Flash Abecedarians by Allison Field Bell
Buried in the Backyard
Cats. Dog. Every fish she couldn’t flush. Forget about the fish, girl, her mother says. Girls should not concern themselves with fish, almost a woman grown and still you measure salinity, scrape algae. Half your friends will hate you, will tug at your loose cotton shirts and say you smell ugly like fish, like sea. Inside an aquarium is somewhat like sea: it is the kind of noise that creates silence. Just stand there and fold in half and let it swallow you, fifty-five gallons of salt and water and living rock. Kids will be kids is what her mother says. Like a girl needs a reason to do a thing she loves. Mother, she should say, once upon a time there was me: a girl in a tree fort. Mother, remember the little girl in the tree fort? Never tell nobody. Of all the fish in the fifty-five gallons, the girl will always love the non-fish best. Purple Brittle Sea Stars. Questing over rock and sand, ready all the time to push out the pillow of their insides, their stomach with its acid trap. Really, mothers should be grateful for you, girl! Silly ideas about actressing and marrying and driving pink jeeps with nice sound systems—these do not occur to you. The thing that occurs is science, sea, a wetsuit to cover every surface of skin. Underwater the wetsuit is the skin: sealed, warm, private. Very unlike the other girls who are in love with skin—always shaving it, painting it, pulling at it, angry they were born with too much or too little, too dark or too light. What if mothers all along wanted dolls not daughters? Exceptionally life-like. This girl’s mother might prefer a doll, moving in its good little way from nail polish to volleyball. Zipped into a wetsuit she might become her own doll, brittle feet buried in sea sand. Always the smaller living things, invisible, secret, will flee from her, from you, girl.
Considering Your Age
Delivering a creek-found cow skull is unexpected. Every summer there is something to find in the creek—a plastic bag like a dismembered jellyfish, a twisted metal piece of railroad, coins, rocks, a misplaced sandal. For ten years, she’s camped at the place under the redwoods along the creek with her family and two friends—both the girl and her brother bring one each. Granted the friend is approved by the family, they can select anyone they choose. Have a little decency, her mother is saying of the cow skull to the girl and the girl’s friend who carried half the skull. It’s a heavy bleached thing and the girl’s right arm aches from the creek-trail-campsite hike. Jack is the brother’s selected friend this year. Kindly remove the skull, her father is saying and Jack and the brother smile their older boy smiles. Little girls carry cow skulls, Jack is saying. Little girls dig them up from creek bottoms, little girls do this, not you. Must you listen to this friend of your brother as he says creek bottoms? No. Only you cannot shut him out, shut out the sound of him, it’s trapped there—an echo in your skull. Obliterate the echo and consider the next pieces of night-camping. Pineapple turnovers for dessert around the fire, cow skull given up to the woods. Quit the fire for the tents, the boys to the boy tent, the girls to the girl tent. Roll yourself tight into your feather bag, zipped and sealed and safe. Still awake together with your friend, Natalia. Talk talk talk, girl. Understand that this is how to survive the Virgin-wanting world. Weigh the possibilities of it: truth about Jack. Extra safe zipped into bag and tent and beside friend. You are responsible for your silence, for your shame. Zero opportunity to flee. Another sound outside the tent in the dark: a streak of light and laughter, the shadow of cow skull looming and a voice you’d recognize anywhere. Bastard boys, you should yell at them. Boys being bastards, tell Natalia, girl, do not sit scared in the cow-skull shadow. But you won’t, will you? Become the shame/silence/shadow girl, allow the shame/silence/shadow, girl.
Allison Field Bell is a multi-genre writer from California. She is the author of two forthcoming collections: Bodies of Other Women (fiction, Red Hen Press) and All That Blue (poetry, Finishing Line Press). She is also the author of three chapbooks: Stitch (flash fiction, forthcoming from Chestnut Review Books), Without Woman or Body (Poetry, Finishing Line Press), and Edge of the Sea (Nonfiction, CutBank Books). Find her at allisonfieldbell.com.
Table of Contents for A Formal Feeling