Search Party by Cecilia Kennedy
The sun stings the streets blocked off for the festival. I feel the soles of my shoes sticking slightly to the asphalt, melting on impact. No threat of rain hangs in the air. I’m out in the open, with no hope of shade, and nighttime is a long way off. My family’s in the balcony in their downtown apartment, looking over from a safe, air-conditioned distance, while I throw myself into the boiling pot, the rolling waves of people, moving slowly, so heat-tired they can barely stand.
Familiar voices call to me—old high school friends who somehow still remember me after all these years. They’ve ditched their kids, spouses, in other air-conditioned spots, to wander and get away for a while. But like me, they’re already weary of the sun. We look past the face-painting stations where children’s smiles melt grotesquely, their tiger stripes running in streaks. By the river, we see a spot overgrown with weeds and tall grass. My skin itches just thinking about sitting there, with the insects crawling, biting, pinching, but we go with our Solo cups full of beer, to lie down in the grass, look up at the sky, and count the clouds.
The grass is taller than I’d remembered, though my friends say it’s always been that way—and they tell me to notice the fuzzy tufts on the end. They remember coming here after school to get high on the tufts, and I wonder why they never invited me. They show me how they used to do it by pulling the fuzz off, dipping it in the beer, and sucking all the juice out. And when I do it, the sky spins, and I don’t feel so warm anymore. Our voices dissolve into tunnel-like echoes as our eyelids grow heavy.
The tall stems of grass bend gently over our bodies, and we run our fingers through the blades, but the wind shifts, and our fingers stick to the strands, softly at first, but then increasingly stronger, like the weeds are tying our hands together, wrapping their coils around our bodies. Our laughter turns to shrieks as they pull and tighten and poke up through our noses and mouths. I realize I can’t breathe. All the space inside my body is taken up by roots and fibers that make my throat swell and my eyes water.
I’m pulled underground, dragged through the soil, as the bones in my body snap, and the roots and fibers twist and turn, making dust of my skin. When I emerge on the other side, I’m stuck to a tall blade, my insides mangled. And when my family comes through the field, looking for me, all I can do is bob and bend in the wind.
Cecilia Kennedy (she/her) is a writer who taught English and Spanish in Ohio for 20 years before moving to Washington state with her family. Since 2017, she has published stories in international literary magazines and anthologies. Her work has appeared in Maudlin House, Tiny Molecules, Rejection Letters, Kandisha Press, Ghost Orchid Press, and others.
You can follow her on Twitter – @ckennedyhola
Photo – Tall grass by Wouter de Bruijn
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