Todd Austin Hunt

MURAL

Tuesday morning. Tuesday afternoon. Tuesday night. This was the time when Hopshod turned himself inside out. Long ago, before his children's conception, he would save Tuesdays for painting. He had been given white walls, but he stroked the surface with fine brushes. The wall was his lover, and he fondled her with crimson, with turquoise and avocado. Two times she came, and two people burst forth whom Hopshod had never seen before. A woman whose lambent beauty made him blush. Lips pressed together purple tight, as if she constantly savored a wonderful taste. She wore a white coat and a transparent slip that rippled alluringly over her svelte ankles. A young man with soft, heavy cheeks. A river of saliva coursed from the corner of his mouth and puddled into the neck's hollow. Hopshod thought this one feeble, but when the eyes emerged, he recognized an eagle. The eagle made Hopshod's fingers shake around the brush handles. The woman and eagle walked on narrow, cobblestone streets which Hopshod had given them, but did not understand. They told him quietly to invite them over on Tuesday. The pretty lady traced a finger down from Hopshod's neck to his tight belly. The eagle folded a pair of veined hands, then spread them out. Hopshod dropped his brushes and picked up a scalpel. He opened himself up for them. Inside out, Hopshod thought, I am a delicacy. His heart, liver, lungs, kidney: all dew-glistened fruit for his lover's children to enjoy.

Todd Austin Hunt lives in Charleston, South Carolina. He earned his bachelors degree from the University of Kentucky and his Masters from Eastern Kentucky University. He's been publishing weirdo stories since 2003. His limp, one result of CP, is often mistaken for drunkenness by noble police officers.