Free Super Flat Times by Matthew Derby Page B

neck craned in the direction of the window. On television, hands hold up black holes where food was once inserted. Elaine has locked herself in an upstairs closet, where she says there is “another kind of air.”
    Joy of Sleep, Interrupted
    Because the joy of eating has been lost, we are huddlers. We are loitering in our own lives. William’s bed-wetting incidents have increased in number and intensity. Father finds tiny holes bored into the mattress and inserts a diode into the head of William’s penis to shock him awake next time.
    The Back of Abraham
    Eating, the joy of which has been wrested from us, becomes difficult. Out behind the pond Peter has found a can with something in it. Half of us are wearing ornate Indian headgear. Jill shakes the can, putting it to her ear. “I can hear the heart of it moving.” There is a box with mason jars filled with dark, pulpy objects soaking in their own fluids. Abraham opens a jar and picks out a wedge of something that looks like a small lung. “It is softer than you would expect,” he says. “Less substantial. Messy, like a wet genital.” He holds it to his mouth. For a long moment nobody says anything. “No,” he says, lips slick and red from handling, “I’m afraid not.” Some pioneer from the other side of town shoots an arrow from over the hill, which pierces Abraham’s shoulder. Those of us who do not run don’t know what to do, either. Abraham hunches over, the arrow quivering in his back.
    Joy of Eating, v. 2
    Hot fresh-baked corn cakes! Spoonfuls of homemade apple-sauce!
    For the Memory of Food
    They fly over us in great planes and drop pamphlets: “For the Memory of Food.” Some people in the town have fled over the hill and off into another town. The houses where they lived stick out like buck teeth along the street, busted into and painted over in red. Peter has left with his family, all of them taking only what they could carry. Those of us who remain have satisfied ourselves with the carving of immense, ornate ice sculptures, displayed in our front yards for the children to come and lick. One morning, by cosmic fluke, everyone makes swans.
    The Hands
    What a joy, to eat. We find ourselves in the kitchen, wandering, fingering cardboard cartons stacked away in high cabinets and filled with cornstarch and water. Whatever it is we did not want to become, we have become. I meet Father one night in the hallway, his face riddled with pasty crumbs from a paper sandwich. Shamefully, we hold our places there in the cold, blue light, regarding each other. His father was a Methodist preacher — he has the same tendency to turn red. “There, there, now, off to bed with you,” he says, holding out large, paddle-like hands, the kind that might get you ready for a smack. He hooks them under my arms and lifts. I can feel how heavy I must be, slouched there over his shoulder. On my pajamas cloned cowboys rope pastel steers in unison, the way you seem to stay a certain age forever.

The Father Helmet
    P embroke got a box in the mail. A big box, wrapped in brown paper, about twice the size of a human head.
    “What’s that?” said Clay, rising halfway from the couch, as if a lady had entered the room.
    “Nothing.”
    “Come on.”
    Pembroke hugged the box sheepishly in the open doorway. He seemed to disappear behind it. “It’s nothing.”
    They had been sitting in front of the entertainment center before the box had come. There was a program on about how horses make love. Clay had brewed up some egg salad for Pembroke in the food-o-rator and poured some hard puffs for himself. The food lay strewn out on the coffee table, half eaten.
    Clay stood there, hesitating over the couch, looking at Pembroke’s box.
    “Come on.”
    “Dude, it’s nothing.”
    Pembroke took the box into his bedroom and shut the door.
    Clay followed a few steps behind, lingering in the empty hallway.
    There were two ways the pill could be taken — as a regular pill or as a suppository,