It's Good Right Here

I could see it long before I had any idea what it was. The torsos were piled high, all pretty and colorfully clothed, with arms and legs jutting out here and there. They weren’t moving, at least not that I could see. Not a twitch or a blink or the slightest hint of a breath.  I was fascinated and drawn to it; how did it get there, and how the fuck did it get so damn high? You barely acknowledged it, though somehow I knew it was yours. You half gestured in that direction -- a vague backhand toward ‘something that used to be something’ but bored you now.  Someone less adventurous might have kept on walking, but I’m a digger, a prodder, a poker by nature. It was definitely so much more unsettling up close, much bigger than it looked from farther away. I reached out and ran my hand down a beautifully smooth, tanned, cold leg.  I saw that I had been right. They were perfectly still. What happened, I wondered, that every sing...