Clay Arthur

new writing in The Astorian, a literary magazine

Once the clutter had cleared and the ruckus died down with one last gulping breath all was sedate and ambulant in the everlasting prairie. Beneath that rolling sky were drives of grass and wheat as gold as a locket of hair. Clay Arthur had been dead for three days. He lay flat on his back. For three days only the wind rustled or the only things that rustled were because of the wind. He was lucky he had been shot because the grass passed over him now like a laying of hands and threatened to swallow him whole. It’s a kinder violence to pass from a gunshot because that is a death that is manmade. When the earth eats you up as it is liable to in these parts you never really stop dying. You get swallowed up by God and you’ll just keep on dying over and over as the mud and the bugs reclaim you and make you theirs.

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