Alexandra Ledford
SCREAM
In the awful heat that bakes the flesh of the ground into dry red dirt that is et by panting wild dogs, in the awful setting sun the street lights wink on an awful warning. Across, the neighbors' yards are nothing but dust and scurrying animals—squirrels, why squirrels, the squirrels must be sleeping, these are larger, no hair on their feverish bodies, small-dog-size, aquatic paws replaced by hands—HANDS—it can't be right. They are grabbing humanoid, long squirming tails like monkeys—they are not supposed to be here. This is illegal. They scurry. They swarm. They look over. One forms words with wormy toothless lips, not English, not language, something older, something dead, my own mouth sticks itself in a tight ring, a letter O, a silent howl.
In the awful heat that bakes the flesh of the ground into dry red dirt that is et by panting wild dogs, in the awful setting sun the street lights wink on an awful warning. Across, the neighbors' yards are nothing but dust and scurrying animals—squirrels, why squirrels, the squirrels must be sleeping, these are larger, no hair on their feverish bodies, small-dog-size, aquatic paws replaced by hands—HANDS—it can't be right. They are grabbing humanoid, long squirming tails like monkeys—they are not supposed to be here. This is illegal. They scurry. They swarm. They look over. One forms words with wormy toothless lips, not English, not language, something older, something dead, my own mouth sticks itself in a tight ring, a letter O, a silent howl.
Alex Ledford got her MFA from the University of New Hampshire. She lives, writes, teaches, and helps manage a fledgling journal, Outlooks Springs, remotely from her native North Carolina. Her work has appeared in Adanna, Euphony, So to Speak, Bop Dead City, and elsewhere.
