Kathryn Petruccelli
Lava Monster
The other kids think it’s a game. They waste time trying not to get caught, swinging and squealing on the bars above me. I wait in the burning lava of the wood chips, let them feel like they can get away. But once I decide—one tag and they’re ghosts. It’s not the kind of rules where you can be saved—your teammates, a human chain, grab my hand! blah blah blah. Ghosts. The end.
If I tag them a second time, they become like me. I won’t fall for that. I don’t want to share.
Soon it’ll be lunchtime, and the playground will start to clear out. Most of them will give up, float home giggling with their translucent ponytails, Skechers not making a print in the grass, not even understanding how they’ve been changed forever. I’m not going anywhere. Back at my house, everyone crying and crying, Dad’s ashes haunt the table in the front hall.
Day after day I come here. I always volunteer to be the monster. I’m smoldering. I climb toward them, one step, two.
The neighborhood smells like toast and camping. Something inside me singes and sizzles; everyone around me a ghost.
Kathryn Petruccelli is a Pushcart-, Best of the Net-, and Best Small Fictions-nominated writer who holds an obsession with the ocean and an MA in teaching English language learners. You can find recent work in places like One Art, West Trestle, Jet Fuel Review, Tiny Molecules, and SweetLit. She teaches pay-what-you-can workshops, and produces and hosts the Melody or Witchcraft podcast where guests discuss an Emily Dickinson poem and one of their own along with the relevance of past writing to today’s issues. More at poetroar.com / melodyorwitchcraft.com.
Banner Art:
Photo by Jakob Braun, Unsplash, 2020
