An Evening Jog by the Lake
A human man with the top of a taxidermized bison head, its breast of fur still fluffed like a winter scarf, pushes a baby stroller just ahead of me. Its wheels bump fist-sized rocks, jarring the carriage; the man’s knuckles flash white like a warning. He stops to watch a heron lift ungracefully off the lake, around which the worn dirt path circles. I jog to catch up, peaking slowly over his shoulder. The last thing I want to do is scare him. My lungs swell open in the clear air but the closer I get, his musk catches in my chest. A tuft of his hair sheds in the wind and glues itself to the sweat on my neck. “Nice evening for a jog,” he says without turning. His black eyes are skinned figs. He blinks, and long, black lashes slow time.
“Are they yours?” I ask. I move the blankets like a man would: without asking, see four sets of toes.
“Twins,” he breathes through nostrils the size of quarters. I briefly think: my thumbs couldn’t plug them.
The blankets cover regular-sized skulls, maybe, beneath the fluff of bison heads. “Boys.” The gender escapes my mouth. His adult bison head nods proudly. His legs spread, my eyes move to the subtle bulge at his pants zipper like it is an intentional focal point.
“Inheritors of the world,” he coos. My skin bristles. There is a splash at the lake and we both look; the heron never did make it into the air. It’s left leg hangs crooked in the open space where the other is drawn toward its body. Its wings flap violently in the water. The splashing hurts me, somehow.
“You better run,” he whispers.
Between us, the air chills. He scratches between his legs, like a man would. “Excuse me?” I manage.
“The heron.” He points to a red fox crouched at the shore, its paws socked by mud and sand.
I huff. “It won’t touch the water. It can’t.” I push my hand from my mouth, where I’ve bit my nail too close to skin, trying to remember whether it’s true that a fox won’t swim. The taste of a childhood fable where a fox does indeed swim is at the back of my tongue, but I can’t pull the memory all the way out.
The heron raises itself once more and I feel a hit of relief. I stand tall, root for its freedom with my eyes. It is a child’s height above the water when the limp leg skims at the froth from the waves of its own making. The fox waits, cunningly and patiently. When I breathe, I see that the bison head is watching me as I watch the lake. One of the babies murmurs. Its rat-sized arm lifts at the blanket, and brown, spiked hair escapes the top. I reach in, like a woman would. I pat the chest, pet the fur. I let him nuzzle my arm, suckle the bend of my pinky. When I breathe again, it is to glance the fox at the tree line, dragging the heron into the woods by the neck. I look just in time to see its dead, left leg pulled behind like the tail of a noose. At some point I realize that each breath brings me closer to him, yet my lungs pump on.
Mini-interview with Stacey Lounsberry
HFR: Can you share a moment that has shaped you as a writer (or continues to)?
SL: During my preteen years, my mom and I frequented a local restaurant where diners were encouraged to draw on the white paper tablecloths. Mom was always doodling anyway, especially when on the cordless phone or, heaven forbid, stuck at the corded one. But this one particular day, she was helping me with a school assignment: rewriting a fairy tale, which, at the time, felt impossible. At the restaurant, we scribbled and ate until the paper was decorated with grease stains and a crayon-marked, epic poem that ran off the page and onto the napkins, which she folded up and carried home under her arm like a great, treasure map. I later realized that it was real. Writing is like a treasure map, leading us to a higher understanding of ourselves, our nature, our culture.
But what I can’t remember is the grade I received.
HFR: What are you reading?
SL: I am reading White Noise by Don DeLillo, and listening to The Axman’s Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (!!!), and the many lit mags I frequent. I’m especially sucked into the quick hit of a good flash fiction/nonfiction or a blunt poem.
HFR: Can you tell us what prompted “An Evening Jog by the Lake”?
SL: “An Evening Jog by the Lake” was one of many pieces that I wrote after the results of the 2024 US elections. As a woman in Eastern Kentucky, I feel the pressures of the humanity and goodness in Appalachian culture rubbing up against the political stagnancy of my red state: an eruption of long-buried tectonic plates. While Southern culture and red politics may seem to go hand in hand, they often do not. It’s quite complicated, more than I can express here; in fact, I think the only way to translate this phenomenon is a piece of art that moves the reader/viewer/listener internally while using its surface touches to aim the mind in that direction. As in: This is the topic I want you to think about, and this is how I want you to feel while you’re thinking about it.
HFR: What’s next? What are you working on?
SL: I am pulling together a flash fiction chapbook that centers on Appalachian themes: what it’s like for different people to win and lose in modern Eastern Kentucky.
However, my first love is children’s literature. My magical realism books, for which I am in search of a literary agent, attempt to empower children through narrative and the enjoyment of reading. This is something that I learned from books at a young age, that saved me countless times, and which I hope to pass on to others.
HFR: Take the floor. Be political. Be fanatical. Be anything. What do you want to share?
SL: Be kind.
This piece will likely come out after our next president’s inauguration, and I urge others to remember that an individual’s vote is complicated.
But mostly, be kind.
Stacey Lounsberry’s work has appeared in Liminal Spaces, Appalachian Places, SBLAAM, Book of Matches, Clepsydra, and others. Her flash fiction, “The Bet” (first published by The Mersey Review), is a 2025 Best of the Net nominee (Sundress Publications). She is a full-time mother and writer, and holds a BFA in Creative Writing and an MAT in Special Education. Find her in Eastern Kentucky, online at sglounsberry.com, or on Twitter @sglounsberry.
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Heavy Feather Review 