FLASH FICTION

WINTER'S SON

by
Caucus de Bourbon

CHICAGO NIGHT, 1968. A vacant car idles under the heavy cloak of winter, dark clouds the color of bruises. The car's driver-side door is open. Otis Redding faint on the radio.

Nearby a thin young mother stands bent before the city's icy shore. Her husband, my father, fled into the sleeting dark only hours before. She releases the spent cigarette from her hand, lets it drop into the mottled snow where it sizzles and dies. She looks my way, an urgent afterthought. "Stephen," she confesses, voice wet with the name of my stillborn twin brother.

I shudder. It's cold.

Eyes wide sober now, my mother presses toward the frigid wind as a worn Marine who'll raise me darts from the shadows and prevents her willful fall.

Forty-four years later I stand at the edge of a similar abyss, praying my brother will catch me.

I shudder. It's cold.