Fiction: Wise Men Fish Here

By Sarp Sozdinler

The biographer read this book many times before. Another white man, another lost continent. He had foraged many a jungle, enslaved a constellation of planets. He made himself a bed from the dreams of his old lovers, their nightmares a glue betwixt nights. He condemned them all to their eternal sleep, each cuddled in his tomb like a gluten-intolerant Pharaoh, with only a kiss of death and a Get-Out-of-the-Jail-Free card tucked in their armpits for a smoother passage. It was a thankless job, this undertaking: he received no feedback whatsoever, good or bad. However many ex-lovers he bedded and slayed, his dreams contained no tension, promised no surprises. In his dreams, he would first get used to the idea of holding his lovers by the shoulders, then of pulling them close, but then he would wake up just before he could feel the warmth of their skin. It was a pickle of fate, this curse his mother had cast on him all those years ago. She’d wished the worst for him, the most painful vasectomy. His future babies have since embraced the night with each new hookup, building for themselves a sandcastle on the other side of the shore, one torn condom after the other. They sang their father’s name into the dark waves, praising him for his forays. For being different than most others. And to what end? All for a good night’s sleep that never came? A retaliation for everything their father lacked as a partner, a friend? For reminding him of too much of the worlds he has yet to explore or devour? No, it was something else that kept them going and kept him sleepless at night, despite this luscious bed of his that was Frankensteined out of lust and desire. Out of all the books and men and women he loved inside and out and pretended not to care. Out of what he wrote in his diary every night. Out of all the names he chanted like a prayer before sleep. Dead or alive. Dead and alive.

 

 

 

 

 

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Shenandoah, Wigleaf, HAD, Hobart, X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, and Pithead Chapel, among other journals. His work has been selected or nominated for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. He edits the literary journal The Bulb Region.