Bad Things Happen by Kris Bertin

Author:Kris Bertin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2016-03-04T22:20:20+00:00

Eventually I ask her. If god’s a real guy, could you go where he lives? And get there without having to die?

Maybe through prayer, she says.

I think if someone else had said it to me, it might’ve seemed like a bullshit answer. Like maybe you need to change the way your mind works, I half-ask.

She doesn’t really answer, but I wasn’t really asking her anyway.

In the hallway, Jamie says he heard a snap in my apartment.

We go in, and the trap near the radiator is upside down, blood sprayed on the metal.

I turn it over and there he is, at peace. One of his little pink hands is curled into a ball, the other has a couple little fingers raised.

Looks like he’s asking us a question, Jamie says, and he’s right. The expression on its little brown face is genuinely inquisitive, searching our huge faces for some kind of answer.

It’s maybe the first nice day of spring that I wake up to an alarm. And on top of that there’s a different sound—a pitter-patter kind of splattering sound. When I get dressed and go into the living room there’s a narrow beam of rusty water dribbling out of the sprinkler. There’s no clear indication of what’s actually happening, but I get dressed anyway. I take a minute to think about what I should try to save incase there actually is a fire, and all I can think to take is the paper skeleton I’m making Jamie for science class. It doesn’t have all two hundred and six bones, but it has the ones that count. It has little brass fasteners and can fold up.

Everyone’s in the courtyard, looking up at the building, but it doesn’t seem to be on fire. Jamie is there with his mom, clutching his Xbox. He’s telling his mother he forgot his other controllers, but she says she doesn’t care. She’s trying to squint at the building, figure out if it’s on fire or not.

And my games, he says. Then he looks at me and repeats it, so I give him the skeleton.

He looks at it, says thank you, then shows it to his mother.

Eventually the landlord comes down, out of breath. He’s followed by Michelle, wheeling forward Mrs. Tremblay, who’s draped in white blankets like a bride. I don’t think any of us have seen her before, or at least it seems that way, because everyone’s looking at her. She takes up all our focus, like she’s even bigger than the apartment building.

Her skin looks smooth and soft, and her hair is long, almost down to her waist. She looks tired, her head tilted to one side like it’s heavy. But she’s beautiful. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in maybe my whole life. I realize I’m surprised that something like her was here, all along, just a few flights of stairs separating her and me.

Michelle tells us it’s okay, everything’s going to be okay, but it sounds like it’s coming from Mrs. Tremblay, speaking without moving her mouth, speaking directly into my mind.

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