MOUTH
kim parko
My sister and I crawled into the mouth of the rug and soon found ourselves among the bats we had befriended. The bats were full of ambiguity—one minute they would fly around us lovingly and the next they would bite our ears and noses with their sharp teeth. One night a frantic bat came flying from the mouth of our rug. When the adults saw it they screamed and thwacked it until it bled on the floor. We cried bitterly over the small crumpled body, and then took it down to the other bats. When they saw the pulp cradled in our hands, they swirled madly about and nipped at us so ferociously we had no choice but to leave. As we climbed out of the rug’s mouth, we looked back to see its lips dry and pucker. With one last fetid exhale, the mouth dissolved into the tight weave of the rug and was impenetrable.
Kim Parko
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Gabriel Garcia Marquez