• archers fire


    1


    We knew you wanted in.


    We saw you before you ever took a step in your travels. You were an infant, hardly able to crawl, and yet you were already coming for us…


    The town was ready. The town was waiting.


    Guards stood with bows drawn, awaiting the order to fire.


    We wrote rules for every inhabitant. Warnings to live by. They were never enough for those who longed.


    In the pale nights, when wills and indiscretions met, you appeared. Far away. Watching.


    The days were long.


    The archers never lowered their bows.


    The elders hid in the mountaintops.


    We stood watch below.


    You inched closer.


    Only a few steps at a time.


    The more visible you became, the less fear we felt.


    With our guard lowered, you made your move.


    You slipped beneath our noses with a ruse so seductive.


    You were helpless.


    You were lonely.


    Yet with a weakened smile, you offered to steal the air from every liar in town, suffocating them until we discovered who truly meant the word love.


    No dances with adultery.


    No feasts with thieves.


    Who could say no?


    You fooled us.


    The gates opened.


    In you came.


    Around campfires we celebrated you. The living danced and praised your name. You listened to tattered elegies while ghosts of old drifted by, humming through the air with a lightness I could almost feel.


    That frail smile still clinging to you, you sighed with a hidden resentment none of us cared to admit.


    At midnight, when the elders descended from the mountains, you cast aside the mask you had worn so faithfully.


    You watched our joy become fear.


    That’s when your smile became real.


    You changed within our walls, growing from something so small into a giant silhouette that housed our long-buried horrors.


    White skin wrapped in black cloth.


    In your eyes I saw the worst of the world.


    Decayed bodies beneath rubble.


    Children burned alive.


    We froze in fear.


    No orders were given.


    Only eyes trapped inside your own.


    You became the lie.


    The ghost.


    Then you burned the village.


    You burned our home.


    Those who had once been our heroes bowed before you, praying you would spare them.


    You didn’t.


    The fires climbed higher.


    Bodies piled.


    Skin melted.


    Screams filled the air, now cold and hollow.


    You wept with joy at our dolor.


    Then turned away in disdain.


    It was your crowning achievement.


    Perfection.


    With one minuscule mistake.


    The tears you left behind extinguished just enough of the flames.


    Beneath burning beams and charred bones, a horse dug with his nose, searching for pulses or muffled cries.


    Day after day.


    Night after night.


    Until he found one heart still beating beneath the rubble.


    Mine.


    The horse was so black.


    So beautiful.


    Made of courage you could never understand.


    He rescued me, leading me to an old creek where a waterfall filled the air with its crisp rush.


    I waited there beside him.


    Staring into the deep blue, I found my own reflection.


    Beneath the pain and sorrow, I saw something even worse.


    Disgust.


    The horse returned with another survivor.


    Then another.


    Then another.


    Soon, we had a settlement.


    We embraced.


    We mourned.


    We healed.


    We searched for somewhere to call home again.


    The others found hope in stories of rebuilding.


    I let them keep it.


    I wear a mask now, just as you once did.


    It smiles.


    It nods.


    Beneath the facade, anger kept my hands clenched.


    I whisper the same two words, over and over.


    Archers fire.


    ⸻


    2


    Time vanishes invisibly. Only when we bore the faintest resemblance to life did I realize it had taken ages to get there.


    Young became elders.


    Elders became dust.


    As the seasons changed, so too did they.


    I kept riding the horse, refusing to grow old along the way. My hair no grayer, my bones still fresh. I would defy time until you returned…


    Hope became fear.


    Fear became despair.


    The cycle repeated like a snake swallowing its own tail.


    Soon I had built a castle from the disappointments you gifted me.


    When it grew large enough to slip into your reverie, I summoned soldiers from their longing.


    They waited for you.


    Through a cold winter, you never came.


    I prayed inside circles and hexagons traced in dust.


    I begged.


    I offered my soul.


    When it became clear that no one cared to hear my pleas, I found a rope.


    I kissed the children of our town goodbye, they none the wiser, and walked toward the end.


