Plow the Bones by Douglas F. Warrick

is that everything is hungry. All the time. And everything eats everything else.”
    The sucker–babies squealed now, and inside his head, trapped in the steaming hot broken piece of shit brain of his, Cotton demanded to know where the hell the night nurse was, didn’t she hear them in here? Couldn’t she do something? He heard himself making that mewling noise again, that helpless whine. He pounded his fists against the inside of his skull. Wasn’t anyone out there listening? Couldn’t anyone get him out of here, damn it? Couldn’t someone find a way to get hi —

    §

    The Cotton Lee in the bathroom mirror of the Faith Community Church men’s room was handsome. Cotton had never seen himself as handsome, had never thought about it one way or the other, but that image in the mirror, the man with the black tux (he had forgone his Navy formals, and now he was glad), the patent leather shoes, his hair just a little longer than he usually wore it, or ever would wear it again after this day, was exactly and perfectly… handsome.
    The door opened a crack and he saw in the mirror Mr. Danvers, Audrey’s father, peek in. He smiled, the bristles of his beard moving with his face. “How you feeling, Cotton?”
    “Anxious.”
    “You okay?”
    “Oh, yeah. I can honestly say I’ve never felt better. Not once in my entire life.”
    “Okay. I gotta get back to Audrey. You ought to get ready, we’re about to start.”
    Cotton nodded, brushed a perfect strand of hair from his forehead, and followed Mr. Danvers out of the bathroom. He crossed the lobby, felt the sun on his face through the windows, took his position at the back of his groomsmen. This was it, this feeling right here, that he wanted to freeze and keep, to be able to revisit on a whim every lonely moment, surrounded by his friends, moments away from marrying the most perfect human being anyone could possibly imagine.
    Snicker–snack.
    (No, damn it. Not yet. Not this one, not when he had just found it again. Cotton pushed against his body, clenched his fists around the tail of the memory. Those little monsters would have to chew off his fingers to get this one away.)
    The doors to the sanctuary opened. The procession walked in. Cotton’s feet were so numb that moving felt alien, like he had learned a new way of doing it. He stopped at the front of the sanctuary, turned and looked out at all these faces, all of them looking at him because they saw, they knew what he had. This sort of insane joy. Like this professor he’d had once.
    Cotton’s best man (his name, then his face, dissolved to ash, blew away) gripped his upper arm.
    Cotton nodded.
    Snicker–snack!
    Oh, Christ. This really was it, wasn’t it? This was the period on the sentence. The spiteful, stupid, quiet finale. He felt himself in two places at once, two times, two different universes occupied by sense and by nonsense, by joy and by ruination, by potential and by running–out. Those faces in the pews, they were all turning to mummies now, dry and dead, their smiles drawing up over their gums. This was no way to die. Like a fish. Like a stupid fish with a six–second memory. This was no way for a man to die.
    The organ stopped with a blunt churr. And even though the organ player was gone, the music started up again. They had sung lyrics to this tune when they were little kids, hadn’t they? Here comes the bride, all dressed in white. Where is the groom? He’s in the dressing room. Why is he there? He lost his underwear! And then they’d all laugh like mad. Underwear! Get it?
    The memory of the song died.
    But, oh, Jesus. Here was something. The church was turning to dust around them. Even his tux was beginning to curl like old paper and flake away. But this really was something, wasn’t it? With the song gone, he could hear her heels clack against the stone floor. She held Mr. Danvers’s arm… but… Mr. Danvers was not attached. Already in the bellies of the sucker–babies, maybe. She took