“The Willows,” by  Paul Myette

His parents bought him a popcorn ball to show him that everything was fine, to keep him from asking if everything was fine. It worked. For a while it worked. They smiled and said of course, of course as they handed it to him. He knew better. He saw the frustration in his father’s face, the hurt in his mother’s, but they only bought him treats on the days when they were good. The popcorn ball, brown with caramel, dotted with peanuts, allowed him to accept their fiction.

He struggled with it. He sat on a bench and tried to eat. The circumference was too much for his mouth, but he bit at it over and again, struggling to gain purchase with his bottom teeth. He thought if he could pull even one kernel free from the rest then he could take it from there. The process coated his chin with a layer of caramel. Every third bite or so he’d stop and lick this, pushing his tongue as far down past his lip as he could. His hands grew sticky beyond cleaning. Continue reading →