The Incendiaries

by R.O. Kwon

The ice cracked; he held still. Try to live. Take a step again.

Of all people, I should have recognized this warmth for what it was: a bag of tricks. The fellowship, a little food. The hocus-pocus bribe of hot bread, lavish, like God: take, eat. This is my body, which is broken for you.

If he had one petition for himself, it was this: that he be made useful.

The girl had walked the high-dive ledge as if she couldn’t die.

Sometimes, I still imagine I’m in that room again. I watch the girl I love, a silhouette waiting upon what I haven’t thought to give.

I still couldn’t cut an apple without nicking myself. When I tried, knives slipped. Dishes fell, goblin-bewitched. The logic behind this upbringing: if I didn’t learn how to be in a kitchen, no one could keep me there. It wasn’t a spell. It was a gift, one I had put to no use at all.

He hears the church bells sing, but not to him.