A fallout shelter, one dingy basement below the other, a place to stave off, be
sorry. I shuffle through my memory which is monotone, yellow pages. Every
business listed is a company specializing in cementing windows, unfixing doors,
collecting zeroes. You call and the number is busy. You call and hear yourself
breathing on the other end. Whatever I did to deserve this is like the clouds:
crisp with misinformation, leashing. I sit fixing something which turns out to be
a human bone. It bends now, on its own. I adjust my head with my hands, up
where a light should be. It is not a light but a keyhole a man is watching me
through. I look at the door, waiting for the knob to turn. I look into the keyhole:
another empty room.
68 The Paris-American
Corey Zeller is the author of Man vs. Sky (YesYes Books, 2013). His work has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Mid-American Review, The Colorado Review, Diagram, Puerto del Sol, Salt Hill, West Branch, The Literary Review, New York Tyrant, Chorus (MTV Books), among others. He currently serves as an associate editor at Mud Luscious Press and a social media wrangler for H_NGM_N BOOKS.
