A Joyous Meal
By Gray Winsler
Published Issue 130, October 2024
Amal glanced at the family photo clipped to his visor. They looked so happy. He smiled inwardly to himself, for a moment. But outwardly his expression remained unchanged, empty. He had always wanted a family. But he was never home.
This cab was his home. Static played over the radio. He had not noticed. Windshield wipers metronomed, pushed away the constant wet. Rain slicked streets reflected the dull city light. His cab slugged through traffic. Horns screamed around him, humanity desperate to lurch forward.
A new request pinged on his phone then. A request he had received many times before. A request that tuned the static in his head to a symphony. A request that reminded him of an old friend. He accepted it and joined the chorus of horns urging the swarm of cars onward.
Wisps of shadow, again
Squirmed, begged
Cried out into the void
Mouths agape
Hungry
Always hungry
Even when their bellies were full
Amal had been his father’s name, and his father’s before him. He knew neither of them, not well. Just as the family that hung over his head did not know him. Perhaps that would change.
Amal arrived in the alley, into which Sky Dance patrons were birthed like newborns into the city’s filth. His passenger door opened, and a man slumped inside. Amal watched as he fiddled with the door, managed to close it on his own foot, then successfully pulled it shut. He could smell the alcohol ooze from his throat, through the pane of glass which separated them. The man said nothing to Amal. He never had. Amal pressed the gas.
He often imagined the lives of his passengers. Amal looked at this man, who was now passed out in the backseat. He had picked him up many times before. He had come to know him in a way. Amal did not work for Uber or Lyft or any of the other apps used by common folk. His passengers were of another class, needed special arrangements. He looked at the man’s watch, which was worth more than Amal’s cab. He looked at the man’s suit, which was worth more than Amal’s home. He looked at the man’s ring, which was worth more than Amal’s life.
Amal glanced again at the photo clipped to his visor. At the family, whose father was absent, was never home. He knew what he had to do. He had waited weeks for this moment. The universe had presented him with an opportunity to correct one of its flaws.
He turned off his phone and exited the highway.
Shadows like worms
Wriggled toward each other
Pulsating, as one
Shadow became feather
Became claw
Became grin
Became oblivion
Became eyes
Eyes that could not see
But when looked into, saw
Shadows like worms
Amal could feel his heart beat like a drum in his chest. The city was a distant glow now, the hum of life replaced with still suburbia; then still suburbia replaced with dim woods. His taxi was swallowed by the night. It became a lonely glow, a torch in a crypt, a star in an empty, black sky.
He glanced at his passenger, still asleep, drooling. He turned onto another road, which was little more than gravel and mud. Headlights flashed on signs that said to turn back. Amal continued on, deeper into the woods. He knew these woods well. He played in them as a kid, alone. He lived in fantastical worlds beneath the canopy. He imagined wizards and goblins and shadows that could speak, shadows that became his friends. The shadows still spoke to him, sometimes. The taxi rattled and pitched over the cratered road. Amal glanced nervously at his passenger, who mumbled but slept on.
Multitudinous shadow
Towering, writhing, coalescing
As a planet forms
As a noose tightens
As mycelium spark
Feeling itself grow
Hungry
Ravenous
Gaping maw of dark
Amal drove on until he was deep in the belly of the woods. He placed the taxi in park. The wipers ticked back and forth, back and forth. Headlights stabbed into the trees. Amal turned off the cab, let the dark engulf them. Rain pattered on the hood, the only sound. He looked in the rearview mirror, licked his dry lips. His passenger stirred behind him, sensing the change of rhythm.
The man’s eyes blinked open. Still drunk, thinking he was home, the man pushed open the door and stumbled out of the cab. Cold rain splattered on his face, cleared some of the ethanol mists.
Amal joined him, stepping out into the black night. He looked up, let the rain wash over his face. Thunder rolled in the distance. He gazed into the darkness of the forest, into his childhood playground. He listened, in between the raindrops. He listened for the shadows. In the dark of the woods he felt eyes, great saucers of writhing shadow, felt grin, that was empty blackness. He felt his heart and excitement swell, sensed his old friend’s approval.
His passenger was in his face now, screaming, ordering Amal back into the cab, ordering him to take them home.
Amal looked at him, smiled, felt the dark hunger encroach.
Fear pricked at the man’s spine. “You’re fucking crazy,” he said. Adrenaline and dread helped clear the drunken fog. He punched Amal then, intended to knock him out and take his keys.
Amal took the hit, tasted the metallic tinge of his own blood. He looked back up at his passenger, still smiling, crimson dripping from his lips, and said:
“Run.”
The shadow descended
Eyes that cannot see
Consumed
Tongue that cannot taste
Swallowed
Fill the belly
Eat the flesh
Ecstatic refresh
Rain gushed on a forest wet with rot. Amal had trekked through the mud, over gnarled roots, over decaying leaves, over blossoming mushrooms. He had arrived where the screams went silent. He found the empty husk. He found the clothes, the watch, the ring. He took them into his arms and walked back to his cab. He placed them neatly into his trunk and drove home.
Screams from within
Garbled with bile
Corroded
Drowned
A joyous meal
Amal returned home. He took the family photo from his visor and smiled at it. He would not need it here anymore. He stepped through his front door, still dripping with rain, with blood. It was quiet and dark. He took off his wet clothes and tossed them into the sink, where maggots crawled on crusted dishes. He walked past his collections, of magazines piled, of diner saucers stacked in careening towers, of expensive watches and rings. Mice scuttled amongst the treasures.
Amal was tired, the sort of tired that comes from a hard day’s work, that bodes of a good night’s rest. He felt he had done something good today. He had rid the world of the ungrateful father. He had fed his friend the rot it craved.
Amal took the family photo from the pocket of his jeans and carried it into his bedroom with him. He picked up an empty frame from the shelf beside his bed and set the photo inside. He smiled at the family, at the father who was swallowed by shadow, and placed the frame back onto the shelf, alongside the other families who smiled back at him, other families he had dutifully pruned.
Amal slept peacefully
Dreamt of shadows which swelled
Bellies full
And burst, became
Wisps of shadow, again
Gray Winsler is the first ginger to be published in Birdy Magazine, Issue 091. He loved living in Denver despite his allergy to the sun and is now based in Ithaca, NY. He spends his mornings with his dog Indy by his side, writing as much as possible before his 9-to-5. If you’re curious about Normal, IL or why TacoBell is bomb, you can find more on his site.
Check out Gray’s last Birdy install, Polydactyl Poppy, in case you missed those or head to our Explore section to see more of his previously published work.