Endgame

Web and Media Editor Bess Winter Kosinec: “Endgame” seems the perfect end to my little spate of summer miCRo selections before the return of our esteemed student editors. Living somewhere between Russian fairy tale and American myth, this piece is both haunting and strangely wry.

Listen to Peter read “Endgame”:

Endgame

From his bed in the bungalow below the tall eucalyptus, a dying philosopher observes his wife comb her thin white hair in front of the mirror. The late sun on her face reminds him of a Frans Hals oil. How odd, he thinks, for the world to wait till the end to reveal its most magnificent self. The Santa Ana wind brings the desert to the beach. The old bungalow hangs over the shore, the cedar walls bristling in the heat. The combed wife steps out onto the buckled road and raises her eyes to the crown of the tree circled by two red-tailed hawks. Up among the leaves and white limbs, she senses a movement. It slowly descends through the branches until alighting by her side. It has no face, no legs, no arms, no shadows. Its tunic is frayed, the wings stained and limp. She reaches out with a few folded bills. From the street, she watches it enter the house, the door left open. She tilts her head now. She can hear it sing.