My friend Shannon sewed a Halloween costume for her son Alex. He said he wanted to be a witch. Shannon asked me to pick up a broom from the supermarket on the way home from work. At the checkout, the cashier handed me a receipt and a cookbook called Witches Brew. “It’s on the house,” she cackled. The store manager glanced over, covered his eyes with bloodroot and fell asleep. In the morning his persistent cough had vanished. So had his eyebrows.
Alex became a famous author of children’s books. He mentioned me in the preface of his first book: “He can sweep away cobwebs, cure blindness, hunt giraffes. He is a fellow you want to stay away from.”
I’m rarely hungry anymore. Each morning, I tear one page out of Witches Brew and place it under my tongue. The whole neighborhood complains about the grim looking ghosts waiting on the sidewalk in front of my house. My neighbors get in line as well. They all fall asleep standing up, even the ghosts. The giraffes don’t seem to care.
Alex still has that broom and rides it when he thinks everyone is asleep. I’ve got all my eyes on him.
Michael Minassian is a Contributing Editor for Verse-Virtual, an online poetry journal. His short stories have appeared recently in Impspired, Flash Boulevard, and 10 by 10. He is the author of three poetry collections as well as a chapbook of poems Jack Pays a Visit, released in 2022. For more information: https://michaelminassian.com.