Skreek!

Monday, June 24, 2013

In The Kitchen (illustration class assignment, CSULB 1988)

My father is sitting in the kitchen. He is barechested and burly, laughing, flushed...A fat cigar juts out, curling smoke, from his bared, carnivorously grinning teeth. He rubs oil into the stock of his shotgun. A bottle and glass sit by his gun tools on the table. My mother stands in the corner of the kitchen, watching in distaste, her fingers pressed fearfully into her ears. My father chuckles at the sight of her, his eyes glinting. He swings the gun up so it points straight in the air, and looks at my mother with big, teasing eyes, and pulls the trigger. There is a terrific bool. Plaster showers down everywhere...My mother rushes cursing out the door...My father sits, delighted, throwing back his head with laughter, his cigar in one hand, his drink now in the other..."Ah, women, they love this kind of thin," he grins, winking.
~Wearing Dad's Head by Barry Yourgrau