Purpose

I open the front door to a band of mercenaries. They are disheveled and carry nuts, dead squirrels, and other scraps of food in garbage bags. One has opened his empty wallet -- these are my two children. I take them inside, and send the other mercenaries toward a church down the street.

I give them paper and crayons until the pizza arrives. One tries to draw the exact moment of a musket ball escaping the barrel. Unfortunately, the white and silver do not show up well. There is no red either because the crayon’s tip was not sharp. The other is in the corner attempting to color his tongue black. I ask him why. The Pennsylvania winters during the Revolution were unbearable.

How old are you?

Old enough to remember chunks of ice frozen to my chest like medals.












Jason Fraley works at an investment firm in West Virginia and is pursing his M.B.A. His wife and cat see him occasionally. He has been published in Redactions, Confluence, Words on Walls, Pebble Lake Review, Stirring, Eclectica, and elsewhere.






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