    I found an old tree. Sturdy and wide.


    Accepting that I should have remained beneath the flames and rubble, I slung the rope toward the darkest branch.


    But freezing hands don’t tie the tightest knots.


    In another cruel betrayal, the knot loosened.


    I fell from the tree.


    Knees bloodied.


    But alive.


    You won again.


    Without ever appearing.


    I cursed the sky, spending the last of my contempt in defiance when, like a ship approaching the drowning,


    there he was again.


    My horse.


    His brown eyes still woke the deadest hearts.


    Older now.


    Slower.


    His joints ached in the rain and snow.


    Sleep lingered longer than it once had.


    Yet one look from him could still warm the coldest blood.


    I searched deep within his eyes and, much like the creek before, saw something I didn’t want to see.


    Disappointment.


    Then he showed me the world I had begged so long for.


    A bright sky surrendered to blackened rain as it pelted the earth, announcing your arrival.


    You waited afar, shifting shapes and feeding on ignorance.


    You told stories of virtues you’d never possess while the founders nodded in hopeless delight.


    But I’d be behind them.


    Watching.


    Knowing.


    I’d let you come closer.


    Reveal yourself beneath the lanterns.


    Only then would I raise the drawbridge.


    I’d let you cross the moat.


    I’d watch you trample the closing gate and slip beneath the portcullis.


    Maybe you’d recognize the ignorance stretched across my face.


    But this time,


    it would be my disguise.


    I let you come here.


    I let you get close.


    Make yourself big.


    Grasp the moon in your hands.


    Reach for me.


    Ready.


    Aim.


    Archers fire.


    Aim for the golden plate where the heart doesn’t beat.


    Watch it fall to the ground and burn alongside you.


    I’ll lower a few tears toward you, as you once did us, letting them stop just short of extinguishing the flames you’ve become.


    It’s beautiful.


    But it is only a vision.


    When I pull away from those unfeigned brown eyes,


    I’m no wiser.


    No happier.


    But no longer alone.


    His black coat brightens even the worst of nights.


    He still has a few journeys left.


    He just needs someone beside him.


    So I pull myself from the ground


    and become his captain,


    as he becomes mine.


    We ride.


    We rescue others.


    We seek nothing and everything.


    We see the ocean for the first time.


    Looking into its endlessness, I begin to understand it.


    As he sleeps, I rest beside him, running my hand through his worn coat, and decide, at last, to grow old with him.


    There is a happiness hidden somewhere inside change.


    The waves rush toward our feet,


    always stopping just short.


    When he wakes,


    my hair is gray.


    My bones ache and creak like old floorboards.


    And somewhere between snow-capped mountains and endless summers,


    I forget all about you.


    When we return home, the drawbridges open in celebration.


    There is no despair here.


    Only safety.


    The children I once bid farewell rush toward us—not so small anymore, but still innocent.


    After we share a great many tales and toast those who choose to wander into their own travels, one of them asks whether I ever encountered you.


    I don’t answer.


    Instead, I take his hands and place them against the horse.


    We smile together.


    I look into those old brown eyes again.


    The disappointment is gone.

  • beneath the glass ceiling

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    1

    Do you hear that? No, not that. That.

    The humming laughter. It buzzsaws through the airless night. Windows tremble beneath it. Car sirens go off. There’s a tiny crack in the floor now that wasn’t there previously.

    I can’t believe you don’t hear it.

    Do you see that? No, not that. That.

    Swinging glasses ricochet off one another. Champagne creates little waves within flutes. Potboiler words are exchanged beneath the guise of prosperity. Tuxedo tails drift by. Mannequin-shaped beings approach me. Wild boutonnières and dresses stitched from impossible colors pass with no definition beneath them.

    I can’t believe you don’t see any of this.

    This house. It’s all glass. The ceiling, the four walls, the floor.

    It’s not a home.

    It’s a giant window.

    You’re as much a part of the soirée standing inside it as you are driving past it. No more a guest than the cars drifting by outside.

