Fistful of Feet by Jordan Krall

Author:Jordan Krall [Krall, Jordan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0100-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

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Calamaro tried closing his eyes but couldn’t. He attempted to spit the shoe out of his mouth but that proved to be impossible, too. The high heel was practically down his throat. From the taste and texture of it, he knew which shoe it was.

113

JORDAN KRALL

It was the one he had gotten off that woman in Philadelphia. She had not wanted to give him the shoe at first but after he used his charm as well as some money, the woman agreed. It was a nice shoe, Calamaro thought. It still had her sweat stains on it. He thought that if he wasn’t buried up to his neck with cactus needles stuck in his eyelids, he would’ve enjoyed having the shoe stuck in his mouth.

What worried him was that he had swallowed whatever it was that Lyons had forced down his throat. It tasted sweet and gritty like fruit juice. Calamaro knew that it wasn’t an ordinary drink. His head tingled and he began seeing things, hearing things, and feeling things tickling his scalp.

There were millions of scorpions gathered in front of him, organized in lines like soldiers. It reminded him of the war and how all those boys lined up with their weapons thinking it was some sort of game that they’d walk away from.

Hadn’t they known that there was a better chance that they’d be killed where they stood? No, they didn’t even stop to think about that. That’s why he chose not to get involved. There was no honor or dignity in dying a soldier’s death.

The scorpions flexed their tails, their stingers looking wet and sharp. He saw one huge scorpion in the crowd that had two tails. He thought that was strange. Whoever heard of a scorpion with two tails? Calamaro tried walking towards it but then remembered that his body was under the ground.

There was no way he could move.

Then the scorpion with two tails cracked open like an egg and a tiny woman crawled out.

The woman was carrying an umbrella that rapidly changed colors. Calamaro wondered why the woman was carrying it since it wasn’t even raining. Then he remembered that sometimes women carried umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun. But didn’t some women carry an umbrella so they could twirl it around and catch the eyes of men?

The tiny woman stared at Calamaro and then started 114

FISTFUL OF FEET

stabbing each and every scorpion with the sharp point of her umbrella. It was a slaughter. None of the scorpions fought back, as if they were willing to die at the hand of that tiny woman who was birthed from the body of one of their brethren.

Calamaro felt a tinge of sorrow for the things but knew that it was simply nature taking its course.

When the tiny woman was finished killing all of the scorpions, she stood in front of Calamaro and spoke. Her voice was high pitched like the squeaking of a wheel.

“I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly,” she said.

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