A Meatless Course
The scrimshaw on my father’s splintered clavicle chronicled embossed depictions of dastardly backstabbing, images of his brother, my uncle, etched in calcium phosphate, his blood-stained sword rising skyward like a regal boner. Regal? Ha! I know better than to call that vile reprobate ‘regal,’ he who is a scabrous hinge on the festering wound of my quenchless grief. Quenchless? Perhaps not. Almost unquenchable; quenchable after the slaying of my uncle by my own hand, and not at the end of a fire-forged sword, but at the end of a splintered clavicle, my father’s own bones, pried apart and forged in scandal, in fratricide. I rotate my father’s skull —his name was Föður— and strike my own with a trembling fist, for how else am I to deal with the rage and sorrow that my godforsaken uncle —his name is Bastarðr— has given to me as a coming-of-age shit-on-my-life? I shift Föður so he faces the valley that has been usurped from him. I run my fingers over the engravings at the base of his cranium, the runes and crude imagery, the gestures of disrespect carved into his earthly remains. I look into the sky, allow the frigid rain to wash away my tears to mask them from Föður, oh, sweet father, so he may not witness my weakness from the iron clouds above. Lightning strikes, and only a fool would disregard a clear sign from the gods. I am to take my father’s clavicle (my dagger) and his femur (my sword). I am to wear his hollowed-out pelvis like a skullcap, his skullcap like a codpiece. I will bear his defiled corpse, Föður’s scattered, misused remains. I will carry father, wield him, become him; I shall not be frugal, but exact my revenge with a great generosity of inflicted torment. I will gift to Bastarðr 206 earthly components. I shall fashion 206 deadly weapons. I will take my father —all of him— and offer what he has left behind. I will give the sum to his brother, my uncle, who killed my father for that precise reason, to take all that was his. I venture into the valley, the arable land that once, and once again, was and will be mine. I will bestow to Bastarðr blessings from my father, and my uncle will glut on what has been left behind. I will be the bearer of these gifts, for I am the blood which has been left behind. And when I see my uncle, that unholy Bastarðr, I shall feed to him his own victory, each and every piece, a meatless course of 206 morsels. If he does not break his teeth trying to chew, then he will swallow his meal whole. I will show my uncle the bitter taste of his victory.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa (New Zealand). His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, BULL, Bottle Rocket, Reckon Review, Mystery Tribune, and elsewhere. His collection, Those Who Remain Quiet, is available from Anxiety Press.
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