by Alexis Stratton
The Preacher
When she was young, she wanted to be a preacher. Hymnal in hand, she'd recite the baptismal rites from the back section—call and response, waiting for her stuffed animals around the room to answer in chorus. She held a baby doll in her arms, sprinkled a plastic teacup of water over the baby's plastic head. The baby was baptized at least twelve times. Her mom caught her in the act once and tore the hymnal from her hand. The baby fell to the ground. “You're gonna ruin the carpeting if you keep that up.”
Fire and Brimstone
Her own preacher was an angry man. She'd sit in the pew alongside her husband and listen to the pastor yell about fire and water and repentance. “You've got coals in your soul,” her husband used to say when they got into fights later.
The Elements
She ate hunks of bread after he died. Hunks of bread and boxes of saltines. They were thick in her mouth, salty, unswallowable. But she couldn't stop eating them.
Rapture
When she was 16, she was in love with a man from the next town over who sold vacuum cleaners. “I'm gonna make it big someday,” he'd say. They sneaked off in his big van, week after week. Then he was gone one day, just gone.
The Prayer
“I want to be something big. I want to take up the room. I want to be bigger than anything—so big they can't escape.”
The Father
“Shooting an elephant is hard work,” her dad always used to say, pinching her mom's rear end and throwing his head back in laughter. Her mom had thick, meaty hands and scrunched up her face at him when he said things like that. “Aw, I was just kidding, honey.”
The Transfiguration
Always one fantasy. To be sitting in the living room, sprawled out in majestic splendor, watching TV. Her sister's saying something, but she can't hear. Her body flows out in folds from the crooks and crannies of her frame. She's getting bigger and bigger—but lighter and lighter. The folds expand and grow and push out to the corners of the room until her sister runs screaming, yelling to Jesus for salvation, but the flesh grows and transforms and breaks the windows and her head breaks through the roof and suddenly she's weightless and flying—floating gently above. Her toes tip off the grass, her shoelaces bigger than tree trunks, and off she goes, into the sky, her sister's voice a tinny nothing behind her.
Those Who Have Ears
A newspaper thwacks against her head. Her sister's voice behind her. “Are you listening to me?” The TV sputters on—a preacher in a purple suit, shouting and praying to Jesus. She bites her lip. Her body fits comfortably in her chair, flesh forming around wood and fabric. “For God's sake, you have to get out of this house.”
Alexis Stratton thinks that this might be the most impressive talent ever.
The Preacher
When she was young, she wanted to be a preacher. Hymnal in hand, she'd recite the baptismal rites from the back section—call and response, waiting for her stuffed animals around the room to answer in chorus. She held a baby doll in her arms, sprinkled a plastic teacup of water over the baby's plastic head. The baby was baptized at least twelve times. Her mom caught her in the act once and tore the hymnal from her hand. The baby fell to the ground. “You're gonna ruin the carpeting if you keep that up.”
Fire and Brimstone
Her own preacher was an angry man. She'd sit in the pew alongside her husband and listen to the pastor yell about fire and water and repentance. “You've got coals in your soul,” her husband used to say when they got into fights later.
The Elements
She ate hunks of bread after he died. Hunks of bread and boxes of saltines. They were thick in her mouth, salty, unswallowable. But she couldn't stop eating them.
Rapture
When she was 16, she was in love with a man from the next town over who sold vacuum cleaners. “I'm gonna make it big someday,” he'd say. They sneaked off in his big van, week after week. Then he was gone one day, just gone.
The Prayer
“I want to be something big. I want to take up the room. I want to be bigger than anything—so big they can't escape.”
The Father
“Shooting an elephant is hard work,” her dad always used to say, pinching her mom's rear end and throwing his head back in laughter. Her mom had thick, meaty hands and scrunched up her face at him when he said things like that. “Aw, I was just kidding, honey.”
The Transfiguration
Always one fantasy. To be sitting in the living room, sprawled out in majestic splendor, watching TV. Her sister's saying something, but she can't hear. Her body flows out in folds from the crooks and crannies of her frame. She's getting bigger and bigger—but lighter and lighter. The folds expand and grow and push out to the corners of the room until her sister runs screaming, yelling to Jesus for salvation, but the flesh grows and transforms and breaks the windows and her head breaks through the roof and suddenly she's weightless and flying—floating gently above. Her toes tip off the grass, her shoelaces bigger than tree trunks, and off she goes, into the sky, her sister's voice a tinny nothing behind her.
Those Who Have Ears
A newspaper thwacks against her head. Her sister's voice behind her. “Are you listening to me?” The TV sputters on—a preacher in a purple suit, shouting and praying to Jesus. She bites her lip. Her body fits comfortably in her chair, flesh forming around wood and fabric. “For God's sake, you have to get out of this house.”
Alexis Stratton thinks that this might be the most impressive talent ever.
