Lightbulb

Fiction by Kathryn Hill

1. Dinner comes in in big black sugar boots stuck on skinny legs.

It’s a metaphor. But it’s true my brother’s legs are skinny.

Homework for Tuesday: 5 metaphors, 5 similes.

It’s Thursday but Miss Atkinson said it’s okay.

Jamie says it isn’t a real metaphor because it doesn’t say anything is anything, and also there’s no sugar in the house, and also who wears boots made of sugar, and I tell her I’m gonna kill her goldfish if she doesn’t leave me alone. She’s stupid. She says she doesn’t but I know she still likes watching Barney with the baby.

Tyler is ripping the Hamburger Helper open and telling us to shut up. There are tiny pieces of cardboard all over the counter and he brushes them onto the floor.

2. My brother is a bear brushing berries from bushes.

3. The macaronis are tiny boats with big bellies.

4. Beef on the stove sounds like car wheels in puddles.

5. Cereal clinks like wind chimes in a bowl.

6. My house is a snow globe tipped over on its side or a snow globe that someone is shaking a lot or a snow globe that’s leaking and nobody wants it.

Miss Atkinson says I have potential.

We eat the Helper noodles. The meat is kind of mushy. Everything you make is gross, I say. Tyler doesn’t say anything. I’m still hungry. We’re all still hungry. Tyler tells me to go bite off my cock and eat that if I’m still hungry and I know he only said it because dad said it first but still.

I run down the hall and slam Jamie’s door and lock it and grab her fish out of its water. It feels small, looks smaller in my hands than it did in the bowl. I touch its eye but it can’t blink. I prick its tail like a leaf with my fingernail and make shapes.

I think it dies. I peel its sides back from its gills. There are scales on my fingers. The lamp makes them shine. I lay the little white filet on the 60-watt circle.

7. The fish cooks on the light bulb like Jamie’s EasyBake before mom kicked it.

8. The scales on my fingers look like stars at night.

9. The fish is a little white heart that shrinks up skinny on the bulb.

I like it. I touch the bulb and it’s hot. I touch the bulb and it hurts. Remember when Jaime made tiny cookies in her oven and we all watched the stars. Remember when dad said that is Venus, this is Betelgeuse, this the Great Bear. I stick out my tongue and Tyler yells Are you doing something weird, the tv just went on the fritz. Remember how mom smelled, how she smoothed my hair. I move my tongue toward the swirled metal base again. The baby is crying.

10. The door is locked tight, like a spell.

Kathryn Hill’s fiction has appeared in many venues and has been nominated for both the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She holds an MFA from ASU.