While We Took A Selfie In Front of the Fountain, Each Day Now Our Tears Could Fill That Fountain … The wolves kept being wolves and life was pretty much the same for them except now they were listening to National Public Radio and were becoming increasingly liberal in their political beliefs. Sewer Baby began to walk. Sewer Baby began to talk Wolf. In a way so alien to the human race, she flourished. Sewer Baby played with matches she found, and the wolves sang with happiness when her firelight flickered in their dense, shared darkness. The girl’s parents, having lost all hope of her return, left the city. A forest had been cleared and a new highway opened. Seeming to sprout overnight, a house popped up for them out of the dewy sod. The family wallpapered themselves in this new house. They
plastered themselves in it too. They took out a loan for a Jacuzzi, and after much trouble, had another baby. The family loved the new baby. A girl. And they named the girl the same name as the baby that had been stolen by the wolves. Each day was a puzzle briefly shining in whatever was the sunlight. And each night was a maze lit by mostly nothing. And so they all forgot. They all forgot who they were and where they’d come from. It was too painful to remember how beautiful things had been. * –– Bud Smith is the author of the novel, Teenager (Tyrant Books), the short story collection, Double Bird (Maudlin House), and the memoir, WORK (CCM), among others. He lives in Jersey City, NJ. WESTONMAGAZINEGROUP.COM 99
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