Third Shift
By Kellam Ayres
He sits shotgun in the car
he’d sold to Maris for a dollar
while she drives him to the hospital.
It’s springtime.
He holds a dishtowel dark with blood
between his hands.
Watching a pair of cardinals,
he’d shattered a coffee mug on the back stoop
and the pieces were sharp as hell,
he told her, and sliced his goddamn
thumb before he even knew what happened.
He doesn’t do well with blood.
He works the third shift
at a warehouse, packing beauty products
into boxes. He takes his meal break
in the middle of the night—the solemnness
of men eating dinner at three a.m.,
hearing the weak sound of plastic forks
on Tupperware, then a bell, and back
to the floor until sun up.
Now he’s peeling back the dishtowel,
glimpsing the damage, but she tells him
to knock it off, keep the pressure on.
Maris guesses he’ll need about ten stitches
but keeps this to herself.
She wasn’t far off, but he still makes
his shift, thank god, and after
a long day he drives home
from work in first light, the windows
rolled down to dilute the cologne
he’d found in a bin of discounted items,
which he’d slapped with his good hand
onto the pulse point in his neck.
This story originally appeared in Stonecoast Review Issue 19. Support local booksellers and independent publishers by ordering a print copy of the magazine.
Photo by Janko Ferlič