Bricks

Being a responsible sort, Pig Number Three set about building a house entirely out of bricks. This was before you could go online and order bricks delivered to your door. Besides, Pig Number Three had neither a door nor an address, so he was forced to make his bricks from scratch.

The process involved mixing clay, water, sand, and straw, then shaping the material into rectangles, drying them, and baking them at high temperatures in a kiln.

Pigs Number One and Two laughed at his labors. Everyone knew the wolves in the area had been hunted into extinction years before.

Apocalyptically Yours

It was the end of the American Century, and as if at a secret signal, the streets suddenly filled up with dancing grannies. I looked in their doll-like painted faces for an explanation. What I saw instead were suicide nets, abortions by wire coat hanger, piles of broken bricks. Life in our little town was becoming more and more like life elsewhere – a movie trailer for the Apocalypse. I would shake my head in an attempt to get rid of the eerie images, but every morning children would once again be walking past the slaughterhouse on their way to school. From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie is the author of Failed Haiku, a poetry collection that is the co-winner of the 2021 Grey Book Press Chapbook Contest and scheduled for publication in summer 2022.

Equals

“Hurry up with those bricks!” the manager screamed.

The workers glared at him but moved faster, wheeling bricks to the concrete slab.

Looking at his watch, the manager scowled. “This building isn’t going to make itself. If you work harder, maybe one day you’ll be my equal.”

The group of men laughed and shook their heads. They spoke in their native tongue, their words meaningless to the manager.

“What are you saying? Speak English!”

They looked at him with contempt, and a man stepped forward before answering, “Learn our language and find out, then maybe someday you’ll be our equal.”

From Guest Contributor Caitlyn Palmer

The Walking Dead

Thinking about escaping across closed borders, I dug a hole outside. It was hard work. I pulled out bricks, barbed wire, glass bottles and jars, and old cans as I dug deeper. When my mind drifted too far into sadness, I stopped. Everything moves slowly now. I’m learning to be very stingy with supplies. On the table is a bunch of flowers I found in the trash. This may be a day for catching up on The Walking Dead, but I stand at a window that looks out on a yard. Somehow, just standing there feels like a hopeful gesture.

From Guest Contributor Howie Good

Howie Good is the author of What It Is and How to Use It (2019) from Grey Book Press, among other poetry collections.

Curiosity Killed

The house-bricks were as red as the little squirrel which inhabited the tree just outside.

Ciaran was glad he was able to watch the little fellow scamper about, and even left treats on the window ledge...when it had been left open.

Those big frames were too heavy for him to handle and he’d been forbidden to try: they were treacherous when it came to crushing fingers.

He’d heard in school that the American Grey Squirrels were causing the reds to die out. Mum was angry-ironing. He cocked his head and risked a question.

“Mum–?”

The blow rattled his eyes.

From Guest Contributor Perry McDaid

Smashed Glass

You remember: a blurry red light darting across the sky; the glossy road and its skewed mirror of your forehead; flashes of light into the eyes of a man in a hat, crossing the street. He remembers: two tons of steel collapsing from a rooftop, crushing his best friend flat. All that was left were two blue fingers and the smell of dust. The building remembers: the bones and bricks who made it strong, the lightning and rain licking its sides; burst out windows, a fire devouring from within like a disease. The fire remembers being the thing that burned.

From Guest Contributor, Jeremy S. Griffin

Gothic Punishments

The idea was to keep piling bricks until you'd walled yourself into a tomb of your own making. It was all very Gothic, something straight out of Poe.

For Walter Rochester, however, the laying of bricks was not strictly a punishment. He found the monotonous labor helped to relieve his mind of thoughts of his unfulfilled existence and he embraced the endeavor. Where others resigned themselves with morbid indifference, Walter used the opportunity to indulge all of his latent fantasies.

His father had forbid him to attend architecture school, so his tomb would be a monument to those abandoned ambitions.