Something Inside Us Rises Up
“0094” by EJ Bowman
Out on the gravel road that T-bones the highway, we drop our tailgates. Watch the chicken trucks rumble past.
We sip Cherry Limeades, brush French fry salt from our bare legs. The boys devour their sandwiches in three bites, smack their lips. We laugh high and long, wrestle them so we can grab their sun-warmed arms.
White feathers catch and ride the wind when the trucks roar by. They snag in the scrub along the ditch and come to rest in the truck beds and by the tires. We search for the unblemished feathers, glossy and white as sugar, and tuck them in our ponytails.
The boys tangle their thick fingers in our chicken-feather hair. Pull us close. We try to outdo each other with the places we’ll move to one day: Bahamas or California, live on the beach; Montana, become fishing guides and live in big log cabins. Anywhere but here.
Our voices trail off.
We change the subject, shout our bets as more hawks line up equidistant along the powerlines. So still. Like statues.
If we sit long enough, a chicken or two will escape its cage as a truck speeds past, its chicken-tumble flight taking it just high enough, just far enough, to land in the ditch or the edge of the farmer’s field.
They always flail around a little in the weeds and water grass, then start pecking at the dirt like nothing ever happened. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear the chickens had always lived by the side of the highway.
Our eyes lock onto the hawks.
We hold our breath.
Then, just like that, a hawk pitches forward. Nosedives. A hoarse scream as it rights itself and the talons extend.
Something inside us rises up. We cheer and fist bump.
If you didn’t know better, you’d swear we didn’t understand the chickens’ side of the story.
About the author
L. Mari Harris’ stories have been chosen for the Wigleaf Top 50 and Best Microfiction. She lives in the Ozarks. Follow her @LMariHarris and read more of her work at lmariharris.wordpress.com."
about the artist
EJ Bowman teaches music and English, and is the author of several curricula for high school literature. She was a finalist for both the DeBiase Poetry Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Choice Award; she was also longlisted for the Exeter Short Story Award. Other publications include Literatus, The Comstock Review, Anthrow Circus, and Humans of the World. She is moving to NYC this summer to pursue her MFA in Non-Fiction at Columbia University, and her photography recently won the London Photo Festival.