Wednesday, March 4, 2020

“HALL CALL”

By Ben Greenman
from forthcoming collection, as yet untitled

The boy ran down the hall, talking to himself, then talking to no one, then not talking at all but screaming, his voice growing louder and louder, the noise at first bouncing off on the tile, then buckling the walls with the vehemence of the sound, until the doors along the corridor either closed to block the clamor or opened to discover its source. A man emerged from one of them. He squared up, planting his feet, and held up a hand, palm out, to arrest the boy’s progress. It did not achieve its aim, and the boy, still yelling, plowed directly through him, knocking the man’s bowler hat onto the tile, where it fell still and then began to vibrate from the reverberations of the boy’s voice, still echoing.

No comments:

Post a Comment