NERF by Sarp Sozdinler

NERF

Your husband’s ghost wrestles an Iberian Ibex outside your house. He sports three bellies these days, including the two protruding from the sides. He cleans the dishes while you are away at work, builds you a house of cards at night. He fails. He starts over. You pretend to be a doorknob to pass the time, feeling chiseled and oily due to disuse. This is a game you used to play with your late husband: he a nerf gun, you a real bullet. You used to imagine your future kids, too, would go straight for the heart—splash their brain juice all over, stain the carpets. Your husband would know what to do with their bones if he were still alive: eat them, bury them, marinate them, what have you. The house of cards comes crumbling down when the doorbell chimes. Iberian Ibex has come to collect her debt, trick or treatin’. She wants a rematch with your husband’s ghost. You tell her he doesn’t exist.

A writer of Turkish descent, Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Trampset, Vestal Review, DIAGRAM, Normal School, Lost Balloon, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, Best of the Net, and Wigleaf Top 50. He's currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.