Special Issue #13 ISSN 1547-5957

hallway, and the whirs and beeps of the medical machines keeping his dad alive in
the bedroom.
One afternoon the nurses were downstairs, chatting with Carole, Gregory’s
mother. Gregory slipped out of bed, curious to see what his father looked like.
It looked like a vacuum had sucked out all of his father’s blood; his skin stretched
thinly across his face. Mr. Baiston’s arms, legs, and torso were all bandaged, but
blood seeped through the dressings. A blue trashbag full of blood-soaked linens
was next to the bed. Gregory stood there quivering as he stared at his father, and he
could hear faint moans. With each struggling breath, Gregory’s father whispered.
Gregory leaned close and placed his ear near his father’s mouth. With each breath,
Gregory heard a pleading cry for help.
It was too much; Gregory quietly stepped away. He needed to get back to his
own bed so that he could return to an imaginary world where these horrors didn’t
exist.
Gregory stopped with a wince. He’d stepped on glass. Gregory looked down as
he lifted up his bare bleeding foot.
Beneath it was a small pile of sand.
The next day Gregory’s mother was rushed to the hospital. She quickly fell into
the same grave condition as his father.
A feral cat used to live in the basement of Gregory’s house. She was fiercely
independent and not at all interested in being petted or fussed with. Except when
she was in the basement. Then a magical transformation took place. She would curl
up on her little bed and let Gregory stroke the fur behind her ears. Gregory had
named her Tabitha. She would crawl out from beneath a thicket of bushes on the
side of the house, then cautiously prowl up to the broken dirt-covered basement
window. She’d slink between the shards of glass then jump onto the washing
machine inside and then onto the floor where she’d arch her back and walk over to
the corner to a collection of discarded blankets. She would settle in and then gaze
up at Gregory as if saying: “I’m ready for a scratch now.”
Gregory hustled through the pine trees dragging the heavy laundry bag behind
him. It bounced and jolted every step of the way. A horrible, terrified hissing
accompanying each step. It made Gregory angry because he was so helpless; he
knocked the laundry bag against the hard tree trunks as he made his way. He
wished that it would be quiet. He wished that he’d never given it a name.
As time passed, much was explained to Gregory. He slowly settled into his
new reality and his new life. He accepted his fate. He had no choice. Robert was
patient with him. “Animals do not do the trick,” he told Gregory. “In fact, they are
an offense.”
Gregory was standing at the edge of the sandbox, the empty laundry bag in
his hand.
“Human flesh. That is what they require.”
Robert let Gregory cry until he was too emotionally exhausted to resist
20 The Literary Hatchet