Karma

         In Kentucky, near the cut, burnt bluegrass and the tracks by the Mississippi River, their house sat, a small rusted world begging for attention, its skinny body sagging at its stomach. A farm boy, baby sister, and their papa and mama—they were a distorted family with nothing to use up.



          Every day each ate a slice of bread and exhausted a pitcher of water. They used newspaper as a substitution for plates. Their family worked hours getting black pennies a day hay-making and spreading manure to exist. In this household, both genders did the farm work, but the lady did the doping. “A needle a day will make the pain go away.” She always quoted. The heavy syringe punctured the skin like a stab at death, as the color blue coursed the blood, and the open wound coursed the color red. The jabbed holes became a Vietnam field, filled with mines. Veins took cautious steps, but one wrong step and the vein popped.

One night their souls finally changed.

         The mama’s and papa’s blood soon turned a dark forest green; dollar bills began to speak to them. They knew what they needed. In the twilight zone, both parents sneaked outside, their shadows casting their image through the front door. Quietly the sly devils drove to another house in the country, passing fancier, glimmering and more suave places with white picket fences and rich oak rocking chairs. Finding an unlocked truck with a bale bed parked under a shed attached to a horse barn, they climbed in and frisked it. Corn husks slapped their faces, shelled them as if they were criminals, and tomatoes juiced their cheeks in shame. They stole a rugged sack from the truck’s bed and a wallet in its glove compartment. Then, with grins of “thank you,” they eased home.

Eagerly, they opened the contents.

“Huh—what happened?” asked the papa.

“Don’t know!” replied the mama. “We both felt money!”

But, it’s like magic! First minute there, and the next…gone!”

“Wait, I see four pebbles.” He slid his hand through the darkness, clutched one, and pulled it out. “It says ‘papa’ on it.” He looked confused.

Furious, he cursed his own language fluently, as he chucked the pebble out and watched it hop-skip, skitter, and pass over a lifeless black crow until landing securely on the dirt-dried railroad.

         With snuff working in his mouth, he went to bed. He constantly chewed as something else did, faintly hearing it steaming down the tracks. The weight of the iron circles split open the stone. Papa jumped. Drowsy, he staggered outside towards the tracks. Sitting on the hard cold rails—his butt iced and so did his five fingers gripping the grooves as if cell bars imprisoned him. He waited, still tasting his now flavorless tobacco. He waited, until the next one way express of demise came.

Next morning, the mama called the boy and papa for breakfast while holding the baby girl. Today was different. No perfect attendance.

         “Hey, go find Papa,” the mama told the boy. “It’s not like him. Say I have a surprise.”

The boy looked everywhere. Only one place he didn’t look, though…where the tracks swerved and slithered like snakes. As the boy approached the railroad line, everything about him, DNA twisted. All he saw was reddish syrup on a flat, limp pancake. After gazing out the cracked window and the cracked heart in depressing wonder, his mama set the calm toddler in her wicker crib, among its branches of life and rushed out of the old house to the boy to get wind of what had happened. They walked back to their porch trembling with rain pouring, and tissues serving as umbrellas.

Mama had caught an once-in-a-lifetime raccoon for a special meal, but it felt worthless now. The animal became transparent. She saw through, continuing to cook staring in the direction of where her husband lay.

Abruptly, the mama blew. Screaming, knocking over empty dusted shelves, the floor by the stove, caught her fall. The boy watched her elbow hit the handle of a steaming pot.

“Ahhh!” agony squalled. “Lord, forgive me for stealing!”

“Mama!”

         Time was not on her side. The sizzled water with the cohesion of grease in comparison to a bad Jheri curl made her skin like liquid, burning her face. Her eyeballs yo-yoed, the strings of yarn unwinding, leaving two black holes. As she rolled on the floor holding her white skull, silky skin seemingly smeared on the floor to make the surface tan. Springing up, the mama threw more convulsions, setting free a collection of knives by the crib. When the knives came closer, they said “hell-o” as the baby opened mouth, ready to be blade fed. The baby couldn’t breathe… because the tip of the tool penetrated the neck and out leaving the trachea lynched at the tip. At least, that is what the tweaking mother witnessed.





         Actually the cutting edge only cut the crib, mimicking the sounds of crackling skulls.





         The boy carried his sister outside, clutching two pebbles. He dashed across the railroad stepping over decaying flesh, blending in with the forest and trees crying. His legs took him to the nearby river where they used to throw stones in the swaying aqua. With torn picture-frame memories racing through his screwy mind, he fired both pebbles.

But, the second pebble skipped back. The puzzle didn’t match: In tiny, scratched print, he finally noticed that that small symbolic pebble read…







“Karma a Bitch Ain’t it… Signed Satan”