Free Entry 1, Week 8

A knife punched the side of his stomach where normally
only pushpins do their work against the softer lining
of a used-to-be-strong digestive system. Nothing too unusual,
not exceptionally out of the ordinary for a man on disability
with only a wife at home to press her cold hands against
the quiet, softening pain: like tenderizing meat, his stomach.
The sun went down to white covering everything outside his
window, frosted like his favorite cereal, which in this case
was not so "Grrrrrreat." No food or shelter in such cold;
perhaps his own case would turn cold like his favorite TV show
and his name would appear among the cast, their hands on
their hearts as they salute the man he used to be, but can't
be anymore, due only in part to that knife that won't leave.
My husband is dying! he hears her shout to no one; the line
of the phone was cut centuries ago, just like the broken heat.
Baby, she whispers, hoping he'll open his eyes. The amb-a-lance
is outside, but we gotta walk to it. You gotta get up now.
He shakes his head, swatting the vultures already flying above him
and praying that they'll wait to start feasting on
his already twisted, knotted flesh that lays against bone.
He watched light turn ribbons over the snow, like he saw his daughter
do that one time when she was five, dancing in the front yard with her
purple ribbon-dance-kit, smiling as she flipped it into shapes
that she thought would catch the eye of a potential suitor, a mating
dance. He blew the ribbon southward and leaned his head back, gripping
the knife still sitting in his side and tearing it from its perch.
They killed my husband, was the last thing he heard.