I’m pressing my good ear against today’s walk because I lost my keys. I can hear them jangling with every step, and the gulls are crying: Where did you have them last? Where did you have them last?
But I have no stale bread to offer as they hover above me in the petulant wind that makes this awkward spring bite like autumn and the lake sizzle like the noise on TV after the anthem, back when the channels were three and you could see hidden truths in the storm if you looked carefully.
Look carefully, look carefully, cry the gulls, and the jangling gets louder and louder, like the cruel chains dangling from the charred ceiling of the desolate slaughterhouse we snuck into one sticky night when we were kids, but found no bones or ghosts writhing with maggots, only dull edges whispering long numbers, and the chains chanting: Remember, remember.
Remember, remember! scream the gulls, and I’m very close now, I can smell the sweet metal in the air, it creeps into the intricate cavities behind our faces that resonate so majestically when the right voice sings in just the right keys – ah! 
Here they are.

Jan Hassmann writes in beautiful Plovdiv, Bulgaria. His work has appeared in Seaside Gothic, Dishsoap Quarterly, WireWorm Magazine, Stone Circle Review, Sparks of Calliope, and elsewhere.

• X: @ItsJanHassmann.