The Ungainly Stock
By Blake Landon
The ungainly stock emerges from the earth sprouting red berries that are no good to eat. Only the birds of the great white tree, the one that splays its branches in a mess of upturned crags and grows white fluff instead of leaves, only those birds will pick the red berries, and only those birds will get sick and die on the ground, only those birds, only those.
The birds will be dragged underground by marmots, and the marmots will make beds out of their bodies, letting them dry under the hot, dry, sun-scorched earth. The marmots will find a special joy in the winter, putting the dried bird bodies between themselves and the permafrost beneath their dens, only the marmots will know this joy, and only the marmots will be this joyful in the wintertime, warm in down feather beds, and only the marmots that survive.
The marmots that die will freeze solid, and in the spring they will thaw, and only in the spring will their furry little bodies begin to decay, and only in the time of warm rains and shy sunshine will their little bodies begin to rot, and only their ears will rot at first, and only their little tails will rot in April, but by the time the summer heat reaches them in their little coffins of dirt, they will rot everywhere, and the little red seeds that were stuck on the birds’ unfortunate little feet, only those stupid little birds that ate the red berries, only those birds will carry the tiny seeds onto the dead marmots, out of whose eye the ungainly stock will grow.
Blake Landon in a lives and writes in Liverpool. His work has previously been scribbled on bathroom stalls, etched into pool tables, and taped to lamp posts.