A Squirrel’s Heartbeat

Cara knows not to go to the boy. It’s too risky. Everyone knows there’s no wadding support on this side of town. Most everyone’s lost their pain muffler at least once. Not everyone survives. 

She saw it happen: the bus doors closing on his headphone cord and dragging it away, the ear-exposed boy managing only one step before crumbling on the sidewalk, hands cradling the side of his head.

The boy clutches at his throat now. This is a crowded street; the roar of angst must be crushing. Without headphones, he’d be exposed to the entire block’s pulses of deafening grief. 

People move away from the boy, past Cara, like ripples shying away from a tossed pebble. 

Ragged breathing, dilated pupils. A monument to pain. He’d die there.

Cara takes a step towards him when he starts rocking. The closer she gets, the harder he rocks, mouth open, fingers digging into his ears, trying to stop the rumble.

Before she can change her mind, she pulls her headphones off her ears and onto his. Pain crashes into her, needles poking at the ghosts of every paper cut she’s ever had. Her blood sloshes to the frequency of the fear and worry of the onlookers around them. Throbs to the rhythm of the boy’s growing waves of relief. 

The boy stops rocking. He stands, then holds her up as she falters.

Maybe she can walk him home. Maybe they can share her mufflers, like divers when one runs out of oxygen and they swim to the surface together, taking turns to breathe.

Amy Marques grew up between languages and places and learned, from an early age, the multiplicity of narratives. She’s been nominated for multiple awards, longlisted twice in Wigleaf 50, and has visual art, poetry, and prose published in journals such as Streetcake Magazine, South Florida Poetry Journal, Fictive Dream, Unlost, Ghost Parachute, BOOTH, Chicago Quarterly Review, and Gone Lawn. She is a contributor to the collection blog The Pride Roars, editor & visual artist for the Duets anthologies, author & artist of the chapbook Are You Willing? and the found poetry book PARTS. More at https://amybookwhisperer.wordpress.com.

A Song for Amy