Traps by Dev Murphy
Editor-in-chief Jennifer A. Howard on today’s bonus flash: I felt this story from Dev Murphy hard. We have all been this town, yes?, initially suspicious that there is anything special here to show off, but quickly convinced by new eyes—even if only briefly—that this place we are is a wonder.
Traps
He is a tourist and you are a town. He comes to you and says, “I thrive on newness,” and you think to yourself, “Newness! But I have been here for years!” He comes to you all the same, and he drums up business. He points out the things about you that are very spectacular: your sculptures, your statues, your public ruins, your Mona Lisas, your hottest chicken in the country, and your people learn that what they have could be precious even to someone who does not live there, and they rush to the mines and to the caves, to the pools built by nature from the curvings of roots of very old trees, to their laundry rooms, their bookshelves, their attempts at abstract expressionism, even though they used to only work in realism, but realism is often a sad substitute for reality, and so they're branching out into something more spiritual, more fluid, more depicting of a soul, and it’s not very good yet, but maybe it will be someday, and anyway, they want him to see it, as it is, now, and they come to the hotel to place these things at his feet—but he is already putting his things in the car, waving goodbye, telling you he would stay longer if he could, telling you you would not want him anyway, and your townsfolk are saying, “We do, please stay,” but he is getting into the car; he is driving away; and your townsfolk are standing in the parking lot with their arms full of pools and caves and lingerie and canvases, and they say to one another, “We knew, we should have known: he did not bring many bags.”
Dev Murphy is a creative writer and visual artist from Northeast Ohio. Her writing and art have appeared or are forthcoming in The Guardian, The Pinch, Empty Mirror, Anomaly, Queen Mob's Tea House, Brevity, and elsewhere. Follow her on social media @gytrashh.
