• A Small Room at a Hot Time of the Morning by Davis
• The Lion's Noose by Lloyd
• This Side of the Rainbow by DeMoss
• Grandpa's Bluetooth by Fowler
• Down Low by Long
• Crayons by Adams

A Small Room at a Hot Time of the Morning
By Dan Davis

Narrated by Bob Eccles

It was my father. Sheet pulled up to his chin, just his face exposed. Which was tactless, in a way, because of the hole in his forehead where the sniper's bullet had entered. At least the back of his head, the exit wound, was hidden.

The coroner, or whoever he was, stood off to the side, head turned away from me. A police officer stood beside me. He was shifting anxiously from foot to foot. Whether he was uncomfortable because of the situation, or the heat, I couldn't tell.

"Air conditioning's down," he'd mumbled to me as we went in. "Sorry."

"It's him," I said. It wasn't quite true—my father had never had a bullet wound in his forehead, at least not that I remembered. I remembered a lot: freckles, a mole on the back of his neck, receding hairline, squared jaw, permanent stubble. A handsome man, some would say. Intelligent eyes—he always looked like he knew what he was talking about, like he could convince you of anything.

Those eyes were closed now. His face was calm, stoic; he hadn't expected death to reach him, for a sniper to put him in the crosshairs and pull the trigger. Accountants don't expect that. Politicians, political activists—they expect that. Not people who work nine-to-five and provide for a family of three. People like that die normally—heart attacks, cancer, car crashes, kidney failure. People like my father fall victim to the top five killers of American citizens, of which assassination is not one.

"A horrible thing," the cop said. His voice was low, respectful, and prac-ticed. I wondered how many times today he'd said the same thing. The first few times, he'd probably meant it. By now, it was customary—he wanted nothing to do with me, with my father, with the other victims waiting in the wings for someone to identify them. This officer just wanted a stiff drink; he probably wanted to retire, but wouldn't, because standing in a stuffy room pretending to console the bereaved was a part of his duty, his calling. He'd join the force to do good things; this was one of them.

My father lay there, unknowing. I remembered, for some reason, my child-hood visits to the swimming pool. He would heave me up onto his shoulders and launch me as far as he could, the lifeguards be damned. I would hit the water, splashing and laughing, usually inhaling a lungful of water. Once, I landed on top of someone, one of those few intrepid souls who actually swam laps during family hour. My father had laughed it off, and so had I. I don't remember the swimmer's reaction.

I tried convincing myself that this wasn't my father. After all, my father had been alive. He'd possessed a presence; he'd filled a portion of reality, had occupied space. This man on the table, covered in a sterile white sheet except for his pale, expres-sionless face was nothing. Pull the sheet up, and he vanished—became one of a dozen bodies brought in that day, victims of the same rifle, the same demented determination.

The other man came over and pulled up the sheet. I was wrong. It was still my father, covered or not. Hidden from sight, but still there.

The officer put a hand on my shoulder but didn't say anything; his touch felt as routine as his words. I resisted the urge to shrug him off, knowing he meant well, or at least he thought he did. Instead, I stared at the other man, whose back had turned to us again. Worked all day with corpses—eight hours a day among the dead. How could a man like that sleep at night? How could a man like that get out of bed, knowing what he had to do? Was it desensitization? Or was it just that some people are designed to cope with the realities of the world better than others?

I wiped sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand. The officer saw me. As we walked out, he said, "They're working on it. Air conditioning should be up and running before long. Hell of a day for it to go. And so damned early, too. It's only going to get hotter."

My wife waited for me outside the room. She came and held me without waiting for me to speak. I pulled her to me. She cried on my shoulder, her tears min-gling with my sweat. The officer turned away, left the room, and it was just my wife and I, a few feet from where my father lay with a hole in his head, covered by a sheet but still there. I held my wife and waited for the air conditioner to kick in, but it never did.

BIO:

Dan Davis, born and raised in Central Illinois, recently received his Master's from Eastern Illinois University. His work has appeared in various online and print journals. You can find him at his Dumpster Chicken Music Blog.