Two Fictions
Eliza C. Walton

Not a Bird But a Wall

Ragged nail beds, jumpy knees, blotched red eyes and skinny dry lips: the common signs. She's as maimed as all the rest of them. You have a few you listen to.
"Not a bird. No." Studies her lap, the broken bowl there. "These bones aren't hollow. They are rocks. My soft tissue, the chinks between."

Fault

Earthy curls of salted flour, the smell of sun at work, ovens. Rosemary: a visual.
Fifty people died yesterday as in Pompeii -- though not caught mid-mouthful. Mid-anything. Abrupted, then allowed to fall. Almost as sudden, no spurting lead or flame, crust collapsed along a hidden fissure.
Deep Abruzzi red soaks into softening dried dough, scanning yahoo, tasting fennel.

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