Spinning
by
Kenny A. Chaffin
Have
you ever spun around and around until you were so dizzy you fell down and when
you did the world just kept on spinning? My brother does, and he sees things.
He hears things too. I've spun and spun and haven't seen anything. I just get
dizzy.
Mom
says he's just makin' it up. I don't think so. I've seen his eyes when it
happens. It scares him to death. He did it last Sunday morning in the church
yard. It was the worst yet. I had to hold his mouth to keep him from screaming.
Well, I had to, he would've had all the church-people askin' all kinds of
questions.
He
says it's a bad monster. He says the monster will eat his heart. But he keeps
spinnin'. Sometimes I think he's just makin' it all up. He's three, I'm seven.
Sometimes, though, I think it's true, those are the times I look in his eyes
after he's been spinnin'.
Sometimes
he looks at me, eyes wide in terror, and says, "Help! Save Me! It's the
penis monster, it’s tryin' to get my penis. Help me! Help me!" Then he
stops and says, "You can help me, because the monster's already got
yours." And he rolls on the floor laughing. What a stupid three-year-old.
We
live in the city. Well, not a big city, Beaumont, Texas. But my cousins live in
the county, on a farm. We're gonna' go visit them soon. I wish my brother
wasn't goin' though. Him and his monsters, that's all they want to do--talk
about monsters. Sometimes I wish the monsters were real and they really would
come and eat his heart. Mom says I shouldn't say that, she's probably right. Sometimes he makes me so
mad, I just can't stand it.
We
went to see our cousins last summer. I got to ride a horse, all by myself. They
ride all the time. Jill's only five and she's got her own pony. I wish I had a
pony. Be kinda hard in the apartment though. My stupid brother went and got
lost down the road from their farm house. We had to look for him for two hours.
He said the monster made him go to a special place. It was a fun summer though, with our cousins.
My
stupid brother was a lot more fun when he was two. Before he could really talk.
He'd spin around and get that look in his eyes and dad, that was before mom
made dad leave, would throw him up in the air. And he'd laugh. That was fun,
when he was two.
Then
he hit me with the hammer. He told mom the monster made him do it. He broke my
head, so some of my brain leaked out. I don't remember that part so well. It
hurt pretty bad, but not for long. Mom says it's okay. That I'll be okay.
They'll take care of me in this place. Mom says they've been doin' it for
twenty years now.
About the Author
Kenny A. Chaffin writes
poetry, fiction and nonfiction and has published poems and fiction in Vision Magazine, The Bay Review, Caney
River Reader, WritersHood, Star*Line, MiPo, Melange and Ad Astra and
has published nonfiction in The
Writer, The Electron, Writers Journal and Today’s Family. He grew up in
southern Oklahoma and now lives in Denver, CO where he works hard to make
enough of a living to support two cats, numerous wild birds and a bevy of
squirrels. His poetry collections No
Longer Dressed in Black, The
Poet of Utah Park, The Joy of Science, A Fleeting Existence, a collection of science essays How do we Know, and a memoir of growing up on an Oklahoma farm - Growing
Up Stories are all available at Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B007S3SMY8. He may
be contacted through his website at http://www.kacweb.com.
