As Featured in Under the Wing
A Short Story by O.G. Rose
Pale hands on a walnut-stained table rubbed a blue mug of vodka and coffee for warmth. Around the fingernails, tiny cuts split the skin, overexposed to the Russian elements. She lifted her hand to tuck brunette strands behind her ear, revealing an eye that looked clawed shut by a beast: five scars stretched from her forehead, over her eyelid, and down to her cheek. “He is good to set eyes on the unseen,” she finally said. “Oleg, I want him happy.”
A bald elephant trainer lowered a glass of water from his dripping mustache. “By finding blood and beer?” The transparent drink looked black due to the dark wool shirt Oleg wore over his hairy muscles and tights.
“I know nothing about that.” Eden focused on him with her right pupil, which floated in the center of a blue iris and white sclera. “You said there were no ligaments.”
Eden and Oleg met in a dining room connected to a kitchen in a wood cabin; all the square tables wobbled. Most businesses operated out of homes in the broken Motherland, a practice which violated licensing laws, but most of the police ran operations themselves. Oleg would have passed the repurposed Izba had Eden not waited for him in the snow. He asked Eden the name of the village — it was the closest to the circus tent — and she said it may have been a forgotten paradise from childhood. She discovered the spot when she knocked on doors asking if there was a warm bed to rent. The homeowner let her stay on a cot in the closet as long as she swept and kept the white curtains closed: local officers who couldn’t see inside wouldn’t lose any honor when they passed by outside. Eden joked that they should just extend the walls over the windows, but the owner said an ugly house looked suspicious.
Oleg shrugged. “Is it impossible for nothing to be left?”
“Ridiculous,” Eden whispered. “He is no fool.”
Oleg sipped his water. “He made himself believe it. He told us. Surprise is partially why I came.”
“He tells a story so that others may have closure,” Eden persisted. “He doesn’t know I’m gone.”
“Things have not unfolded as you hoped.”
“I’m only unseen.”
“Though, as you wanted, he is happy.” Oleg pushed his chair back. “The elephants wait for me.”
“It is good to be used for unveiling beauty.”
“You are not a show.” Oleg coughed into his hand. He pulled his fingers away and eyed the red specks. He brushed his hand on his black pants.
“I diminish so he expands.” Eden cupped her mug, holding the heat. “I shall tell you how.”
“I have met you at this address.” Oleg pulled a letter from his coat and shook it in the air. “I have told you how the lion-tamer fairs. Release me.”
“You may not grasp what I say, but a story does not have to be understood to be heard.”
“No one is loved from afar.”
“I’ll show you.” Eden smiled. “I see more here than what is there.”
“My animals call.”
“We live in worlds, not the earth.” Eden sipped her mug, then raised her voice like she called to an audience.
.
.
.
For the rest of the story, please see Under the Wing by O.G. Rose, available on Amazon in both Paperback and Kindle.
