Holes in the Head, Holes in the Head
A somewhat surreal magical realism short story
There’s this man on the bus sitting in front of me, he’s got two tiny, black, smoking holes in his head, in his temples, left and right. Bullet holes, maybe, but I’m no expert.
“He just needed to vent a little,” says the old lady sitting next to me with a kind smile. “He just needed some heavenly clean air in that thick skull of his.”
I mumble something, shocked at him, at her.
“Just you wait, he’ll get better soon,” she says to me.
“I don’t think he will,” I say, looking around to see where the shot may have come from, but the windows aren’t broken and there’s nobody else on the bus, just us and the driver, and the dead man with the extra pair of holes in his head.
“Oh, he will,” the old lady repeats, “he always does.”
“Do you know him?” I ask, looking at her, checking if she has a gun or something, but even if she had one, she couldn’t have moved so fast and shot him without me noticing. No, I’m not tired, and I’m definitely not asleep and dreaming.
“No,” she says. “First time I ever see him. But I know his kind, my dear, I know his kind. My husband is like him. Holes in the head, holes in the head, they’re like that.”
“And when do they get better?”
“Oh, a day or two, at most,” she smiles at me, kindly. “Never more.”
“Then I won’t really be seeing him alive again, will I?” I said, sighing.
“Yes, you will,” she says, “because I’m going to help him, for your sake, and for his sake too.”
She gets up, crawls forward, next to the dead man. She sits beside him, and reaches into her handbag.
She pulls out what seem like two torn off pigeon wings, only they’re blue, like the sky must be above the ocean of gray October clouds.
She sticks one of the wings in the hole in his left temple, the other into the other hole, on his right. Carefully.
And the wings start beating, and the man opens his eyes, and smiles at her, and turns and nods to me.
“What the fuck,” I say to them. “It’s impossible.”
“Oh, no, it isn’t,” the kind old lady says, looking back at me between the seats. “You just need to vent a little, let some heavenly clean air into that thick skull of yours to see reality as it is. Infinite. Shall I help you too, my dear?”
