written By
December 20, 2020
When he sinks his heels into the sodden courtyard grass, the muddy leather skin of his Oxfords smells of death — vulgar and earthy — and he rather likes it. The stench summons in him distant visions; Young men crossing the university’s red-brick corridors, the academe’s dark walls whispering secret knowledge to them that only much older men possess and protect. His rubber heels crack hard against the waxed floors of the commons, pounding out an archaic chant once clapped by paternal hands.Take. Take. Take. He would take the smooth summer legs now littering the hallways and break each heart-shaped pelvis at the throbbing axis of its golden pillars. He would take them apart against the Bridgeport bricks, alternating his thrusts inside them with hot waves of disgust and desire, ravenous flies circling the carnage of broken bodies and innocence lost. The musky air of these stomping grounds floods his nostrils beneath the sliver of his faint mustache as he walks from class to class, waiting to reclaim the antique pages of a history he felt owed to.
Abby Mangel is a PhD student in English at the University of Texas-San Antonio.
“Three Strings” won first prize in the doctoral-level creative writing contest at the 2022 College of Liberal and Fine Arts Research Conference hosted by UTSA.
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