The Schoolmaster

by Curtis Smith

The girl and her brother paused before the hanged man. The rope slung in the courtyard’s tree, and just above their heads, the schoolmaster’s blue feet. The tree’s leaves gone, and the children’s breath climbed the naked branches. Above, the constellations the schoolmaster had taught them. Gemini. Canis Major. Orion. A gunshot in the distance, a pause, then two more. The breeze picked up, and on it, smoke. The girl tugged her brother’s arm. “Come on.”

They stepped over a smashed birdfeeder, the spill of seeds. The schoolmaster’s door hung from its hinges, and the girl, being older, was the first to cross the threshold. The shadows deeper, and the curtains snared on the windows’ broken glass. The mob gone, still the girl felt them near. She turned on her flashlight, and its beam rippled over broken chairs and smashed dishes. They paused before the toppled bookcases. The girl knelt, the flashlight held to spines and covers. She placed the books she wanted in her brother’s hands. She thought of the times she’d seen the schoolmaster in the library. His corner table. The afternoon sun upon him as he turned another page.

\When her brother could carry no more, she made her own pile. Myths. Philosophy. Poetry. The world. She lifted the pile. The stack’s weight shifted, and she secured the top book with her chin. A helicopter passed, and the room, with its smashed door and hollowed innards, trembled.

Outside, a book slipped from her brother’s pile. “Leave it,” she said. High above, the helicopter, its body lost to the dark, its searchlight sweeping over the rooftops. The breeze stiffened, and the schoolmaster’s body twisted. The boy looked up. “Leave that, too,” she whispered.

Yet at the gate, she was the one who looked back. The rope lost amid the branches, an illusion that made it appear as if the schoolmaster belonged to neither the earth nor the sky. A gust, and the tree’s branches creaked. Around the girl’s feet, the wind-blown papers that had escaped the house. She stepped on one as it tumbled past. A child’s writing. The schoolmaster’s notes in the margin. She lifted her foot and hurried after her brother. The helicopter closer, its echo racing up the narrow street. Its light brighter than any star.

Curtis Smith’s most recent book, The Magpie’s Return, was named a Kirkus 2020 Indie Pick of the year. His next novel, The Lost and the Blind, will be released in early 2023.

Check out the write-up of the journal in The Writer.

Matter Press recently released titles from Meg Boscov, Abby Frucht, Robert McBrearty, Tori Bond, Kathy Fish, and Christopher Allen. Click here.

Matter Press is now offering private flash fiction workshops and critiques of flash fiction collections here.

Submissions

Poetry, creative nonfiction, and fiction/prose poetry submissions are now closed. The reading period for standard submissions opens again September 15, 2025. Submit here.

Upcoming

05/04 • Leath Tonino
05/11 • Chris Pellizzari
05/18 • Chris Clemens
05/25 • Clayton Eccard
06/01 • TBD
06/08 • TBD
06/15 • TBD
06/22 • TBD
06/29 • TBD
07/06 • TBD
07/13 • TBD
07/20 • TBD
07/27 • TBD
08/03 • TBD
08/10 • TBD
08/17 • TBD
08/24 • TBD
08/31 • TBD
09/07 • TBD
09/14 • TBD
09/21 • TBD