The townie bus smells like cigarette smoke.
Worry lines and haggard faces.
I am ashamed to admit I prefer the student buses.

My father tells me he is nostalgic for the smell,
his mother, smoke whispering from her mouth.
I am ashamed to admit I flinch at the memory of her sunken cheeks
begging him for money to buy more.

The man at the bus stop smells of cigarettes and chorizo. His brown, beaten jacket looks like my father’s. My coat is clean, a new backpack on my shoulders.
    He does not look at me.

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Kestrel Jacobs is a university student, activist, and writer whose work primarily explores the embodiment of disability and queerness. They live in rural upstate New York with their two cats.

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If you would like to be part of the Rural Fiction Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like contemporary dark fiction and poetry, you may also want to check out The Chamber Magazine.

Please repost this story to give it maximum distribution. 

The Day God Disappeared

“You can pretend you talk to Him
But He ain’t here
He’s gone.”

You’re here.
The day sunny and windless – rare during the winter. 
Carrion birds stalk lower and lower, suddenly sail up, then 
scroll their way down, finally shooting back up carrying 
their cemetery. 
You’re here. 
But you’re not sure why. Through some fault of yours? 
Who is so angry with you that they’d do this? 
Is it something you failed to do? 
Maybe, because of all the other things you did but were not 
caught? 
Nevertheless, you are here.
And your throat constricts, then reverses itself 
from a stench that chokes as you awaken to glide 
from sleep into reality inside what remains of your domicile 
with walls the color of ash. 
You settle inside a ghostly vision. Try to sort your thoughts, 
but your memory screams within its cage 
Hunched forward at a round table. 
To your right a man who killed four women 
after climbing through their second story windows 
then stomping them with his climbing spikes. 
To your left a man with two dull blue teardrops 
below his right eye.
Tomorrow each will pass the other in silence. 
Gaze through. Walk as if not there. 
It’s a hard lesson learned – that invisible line you cannot cross. 
Not a gate. Nor a fence. Nor a wall. 
But a two-foot demarcation inside which you are required 
to turn away – look down, hands rigid at your sides, palms exposed. 
Your place is away and away from.
What you do not know, but will learn is 
your decisions and choices have vanished. 
From this point forward, you cannot make 
an independent decision about where, 
or for how long you can sleep, 
where your drinking water comes from, 
where, or for how long, you can sit. 
Someone else decides for you.
Your decision-making ability peeled away – 
food, amount, availability, quality, 
When to eat, where to eat.
Someone else decides for you.
Nor can you decide on the temperature or 
quality of the air you breathe. Nor your clothes, 
their cleanliness, not even when and with whom 
you shower. You can no longer decide whether 
to open a door, to close a door, 
to stand beside a door, to pass through a door. 
Someone else decides for you. 
You no longer decide how much reading light to have. 
Nor when that light will be dimmed or turned off. 
Not your toothpaste. Not your toothbrush. 
Someone else’s decision.
Basic medical care. Not today. 
A doctor, unable to speak English or Spanish, 
might be here on Tuesday. Maybe, if he is not somewhere else. 
Pray you do not have any illness requiring medicine not on the formulary. If so, you are shit out of luck.
Pray there’s someone to talk with
There isn’t.
Pretend you’re not here, but you are.
Someone else has made that decision for you.

A Place You Could Not Follow

I’ll soon be there 
And our lives, still joined, will separate
Maybe ever so slightly - a crack in the foundation
Possible deeper and faster than anticipated
My speed will diminish
My understanding will lessen
My patience  -  such as it is – will dissolve

I barely survived yesterday - 
Heart irregularities, dizziness, loss of balance
My fear – perhaps a recognition from decades 
Working with physicians
negated a call to the doctor     Only to be
sent to the emergency room     Only to be
told to sit for ninety minutes     To be
without medication     Because
Doctors are in short supply     Because
beds are in short supply     Because
I’d rather die at home
even if alone

I remained silent as you left the house     To
Help your brother     To
Visit your grandson
I remained on our reclining divan     In case 
I fainted     In case 
the blood pressure cuff read lower
the pulse higher 
than before you drove away
86/42 – 119 pulse
64/31 – 124 pulse
Repeated every fifteen minutes 
Dizziness and disorientation as if from a blow to the head
Chest exhausted
Frozen inside stunned incomprehension     Decisions 
too complicated     Movement
too difficult     Breaths
too short.

At Home With You

Tomorrow when you emit some earthy epithet at a passing driver
you will be repeating my words
	Every time you drive on I-70
you will remember I’m nearby
	Whenever you hold a book, I will be there
	When you touch your sons, you will remember me
	When your granddaughter, and, many years later
your great-grandsons reach for you, you will see me
	And each evening, I will be at home with you.

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Thomas Elson’s poetry and stories appear in numerous venues, including Mad Swirl, Blink-Ink, Ellipsis, Scapegoat, Bull, Cabinet of Heed, Flash Frontier, Ginosko, Short Édition, Stillpoint, Journal of Expressive Writing, Dead Mule School, New Writing Scotland,  New Ulster, Lampeter, and Adelaide. He divides his time between Northern California and Western Kansas.

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If you would like to be part of the Rural Fiction Magazine family, follow this link to the submissions guidelines. If you like contemporary dark fiction and poetry, you may also want to check out The Chamber Magazine.

Please repost this poem to give it maximum distribution.