while mine, naturally, still in its infancy, was taking
ages to grow, not only because I was dying at a slower
rate than Lem, but also, perhaps, because he was taking
bigger risks and dying more crassly than I was allowed.
Once I walked in on him running a dagger through
his neck, in his room, and quickly shut the door again,
wondering if my brother wasn’t, in fact, losing control
of the whole thing.
What if Dad had seen you? I asked him later.
He didn’t.
But what if he did.
He won’t.
Okay then.
Promise me you’ll never die without me there.
I promised, and except for one time, I was being a
good little brother all the time. That one time, I was
feeling reckless. The sun was out, and I was all buoyed
up, having stolen a kiss at school from Beverly Brown
earlier that morning.
I’d always been deathly afraid of the Munsters’ Rott-
weiler, whose name was Klaus. The Munsters had this
joke of a fence that was only a few inches or so high,
and word on the schoolyard was the dog once jumped
it and bit an old lady to death. Ever since, I walked by it
with wobbly knees, never letting Klaus out of my sight.
That morning, however, feeling like a champ, I
jumped the fence and lay down on the grass, closing
my eyes as Klaus shot round the corner. I offered him
my jugular, but he was off his game or something that
morning. Only gnawed at me a bit, and the gallons of
drool running down on my face like some sticky goo
from hell so grossed me out that I couldn’t go through
with it.
When I told Lem, he didn’t speak to me for a week.
What I tell you? he asked.
I said nothing.
What I tell you, dummy.
A few days later he softened up again, and to show
me I wasn’t just some little kid he could boss around,
we did a tandem jump off the utility pole, by the rail-
road tracks.
I had my favorites, by then—a soft spot for hanging,
in particular, maybe because my first death had been by
hanging and I still cherished the memory of that, thebeginning of our little game. Jumping, too, was a rush,
and drowning. Basically everything that was quick and
easy. I guess you could say I was lazy, that I didn’t want
to work too hard at dying. Lem was worried, too, and no
week went by when he didn’t lecture me on it, how the
act of dying was not the point, and not to be enjoyed,
that it was sick to do it for pleasure. The important thing
was the bark, he said, and nothing but the bark. I sup-
pose that was the reason why he was so hard on himself,
why he picked worse and worse ways to die, to remind
himself that it wasn’t for joy and recreation, and that suf-
fering made the bark grow faster. Once, he had me bash
his head in with a brick, which I completely refused, and
later only did after he wouldn’t get off my case.
Hey, thanks, he said, afterward.
Don’t mention it.
No, really. That took some guts.
I smiled.
Proud of you, Danny.
I enjoyed fooling around with the bark. I liked the
ballooning feeling it gave me in my chest, how when I
concentrated and held my breath a certain way and half-
closed my eyes at the same time, I could sense how deep
down the roots of the bark went, how what was visible
on the outside was only the smallest part and when
everything was just right it expanded and expanded and
did a funny, tingling thing with my spine.
We were sitting on the ground, behind the barn, with
our shirts off so the bark could get some sun.
It’s trying to make a circle, I said, looking at Lem’s
bark, which was almost completely round, with only a
few pieces missing.
Innit?
Yes, he said.
Soon, I said.
Very soon, said Lem.
I felt a crushing sadness, about how the game was
about to end, and how I’d have to continue all on my
own.
What’s after? I asked.
Lem turned around, and the sun caught his bark
just right or there was some other trickery of the light, I
don’t know, but it seemed, for a moment, that the bark
had consumed him whole, that he was no longer human
but a bark man, and not only him, but the ground, too,
and the clouds above, tiny and lumpen, and even the
sun, sending out rays of bark.
No more dying, Lem said, eyes sparkling. Some-
thing else.Stralsund, GermanyMika Seifert works
as first concertmaster
for the Northeast
German Symphony
Orchestra. His short
stories have recently
been published in the
Chicago Review, Image
Journal, Antioch Review,
Salt Hill, Southern
Review, Massachusetts
Review, and elsewhere.
FICTION BEGINNERSI guess you could say I was lazy, that I
didn’t want to work too hard at dying.SEIFERT PHOTO: KATJA PFEIFER30 W LT SUMMER 2019