copyright 2009
Author's Bio: Matt DeBenedictis has never hit a handicapped person in a fight. Fuck what you heard. Your friends speak in riddles with no truths. Matt has had writing featured in Lamination Colony, The Legendary, Shine, Ampersand Review, and blogs at outthrowingroses.blogspot.com. He is a writer for the metal site Noise Creep.