    There’s a buffet table where the crowd gathers and moves from dish to dish with robotic synchronization. Each one, a plate in one hand, takes the same fare in the exact same serving sizes. So precise there mustn’t be a pulse inside any of them.

    I walk past it.

    The window behind overlooks an ocean. A gray early evening hangs over the water. Rain dissolves into the sea, but none of it stops by the window.

    I wonder why.

    I turn to point it out to you, but where are you?

    A thump reverberates through the room.

    Just another champagne bottle being opened.

    I cringe.

    Wild applause follows.

    My eyes close in a wince.

    2

    Have you ever seen lightning through the roof of a home?

    I have.

    It wanders from wall to wall, ceiling to ocean, ocean to street. Each flash feels like a thousand cameras turning at once, desperate to photograph the room from a different angle.

    The storm wants in.

    And I want out.

    I pass a latrine with glass walls. A thin transparent cloth does little to disguise the absence of modesty within. Men kneel at glass counters, some with rolled dollar bills, others with cocktail straws.

    A privy sits occupied in plain view.

    A woman lies passed out, slumped upon it while her five-inch heels dig deeper and deeper into the transparent floor below.

    Thunder roars outside.

    Cigarettes are lit.

    One of them nearly flicks a match at me. When I turn my brow upward in response, I finally see you again.

    Just beyond his shoulder.

    Your head tilted toward the ceiling.

    I approach and place a hand on your lower back.

    You don’t speak.

    You don’t move.

    You don’t react.

    You continue staring upward.

    Betwixt one of the square panes and the outside air above rests a tiny imperfection in the glass. No more than two or three inches of discoloration or a scratch.

    Yet you’re completely fixated upon it.

    I call your name.

    I snap my fingers.

    I wave my hand before your blinking eyes.

    There’s no one there anymore.

    Your neck muscles tighten.

    Nothing breaks your stare.

    This is your meaning now.

    “Goodbye.”

    3

    Trumpet notes erupt from somewhere.

    They’re so loud I cannot determine the direction.

    People cheer and, as one collective, surge toward the east side of the room.

    A grandiose cake is wheeled out. Candle flames dance above it. Slices are handed to grasping hands by a man in another tuxedo, distinguished only by the enormous white chef’s hat resting on his head.

    Through a chain of passing hands, a slice eventually reaches my hands.

    Hunger gets the better of me.

    I take the accompanying fork and begin to cut a bite.

    It’s not cake.

    It’s nothing more than a plastic decoration resting on a clear plate.

    No different from the staged coffee spills and condiment stains displayed in furniture showrooms to demonstrate how easily a fabric can be cleaned.

    I pick it up, turn it, and realize it’s hollow underneath. Nothing there. Just plastic.

    Why, then, are the rest of them able to cut tiny slices from it and eat?

    I set my plate on the ground and notice it.

    Maybe it was the laughter.

    The champagne cork.

    The applause.

    The woman’s heel in the bathroom.

    The trumpet notes and the stampede that followed.

    Whatever the cause, the tiny crack in the floor grew.

    It divided like a lonely highway through the various panes of glass until a hole large enough to walk through appeared in the center of the room.

    The mannequins finish their cake and coordinate once again.

    In one brief blink, phones fill their hands as they collect snapshots of the night.

    Content, one walks absentmindedly toward the opening.

    He falls straight through and vanishes from sight.

    Another follows.

    And another.

    Then a couple.

    A glowing screen occupies one hand. The other holds each other.

    They fall too.

    Watching them descend, I notice they don’t seem to notice.

    Their faces remain fixed upon the worlds they carry with them. Smiles emerge from some. Carefully practiced expressions from others.

    I wonder if they’ll realize it before they reach the ground.

    One final time, I look back at you.

    Your head remains tilted toward the sky.

    Still studying that tiny flaw in the ceiling.

    I point toward the growing fracture beneath your feet.

    “Can you see that?”

    Your delicate hand rises and points upward.

    “No. Not that. That!” I shout.

    As I watch the crack spread slowly around you.

    written by dustin glackin

  • 41.9064° N, 87.6593° W