Zachary Schomburg

From INSIDE WE MAKE THE CHILDREN SANDWICHES

Stories for Children

LUIS AND THE BOX KITE

Luis’s father died, so Luis built a box kite to keep himself company. When Luis flew the box kite, he lost his grip on the string. He was very upset at himself, for he had no more wood, and no more string, to build another box kite. The box kite just drifted over the mountains, its string either waving goodbye or reaching blindly for a hand. I love you, Luis said.

THE FAMILY OF TINY CATS

Gertie walked to her dead grandmother’s house only to find her grandmother dead on the floor. She cried, then she sent out a few letters, and then she arranged a funeral, and everyone her grandmother ever loved and everyone who ever loved her back attended it, and they all looked nice in their dresses and their suits, and they all laughed and told stories about Gertie’s grandmother, and then Gertie went back home to make some hot soup, to make some very very special hot soup.

SHU FANG AND THE BOTFLY

One morning, Shu Fang fell in love with the tiny botfly growing and throbbing and turning red inside the crown of her head. She loved that tiny botfly with all of her body, and it was that love that made her botfly grow. It was the first thing Shu Fang ever loved that was all her own, that no one else loved too. All day she would touch it under her hat, and all night, while her mother and father slept, Shu Fang would listen to its fluttering echo in her ears. Before long, the tiny botfly wasn’t tiny anymore, and it shook and bit and broke its way out of Shu Fang’s head. Shu Fang was so happy to hold it in her hands, to look in its eyes and love it, but the looking and loving never happened. The botfly just flew around the room breaking everything, and when it looked back into her eyes, over the broken dishes, over the bloody bodies of Shu Fang’s mother and father, it looked as if it wanted to break her too. It looked more like a thing, like a cold and unholdable buzzing thing, than the thing Shu Fang loved. Shu Fang knew how impossible it would be from then on for her to love any and all of the things that live on the outside of her bleeding and gaping head. Now I’ll only love my blood, she thought. And she thought, now I’ll only love my gape.