Ceremony of Flies by Kate Jonez

Author:Kate Jonez
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: DarkFuse
Published: 2014-07-07T23:00:00+00:00

7

I open my eyes and I can feel the sun burning through the fabric of my jeans and toasting my thigh. I sit up with a start. Rex pulls his arm back and chuckles. “Good morning.” His laugh sounds kind of like he’s forcing it. Not much to laugh about, I remember, as I fully wake up.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, rolling over the desert like a bowling ball flung down an alley. I wait for the crash and the fall of pins.

It doesn’t come.

There’s a damp spot on Rex’s chest where I drooled on him. He doesn’t say anything about it.

“What time is it?” I look at the dash.

“Don’t know.” He looks up at the sky. “One o’clock or so I’d say.”

“One o’clock in the afternoon!” I feel woozy like I’ve been drinking. But I haven’t. I’m sure I haven’t.

There are clouds gathering overhead but they don’t block the sun. It doesn’t rain in the desert as far as I know. Why bother with clouds?

“Did you know the Mayans had a calendar that was hundreds of times more sophisticated than ours,” Rex asks with a look on his face like he’s ready to tell me all about it.

“I did know that. I saw a documentary, maybe two. I’m a regular scholar on the topic.”

I should have tried harder like my white parents said. I could have probably gone to college. I was good enough in music to get a scholarship to somewhere interesting. Not that I needed one. My parents would have paid. I get a melancholy feeling at the thought even though I hated school when I was there. I could have probably made some different choices. Made something more of myself.

Rex’s eyes look kind of weary. He reaches under the dashboard and wiggles a wire or something when the car makes a strange noise. “Did your documentaries tell you that they predicted the end of the world?”

“Yeah, they mentioned it.”

I just woke up, dude. Give me a fucking break with the news updates.

I twist around and look in the backseat. The boy is stretched out with his head lying on the photo of the old lady. His mouth hangs open and a fly buzzes around his lips. It’s joined by a second that skitters out of his mouth.

“Close your mouth, Harvey,” I say. “Or the flies will get in.”

Or out as the case may be. Kids are gross.

He doesn’t move.

The dog is curled up beside him. It’s completely hairless except for a tuft of white hair on the crown of its head. It is a seriously ugly beast. The boy looks sweaty and the sun’s hitting him right in the face.

“We’ve got to put the top up,” I say.

I feel sick like I slept through Christmas. When I was a kid, I didn’t think the sun would come up if I wasn’t awake to make it happen. I’ve never been much of a sleeper. And now when the darkness is worse than it’s ever been, I’ve missed hours and hours of light.

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