The Dark Issue 11 by The Dark Magazine

Author:The Dark Magazine [The Dark Magazine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: dark fantasy, fantasy, horror, magazine
Publisher: TDM Press
Published: 2016-02-03T20:22:11+00:00

Amber van Dyk’s work has appeared in a variety of places, both online and in print, including but not limited to: Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, The Fortean Bureau, Alchemy, Fantasy Magazine, Rabid Transit: Petting Zoo and ChiZine. She has also received a number of honourable mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.

Between Dry Ribs

by Gregory Norman Bossert

I wipe the drop of sweat from my eyebrow, shift my stool so I can watch the American family in the mirror behind the bar. Most of the tourists who wander here from the Dutch side of the island choose to sit on the patio. Most tourists chose another place entirely; the Belle Vue caters to the folks who work in the tiny industrial park on the outskirts of Marigot, and its view is of a warehouse and the parking lot of the health clinic, with a few palm trees hanging limp and listless in the swelter.

But this family insists on sitting inside. “Out of the sun,” the father says, tipping back a soggy golf cap. His paunch frames a ring of belly sweat on his pink polo shirt. The mother fans herself with one of those cap-less visors; the sunburnt skin between her shoulder blades creases, channeling a slow stream of perspiration under her halter top to pool in the small of her back. A boy, around ten I guess, slumps in a basketball jersey with arm holes that hang to bony hips. A girl, a few years older, perches in her chair prodding her phone, she and her brother both with the oblivious perfection of privileged children.

Or is their disregard too studied, too perfect? I fish the lighter from my pocket and set it on the bar.

“Voilà, Mademoiselle,” the bartender says, startling me. “Nous avons enfin obtenu quelques glaçons.” He slips a napkin across the bar, sets my rum and ginger ale on it. The sweat on his arm is an even sheen, the dark gloss of a lifelong resident.

My fingers are pale in comparison, despite my five years on Saint Martin, despite my Senegalese mother, despite my need to blend in. Too much Parisian grey in my skin, too much smog and concrete, too many long low-angled shadows and twilight on the snow I must not think of. My arms are unevenly burnt and flabby and sweat-streaked and wholly beautiful.

At least the bartender is speaking to me in French. Behind me, the American family is getting drinks, the waiter explaining in patient English that ice cubes are coming. I am sure I look native to their eyes, a slow local in this slow local bar that is far too busy for my peace of mind. All of Marigot is too busy for me, sleepy though it is compared to the Dutch side. Too many strange faces, too many odd accents. But the bartender’s French, the unmistakable island lilt, the distant hint of my mother’s creole on his tongue, is reassurance.

In the mirror, the parents are studying the menu in a sort of baffled dread.

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