Five Points Vol. 24, No. 1
Sample Content
Aimee Parkison
Accident at Swamp Lake
By being fearless, Imogene teaches me to be unafraid. I don’t think I could ever live through what she has survived, but she must prepare me for the unexpected since she knows what can happen. Ever since her accident, she has been introducing me to the birdwitch slowly in the night by asking me to untangle her hair.
If I don’t dry her hair properly, decay invades the trunks of cherry trees. If her hair tangles, fungi seeps through cracks of black knot galls in wood rot. Hard black elongated swellings arrive within the knots in her hair, each tangle seven inches or more in length. These knots are scattered throughout her hair, before they migrate with the darkness of night to scatter throughout the trees to become a nest for the dark birds spreading like disease.
My fingers catch on a tangle, and the other tangles pull my hand into my Imogene’s hair