The Harvest
by James Callan
I was on my break, having a puff, when I found a body outside the Walmart. It was facedown in the culvert, hidden by parked cars and tall reeds. There were dragonflies on the cattails. I blew smoke at them because I was bored. I parted the weeds to take aim, and that’s when I saw him: a boy with a hieroglyphic tattoo, a tramp stamp of Osiris. The image looked fresh, maybe inked the day he died. Yesterday, or maybe this morning. Dried blood traced the lines where flies converged to swarm a god. Their compound eyes were sparkling. They looked like rubies in the sun, like jackal eyes at night. The insect wings were gold and iridescent, as shiny as a Pharaoh’s headdress. The flies sucked at Osiris, drinking from his wounds.
I informed the Walmart manager, who called the police. I got the rest of the day off from work, but I had to stick around. Had to answer questions, talk to cops. I went through four more cigarettes while I waited for them to show.
When the cops identified the body, they told me he was a father. I was surprised. He looked about sixteen. I thought of the show, Sixteen and Pregnant, and nodded. It happens to plenty of us. There were frogs basking in the sun on the islands of his thighs. Dragonflies kissed his ass. Tadpoles nibbled at his ears. He wore plugs that stretched his lobes like a hula hoop. One was bright orange; the other was silvery white. They looked like the sun and moon. I wondered if he’d be buried wearing them.
“What’s that paper you’re holding?” the cop asked me.
“It’s my receipt,” I told him. “I bought socks with my employee discount. They’re novelty socks, with cats riding skateboards.” I lifted my pant leg to show the officer.
“Cute,” he said.
“What do you make of the tattoo?” he asked me.
“Kinda gay,” I admitted. “I mean, a tramp stamp on a dude?”
“How about the image? Does it mean anything to you?”
“It’s Egyptian, right? Cleopatra?” I asked.
“Osiris,” he said.
I shrugged.
“The God of the Dead,” he told me.
“Oh.”
“And resurrection, the afterlife, fertility.”
“He’s the god of a lot of things,” I said.
The flies deposited eggs in the soft gelatin of Osiris’ wounds. The dragonflies copulated on the edge of a sunburnt ass crack. Tadpoles investigated an underwater ear canal. A crayfish crawled out, slicing one in two. A turtle made a face at the edge of the reeds. Shit oozed from the back end of the underside of its shell. Little fishies intercepted what the reptile had deposited, puckering at the fragments of its waste.
“How much those socks cost you?” the cop asked.
“After my discount?”
“Yeah.”
“‘Bout six bucks.”
“The receipt says you paid ten.”
“It’s two for twelve. Ten was after my discount.”
“What’s on the other pair? More cats?”
“Dogs.”
“May I see?”
I took the second pair of socks from my back pocket and handed them to the cop. It was September, nearing mid-afternoon. We were having an Indian summer. We were having a heat wave. I was sweating like a pig.
“This is Anubis,” the cop said.
“Who?”
“On your socks. This isn’t a dog. It’s Anubis, the Egyptian God of the Dead.”
“I thought that was Osiris.”
“They’re similar, but not the same.”
“Yeah, one has a dog’s head.”
“A jackal,” the cop told me. “Anubis is the god of embalming. He prepares the bodies of the dead, guiding their souls.”
“Can I have my socks back?”
“Sure.” He handed them back.
The sun was directly over our heads. The asphalt was soft under my shoes. Insects were dying, cooked alive beyond the shadows of parked cars.
“Ra,” the cop said, pointing to the sky.
“Excuse me?”
“The supreme sun god and creator. He gives us light and warmth. We owe him our existence.”
“Uh-huh.”
“All of this,” he said, and swept his arms around him, “we owe it all to Him.”
“What, the Walmart?” I asked. “The fields of soy? Iowa?”
“The world, my son. The universe at large.”
He asked me a few more questions, then told me I could go home.
That night, there was a full moon. It was one of those special moons my hippie mom was always telling me about: blue moon, supermoon, blood moon. What ever happened to regular moons?
My mom knocked on the door and came into my room. She told me I should get my own place. I happened to agree. Then she turned out the light, even though I had been reading. She walked to the window and told me to take a look.
“It’s a rare moon tonight,” she said. “The harvest moon,” she told me.
I put down my book and looked out the window. Sure enough, I saw the moon. It was full, but otherwise it looked like it always did.
“Khonsu will heal us with his light,” Mom said.
“Sorry?” I asked.
“Khonsu, the god of the moon, time, and healing.”
“Egyptian?” I took a stab.
“Well, aren’t you a smart boy!” She tussled my hair before leaving my room. From down the hall, I heard her shuffling her tarot. She called out to me, “By the way, I love your new socks!”
In the bright light of Khonsu’s harvest moon, I wiggled my toes to animate Anubis, the God the Dead. Nearby, Osiris lay in a creek. Tomorrow, the sun will shine its light upon us all.
James Callan lives and writes in Aotearoa New Zealand. His fiction has appeared in Apocalypse Confidential, X-R-A-Y, Hobart, Reckon Review, and elsewhere. His collection, Those Who Remain Quiet, is available from Anxiety Press.
