Don’t Look at the New Moon Through Glass
I put her superstitions away for later, when she had proven herself to be a ghost. Hand outstretched towards me, obscenities dripped from her fingers, her brain encased in cancer, her frontal lobe an abyss of dead matter, she told me not to leave her with that woman (my mother). She yelled at me for not finishing my hot milk, when it was tea, only I was at last her grandson, not her granddaughter. Her tumors taught her more about who I was than I could.
My grandmother’s pleasantries with me did not stop her from calling my mother a cunt when she saw her silhouette in the doorway. She swore my mother was opening an umbrella indoors—unthinkable—it was my mother picking up the cat, who then sprang from her arms in a squeal. My grandmother remained stubborn, reverting to the argument about my mother purposefully leaving the blinds up to trick her into looking out during the night of the new moon.
I left for this hotel bar to await my employers’ arrival. I found them on Craigslist, where I usually found Harvard Psych Department anxiety labs for quick cash. The ad had been for a part in a short film, for someone who had my ambiguous face (race). I downed the chocolate bomb martini a curious stranger bought me and went to cry on cue, my eyelids smeared with red, white, and blue shadow. It was a silent film, of course. I answered the ad because ever since I had to euthanize my dog, I could cry without much effort. His mangy face, the sticky dog slobber coating his fur, he could not stop drooling, the bald patches on his back of over-grooming, his eyes so wide, saying kill me. The man told me to turn to the side of the camera, as though I was looking at someone off screen, someone who was making me sob.
He handed me a paring knife to hold to my throat.
My grandmother’s whisper in my ear to never take knives for free.
I hadn’t told them I wrote poetry but the woman let me see the poem she wrote to accompany their movie, as if we smelled of the same poet pheromones. She waited, hopeful for a response, but I lamely said, “cool.”
They wrote me a check, very official sounding. I knew from babysitting it was for tax purposes. You tend to be a bit jaded when you make money this way. I slipped her a penny, for the knives, and made my exit.
She called out my name as I stepped into the elevator, pulled me back to the hotel room, her partner in an armchair, her arm around my waist. He watched as she undressed, undressed me, kissed the space above my chest below my collar bones. His hand rested over the light switch, taunting me. I couldn’t help but glance at it, repeatedly waiting for him to press it down. He didn’t return my gaze. Between moments I blinked, the light went out, and in the flash I saw two of us remained, he in the armchair, and me, meeting his eyes in the window. I looked out the window into a lightless night. I heard the lobby phone buzz through the silence. He requested a cup of hot milk.
Mini-interview with Alison L. Fraser
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
ALF: In elementary school I wrote a series of creature feature type horror stories that I had my friends act out and I got in a bit of trouble for it because everyone was screaming and scared about something I had come up with in my head. I wasn’t a kid who got in trouble much, but I enjoyed that. Like fuel. Writing is forever chasing that feeling.
HFR: What are you reading?
ALF: The endless amount of short fiction in online lit mags, Monica by Daniel Clowes, and Sister Golden Calf by Colleen Burner.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “Don’t Look at the New Moon Through Glass”?
ALF: My grandmother’s superstitions. This story only contains about half of them.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
ALF: I’m working on some longer stories with occasional bursts of flash fiction when I need to step away from the longer pieces. They’re both different processes for me so I’ll alternate between the two genres if I’m feeling stuck.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
ALF: School lunch should be free for all and taste good and be reasonably healthy without sacrificing calories or flavor for lower fat or honoring “brands” and replacing fat with sugar and using milk cartons as half a meal. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but make it so every kid wants school lunch. Stop treating the act of feeding people as though it’s a burden.
Alison L. Fraser is a mixed and messy writer existing in Massachusetts. They have some other stories in Ellipsis Zine, JAKE, and Idle Ink. Read more by visiting alisonfraser.space.
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Heavy Feather Review 