SYMPOSIUM

By Ben Greenman / @2019

From forthcoming collection of stories, as yet untitled

A thing is coming up out of the ground. Everyone is scared and everyone knows that everyone else is scared, which scares everyone more than the thing coming up out of the ground, though that’s scary, too, “proof of certain death,” murmurs one person, but then another person turns toward the that person, shakes her head, turns toward all the other people, not shaking her head any longer, and explains that everything is proof of certain death, that death is certain, doesn’t need to prove itself, that it’s more a question of when rather than if, and this thing that’s got everyone scared, that’s got everyone knowing that everyone else is scared, has a similar approach, doesn’t furnish a timetable, that there’s no ticking or darkening or heating up or even a shadow thrown sundial-style across the ground where they’re standing, and she shakes her head now again, impatiently, “the thing,” she says, “about this thing,” and she’s speaking haltingly, fidgeting the end of a pigtail, “is that it’s just a symbol, and a symbol only scares people who can’t look past it or through it, so that’s where we have to look, we have to step away from it so it doesn’t take over our way of seeing,” and she’s speaking faster toward the end, more confident, now, hands out in front of her, free of fidget, palms up in persuasion, and that’s the pose that’s recorded on the wall in crude red brown-paint and discovered thousands of years later by archaeologists who determine that she was set upon by the panicked mob and torn to pieces, just steps away from the thing coming up out of the ground. They also determine that the paint was made from powdered minerals mixed with blood.