by Jerome Berglund
The skeleton ran and ran. But the race had no finish line apparent, and the other contestants were nowhere to be seen. They must have left the skeleton in their dust already, was that what had happened? It tried to recall. Two hundred and six bones each ached in different ways, creaking like the seat on an old chair beneath a crushing weight. There were no sinews or muscles left between them; what held the overall composite, tied the minimalist picture together besides dreamstuff and miraculous providence, was entirely unclear and open to much spirited debate and skepticism. Yet on it rushed inarguably, unflagging. Why the skeleton traipsed, where exactly it was heading, what prize it might hope to win at this belated juncture — if completion even qualified as accomplishment, placing in the lowest echelons indeed merited any ballyhoo whatsoever — hobbling wounded to the conclusion in last place, can it succeed in outrunning the sweepers, it would not have the words to tell you. The thing could not even recall entering the marathon, or summon more than the haziest recollection of a starting pistol’s deafening crack, or that image charred into its hollow cavity where gray matter traditionally resided, of a great agglomeration of muscled backs, a rippling receding tide of chiseled hamstrings beating their hasty retreats, leaving the skeleton by its lonesome, to bleach whiter and grayer in the undiffused glare, clinking about like antique china during a jolting earthquake.
Every corner it turned, the bared bones kept expecting to encounter blinding flash bulbs, cheering crowds of onlookers, at least some austere roadside tent with refreshment or medical staff on duty. But the boundless stretch remained lifeless and silent; at best it caught the slightest whiff of stale body odor left behind, a wake of dust and sneaker prints, energy bar wrappers and Styrofoam cups, empty lawn chairs and crumpled fliers. The only sounds the skeleton heard were its own bones clack, clack, clacking, a lonely, mechanical tattoo which resembled the rhythm of a typewriter in a smoky room, some remote firing squad riddling dry wall with a few germane interruptions, the congenital stutter of one befuddled on a tangent, desperately trying to finish an important thought its speaker just for the life of himself cannot seem to properly articulate, abortively flails in pointlessly forcing out like sticky afterbirth …
Jerome Berglund graduated from the University of Southern California’s Cinema-Television Production program and spent a picaresque decade in the entertainment industry before returning to the midwest where he was born and raised. Since then he has worked as everything from dishwasher to paralegal, night watchman to assembler of heart valves. Berglund has previously published stories in Bright Flash, Grim & Gilded, Stardust and the Watershed Review, a play in Iris Literary Journal, and poetry in Suspect Device, Meat For Tea, and the Starlight. He is furthermore an established, award-winning fine art photographer, whose black and white pictures have been exhibited in New York, Minneapolis, and Santa Monica galleries.
