“Twenty-One Grams” by Carolyn R. Russell is a speculative flash fiction that never quite relinquishes its sense of mystery. The setting is reminiscent of the fevered religious revivals of olden days, but Russell cheekily infuses both the plot and the perspective with an otherworldly, new-age sensibility: souls are “weighed” but also consoled by a “perky college girl” with Hello Kitty Kleenexes. Readers will long ponder this narrative’s final reckonings. —Court Harler
Our host has a pointed beard that metronomes back and forth as he describes the ancient means by which he says human souls can be weighed and measured. Twenty-one grams, he gargles out, his spackled eyes half shut. Tonight he’s barely bothering to hide his disdain; I should have adjusted the footlights to soften the contempt that rolls off him in waves.
While he lectures, before a transaction, he never moves from behind the podium on the raised platform. We tried that once and it was a disaster; our host in motion was too much for the crowd, resulting in bleeding eyeballs and aneurisms that left our marks incapable of consent. Something about the way he moves is impossible to disguise inside any kind of gear or clothing.
He begins to hit his stride now; centuries of practice guide the rhythms of his pitch. The room is warm and ripe with the sharp stench of cortisol and adrenaline despite the December air blasting through the open windows that showcase the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Twenty-one grams, he hisses, only twenty-one grams, the weight of a mouse, or a fava bean, or a double-A battery. That’s it!
As he talks I roam the carpeted periphery of the auditorium. That’s me, a perky college girl with a short skirt and an empathetic smile, quick to offer vitamin water or Hello Kitty Kleenex. I watch and listen. This part can be tricky.
A woman sitting near me to my right starts to speak. I approach her and ask her to stand and direct her question to our host. She asks if partials are acceptable. Like we’re talking about a liver, like maybe she thinks it will grow back whole. I smile and put my hand on her shoulder to ease her back into her chair, and there it is. That electric jolt that travels up through my wrist and singes my eyelashes.
We’re finished here.
I nod to our host and he is before her in an instant; later no one will remember his elated stroll down the aisle. He extends to her a surprisingly dainty hand; he knows how delicate are these first moments of desire, of decision. The woman rises; he puts his arm around her waist and walks her back up the aisle toward the lectern, his new catch a vision in Lilly Pulitzer florals.
As soon as our host’s back is turned there is the usual stampede for the doors. It always makes me laugh. A teenage boy looks at me over his shoulder as he runs. I place a closed fist on my chin and then raise my index finger straight up over my lips; the boy flings a different finger in my direction, the whites of his eyes lacey with red veins like a road map to hell. We’re in town another few days, and I wonder if he’ll be back.
A Best Microfiction winner and a Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Small Fictions nominee, CAROLYN R. RUSSELL’s short stories, poetry, and creative nonfiction have been featured in numerous publications. Her collection of cross-genre flash is called Death and Other Survival Strategies (Vine Leaves Press, 2023).
Featured image by Roman Kraft, courtesy of Unsplash.
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