Writer's Excerpts

No Longer On The Menu

by Antanas Sileika

published in TOK: Writing the New City - Book 4

I was surprised but not shocked when my Aunt Milda began to see her dead son up on the telephone pole outside her window in the mornings. At her age, anything was possible. I had to do something, and not just for her sake. As her tenant, I had everything to lose if she was carted off to a seniors’ residence.

“I don’t know how Frankie manages to perch there,” she said when I came in from my heated garage to join her at morning coffee. “The wire is very thin.”

As if that would bother a ghost. “The wire is immaterial,” I said, humouring her, “like a line on a computer screen.”

She didn’t know what I meant and went on. “I call out from the window for him to come inside, but he never answers me. He just looks at me funny and then he disappears.”

“You mean he vanishes into thin air?”

“I look away and when I look again, he’s gone.”

Aunt Milda wore her hair pinned up in the mornings, but her eyesight was poor and she was getting forgetful. A few wild gray wisps stuck out on one side of her head.

To read the full piece, purchase TOK: Writing the New City - Book 4