The Dead Man has grubby fingernails. Holds a pencil in a way that is awkward, unrefined. Anyway, what would you write, Dead Man? What story would you tell? Holds the pencil in the same way he held a cigarette he smoked in the shade at the back of the apartment parking lot with his friends when he was 11. Smoked it quickly, like it was a race or a problem to be solved. Down to the filter. Thought he would impress Marita, his friend’s older sister, who was there with them, not realising she would have been more impressed if he hadn’t smoked at all. Instead, for her, he was one of the crowd, his name not one she would remember if mentioned to her today. He smoked it quickly but was still spotted by Mrs. Ribas, who his mother had tea with every Wednesday, in her apartment crowded with dolls. Couches and tables and benchtops covered in them, collecting dust. She would almost certainly tell his mother what she had witnessed. He was sick for the next three days, afraid to sleep because he was afraid he would die. Maybe it was the cigarette, maybe it was the fear of his parents finding out what he had done. Maybe, Dead Man, you would write about how the smoke burned your throat each time you inhaled. Or, Dead Man, you would write about your feelings – but those had in life or, now, in death? The pain of loss, that sick feeling, like an elbow pressing on your stomach. Airways tight, sinuses tingling. Or you would sketch a bird and not write a single thing. One bird. Not a bird that exists in the real world, one of the imagination, a thing with wings, a head and some legs. Then a daffodil. Then a fish inside a box. 

…

Tristan Foster is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He is the author of two books, the short story collection Letter to the Author of the Letter to the Father and 926 Years with Kyle Coma-Thompson. Midnight Grotesques, with Michelle Lynn Dyrness, is forthcoming from Sublunary Editions.