PRESS RELEASE:

A mere week after he had arrived by boat to bright skies and frigid air, Willis found himself in some trouble, haunted by all that he had left behind. He ran through the thickening darkness towards a lumber mill, the howls of wolves in the distance.

Hauling himself into a tall lumber bin, Willis wrapped his scarf around his mouth to stifle the heat of his breath and laid out as though he were a piece of wood himself.  He laid there like this in stillness for some time, the wolves howling around him like they had nothing better to do.  Amid the lumber, its wood covered in claw marks, Willis was confronted with uncertainty.  Outside was death, and above him was the rounded silver moon.    

He spent that time focusing on the moon, and the last thing he saw before a veil of sleep took over were two foreskins, silver and shriveled, linked like two bright rings.

When he awoke the next morning, his nose bleeding, he headed towards the call bell for the workers at the mill. He found himself among friends, and stale coffee brewed with eggshells served in old tin cups.  He managed to get a ride later that day to a train station, and got on his way out of Canada, southbound for the United States.

Years later, perhaps long after his physical form left this world, a pair of brothers went rooting through a drawer full of knick-knacks and found hidden at the bottom a yellowed lacework box with a toggle clasp.  Inside were a pair of luminously fossilized foreskins, two perfect rings intertwined.

The mummified rings of skin sat there amid other faded relics: a pocket knife with a mother-of-pearl handle, a two-cent stamp depicting inner joy, and a tin model of a grocery scale.

“I have good news brother,” said the younger of the two. “Good news.”

“Wait, do you hear something?” interrupted the older of the two. “I think something is scratching at the window.”

by Anthony Giordano