zone of avoidance

by River Lucero

Forsyth Park on the 4th of July and the night smothered by smoke and noise and people. And people coming out of the night and the smoke. And talking.

And faces flashing, brightening, snap. Smiling. Sizzling. Fading. And fireworks.

And dark again, together.

And in the dark, together.

And anticipation together, like sharing blood and breath together and shimmering in your chests together and BOOM! And BOOM! Carnivorous red and poison and scorpion together.

Strangers together. Lungs, eyes together. But have you ever wondered:

What is in the silence in between waiting in the brief and battlefield dark in the seconds between you, before the night blinks back on?

* * *

You don't know what you got till it's gone, but don't you need something? And what if you've never had anything? Will you know when it's gone?

Every decade a new lie decodes. Every hour is another hour away from everything that never lasts, and every vacant space is alive with an echo: unrealized everything and layaway at K-Mart in a cart and voices and extra mayonnaise and sit on Santa's lap and empty and dialogue in shadow shapes of all unlived lives, but make it in attitudes of an allegory of the cage*.

Not a cave.

See also: Is there life after motherhood?

* * *

Across from Forsyth Park, the burgers at Betty Bomber's have names: The Unconditional Surrender. The Battle of The Bulge. The Fire in The Hole. The Beach Head. The Anned Neutrality. The Deep Bum. The Blackout. The Mustang.

The burger you order: The Garden Burger. Also known as the You Should 've Known, or The Run Now, While You Still Can.

But you knew but didn't know but still didn't run but don't worry: we know it's easier to do nothing.

We all know.

And it wasn't the burger, actually. Actually, the burger was perfect.

Actually, it was the person across from you, eating with you. Eating away at you and still, still eating away at you like distant screaming like tinnitus and now you can't wait until the unborn inside your body that day at Betty Bomber's on the 4th of July blend into adults so that their impossible embarassment of an abusive father that you abused yourself with in momentary lapses of starving self-esteem self-sabotage self-delusion self-destruction self-undoing self-abandonment can be cut from this constellation of must communicate, for the children’s

sake.

Eight years left.

But The Garden Burger was perfect. And maybe everything is inevitable. Maybe fate is a comfort and destiny, sometimes perfect. But mostly, a disaster.

And anyway, isn't that the idea? What else would you be doing? Wouldn't you rather be cleaning up your own mess?

And haven't you ever thought about the heat, hotter than the sun in the core of the earth? Or how the Zone of Avoidance is hidden in a section of space too splashed by breast milk for scientists to see it? And yet, we're still dragged into its unseen direction?

Why water yourself and your wants down with breast milk and

Besides, who names these burgers?

* * *

And besides, where'd it go wrong? Wasn't Savannah. Maybe New Jersey. Maybe Tampa. Maybe California. Isn't that your 1997 Cover Girl powder compact face still trapped behind a window?

Childhood as a broken mirror and the word 'mother' as another word for 'monster'.

Homeless in Arizona in a tent somewhere in the snow. And in New Orleans by the Mississippi, by tarot card candle light and Cafe Du Monde and sk**walker on the side of a highway in New Mexico and that orange cat who came meowing in during Hurrcane Sandy and that last minute of peace inside of my mother before the bright and crash and color of the world and a skunk sprayed the dog in the dark of the morning, but that was Pennsylvania and

on the way to Tampa and

didn't he hose the dog off in a Walmart parking lot with dish soap and white vinegar and

don't you think you should've run?

* * *

You wake up. We all do. Around you, a life you chose but didn't entirely choose and you're wide and bright awake and look around you: welcome back, you fell asleep and things happened and here you are and it was easier, wasn't it? To rest for a while, rather than remember?

Remember Savannah and Betty Bombers and the 4th of July and choosing to be a mother for lack of choice for cage for curiosity for maiden, mother, crone. For something. For sleep. For knowing what's gone. For having something. For pistachio or buttered pecan ice cream or for both, whichever. For Leopold's in an outfit that you haven't worn since. For room service and free gourmet snacks and a jetted tub with hot water but don't go into hot water, not when you're pregnant, but why? For a woman walking past when you open the door in a moment of quiet of thinking maybe I should run and then her telling you not to leave the door open, it's dangerous.

I know about danger. About doors. About things people couldn't imagine.

About things you couldn't guess by looking at me.

About words worse than warnings.

But come to think of it, abstractly, figuratively, she was right.

* * *

Forsyth Park exploding in smoke and color and a boy and his family and talking to them and he talks a lot.

And you tell him you're pregnant and he is happy for you loose limbed and cartoonish and beautifully happy for you. Laughingly happy for you.

Watch: his skin in the dark, his skin dark and glowing and beautiful and bursting beneath arterial red and dendrological green and deepsea blue and duststorm yellow and the fireworks are so loud and this is a warzone and the lines of his face and his smile and crackling and flare and explosion and

You wish you could see him clearly, again.

You want to be there, again.

You want to see someone laughing, again.

Someone happy for you.

Photo of River Lucero

BIO: River Lucero was raised in a superstitious household, which might explain a lifelong interest in stories and poetry that flirt with realism and tiptoe into horror. River was recently named one of the Best Emerging Writers of 2024 in The Masters Review Anthology, selected by Gina Chung. Always juggling multiple creative projects, River is currently querying a speculative fiction novel, and making sure it has plenty of other work to keep it company.