by Patrick Barb
(990 words)
At the end of every week, our town hangs burning bodies from the Ceiling so we’ll remember what stars looked like. Born after the Ceiling descended and cut us off from outer space, my sister Callie’s never seen the sun, the moon, or “real” stars. For her, the immolation of friends, neighbors, and family is the closest she gets to the cosmos.
“Im-mo-la-tion. It’s a sacrifice. With fire.”
Callie’s got one eyebrow cocked and her left foot taps against the pie-crust flaky dirt on the kitchen floor. Like somehow, I’m keeping her from something important. Like she’s not the one who ran upstairs with a torn scrap of word-a-day calendar asking, “What’s this mean?” before I even said, “Good mornin’.”
I deliver some noogies across her straw-pale strands of blonde hair. She slaps her hand across mine, not interested in big brotherly teasing.
“What makes our ‘stars’ im—imo-—”
“Immolations?”
“Yeah. I mean, we only use people who’re already dead. How’s that a sacrifice?”
I don’t mention how Neighborhood Watches gather “bodies” to meet Town Council quotas, making sure there’re enough “stars” to provide a light show that makes everyone “ooh” and “ahh” on the ground, even as we ignore the barbecue-scented ashes falling like dirty snowflakes onto our heads.
“Go get ready so we can snag a good spot. All right, girl?”
“Sure thing. Boy.”
She sticks her tongue out and gives me her best smile, showing yellow and brown-speckled teeth, like bird’s eggs. I can see both Mom and Dad in her face.
Our parents didn’t wait for natural causes or a Neighborhood Watch Patrol. I guess they volunteered themselves, considering they snuck off into the garage one night while Callie and I were sleeping. Exhaust smoke spilled out once our neighbors pried the garage door open. “Don’t look at ‘em, boy,” I remember somebody saying.
When they hauled Mom and Dad up and flames gnawed through clothes, skin, muscles, and bones, no one stopped me from looking. When Mom’s harness snapped and her cigarette-ash remains crashed to the ground, I kissed Callie’s forehead to distract her.
“Mom’s a falling star, Callie. Make a wish.”
My sister waits on our porch, pacing on bare feet. She never wears shoes or sandals. Her soles must be hard as rocks, and I hope they are for her sake. Otherwise, she’ll catch a splinter in her heel, or worse, one of these days.
“C’mon!”
Grabbing my hand, Callie launches herself off the porch. For a moment, she’s flying.
I step down quickly so her arm doesn’t get pulled out of socket.
Mr. Donaldson, wearing pressed khakis and a short-sleeved navy-blue collared shirt, waits for us on the ruined sidewalk. He holds a clipboard between his hands, the metallic clip covering up the “Grove Street Neighborhood Watch” logo above his pocket. He’s always looking down. A guy like Donaldson, with his bald head and lips that droop like a pink wormy mustache, isn’t interested in looking at the Ceiling.
I walk up with my head held high. “Evening, Mr. Donaldson. What can I do for ya?”
Callie hangs back, teetering on a chunk of cracked sidewalk. I snap my fingers to get her attention and point down the block.
“Run ahead. Save me a spot for the stars.”
She wants to argue. But she can tell by the look I’m giving her that it’s not the time.
“Go on without arguing and I’ll break out those last three months of the Word-a-Day calendar I’m sitting on.”
“Promise?”
“Cross my heart.”
I do it so she knows I’m serious.
Callie takes off down the sidewalk. No “goodbye” or “I love you.” No hugs or kisses. Soon, she’s at the corner play-fighting with the O’Reilly boys. Donaldson clears his throat and I finally give him my attention.
“Our neighborhood’s up, Devon. We thought Ms. Bansford would pass, but the old girl’s hanging on. By town charter, we had the morning drawing and your name got selected.”
It’s not worth fighting, but I try. “What about Callie? She’ll be alone and—”
“Neighborhood’ll look out for her until she’s eighteen. She won’t be our first ‘Starchild.’”
I hate the term. Have since Mom and Dad became stars, leaving us alone.
“What happens after?”
Donaldson shrugs. Alabaster skin peeks through his collar. “She can stay in town or she can go someplace else. They didn’t put more walls down. We’re the ones who do that.”
This is what it’s like to become a star. I’m burning. Flames hover over my head like a halo. That’s before they pull me up to the Ceiling. Inside my charbroiled skin, blood boils.
I should be dead. Donaldson gave me pills, promised they’d do the job. He watched me to make sure I swallowed ‘em.
Now I’m wondering why I’m still awake and aware, pressed up against the Ceiling. I can see everybody from town down below. They point at me and the other stars like we mean something.
My eyes pop like marshmallows microwaved too long. Gooey remnants turn to ash in seconds.
So why can I still see?
This is Callie’s first time seeing the stars by herself. I pray she can’t find me up here.
A cool breeze on the back of what I suppose is my neck is the last thing I expect to feel. I don’t so much move as shift my awareness, before inspecting the Ceiling that’s inches away. I see a crack, jagged like a lightning bolt, running across the smooth, polished surface. It’s a deep wound. I look up through it, expecting to see stars—real ones.
Instead, I see rocks. Dirt. Layers of sediment. I look up through the crack in the Ceiling, past grass, past asphalt and cement. I see people walking, running, smiling, fighting and killing, learning and loving.
Those people up there still look at the stars. And down here?
Down here, we’re left to burn.
END
Patrick Barb is a freelance writer and editor from the southern United States, currently living (and trying not to freeze to death) in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Previously, his short fiction has appeared in Crystal Lake Publishing’s Shallow Waters flash fiction anthology series, Boneyard Soup Magazine, Pulp Modern Flash, and other publications. He is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association. For more, visit patrickbarb.com or follow him at twitter.com/pbarb.