When the Seasons End
Winter at a train station:
He was not waiting for the frozen world
to melt. He had to get all the city people tonight,
rouse them from their beds,
and lure them to the train station.
He must kill them all
and let his grisly pet lap up the rest.
Spring in the forest of white:
The maidens in white hung him upside down.
A glass basin directly below his head.
His hunting rifle rested against a tree.
All lovely in white, the maidens sang
as they waited for him to putrefy
so they could gather the carrion’s juices
for the Faerie Queen’s spring bath.
Summer at the park:
The man smiled at this one little girl.
He wanted to share his little secret to her.
The child mouthed a strangled scream
as the man wiggled mischievously
his undeveloped tentacle
concealed between his fingers.
Fall at an abandoned warehouse:
She was tied beside the decaying bodies
of the ones before her. Her captor,
pretending to be human out there in the world,
wore her face until the next season.
Kristine Ong Muslim's work has appeared or is forthcoming in more than three hunded publications worldwide, including Aberrant Dreams, Farrago's Wainscot, GUD Magazine, Kaleidotrope, Labyrinth Inhabitant Magazine, Sounds of the Night, and Tales of the Talisman. She was nominated three times for the Pushcart Prize and twice for the Rhysling Award.
(first appeared in Between Kisses Vol. IV, No. 1, June 2005)