The Hollow Men, The Stuffed Men
By Kelly Oziemblo


She strides hurriedly down the street, not from a need to be anywhere in particular, but
because she knows that she should appear as needing to be somewhere. The heels of her boots
click, business-like, on the concrete, and remind her of metronomes of piano lessons long past
(Hollow MEN, Hollow MEN, Hollow MEN)
Everyone she passes also reminds her of those metronomes: blank, hollow, dead-eyed, fried. Her
every step echoes the words of a long-forgotten poem
(this is the way the world ends/this is the way the world ends/this is the way the world
ends/not with a bang but a whimper)
As every face blurs into one meaningless vanilla amalgam, something dark and shifting
appears in her peripheral vision. She turns to look and her eyes catch those of a filthy and
disheveled man sitting on the sidewalk. His light brown eyes appeal to her as he holds out a
grimy hand ending in long and yellow nails, asking
(A penny for the Old Guy?)
Her breath catches in her throat and she stumbles, although almost imperceptibly. He
continues to stare at her as she fumbles in her pocket and extracts whatever change she can grab,
dropping it cautiously into his upturned palm. He mutters something that sounds like a thank
you…then suddenly she feels his filthy, talon-like claws scrape against her wrist and pull her in
close to him.
Her heart quickens and she almost topples right over on top of him. The musk of him
wafts into her nostrils like a thick and robust perfume: underlying the surface smell of cigarettes
and whiskey, she can discern subtle hints of sweat, slow decay, and something she can only
describe as Alive. She can feel herself trembling slightly, not knowing what was on his mind
or what he wanted of her, but regardless of how she knew she should feel, she cannot help but
continue staring into his mesmerizing and somehow startlingly clear brown eyes. He stares back
at her, his hand trembling against her wrist and whispers
(the eyes are not here/there are no eyes here/in this valley of dying stars/in this hollow
valley/this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms)
She gasps and abruptly pulls away, her eyes widening as she stumbles backwards. How
does he know? she thinks, with a clarity of thought she hasn’t felt in a long while. Turning away,
she tries to go on her way, but finds herself so thoroughly shaken that she has trouble keeping a
straight course.
Clutching her chest and feeling it hitch with each breath, she leans up against the nearest
store front. She looks out into the perfect fall day and tries to calm her heart rate and breathing
back down to normal with each intake of crisp, clean air. All around her the drones are dutifully
going about their business, not even bothering to give her a first look, let alone a second. She
takes detailed note of her surroundings for the first time in awhile: the acrid smell of the fresh

paint on the crosswalk to her left, the deep fall colors of the shedding leaves across the street, the
uneven roughness of the concrete sidewalk beneath her shoes, the far-off shrieks of children at
play in the park, the coppery taste of fear receding in her mouth.
She looks around in amazement and suddenly the words of the homeless man come
flooding back to her, flowing around her body, blurring her thoughts and vision and blocking out
the day
(there are no eyes here)
As she stands there, still trying to regain her composure, she feels a slight pressure on
her wrist and before she can utter an exclamation the pressure is increased, she is pulled into the
nearest alley, and pushed roughly up against a wall.
It is then that she finally cries out, feeling the busy scratching of the brick side of the
building against her cheek. The pressure on her wrist slackens a bit, and she finds that she has
enough leeway to turn around and attempt to see the face of her kidnapper. She twists around,
violently knocking the side of her knee on the bricks and feeling the slow and thin trickle of
blood work its way warmly down her leg, but pays it no attention.
She makes it halfway around and looks up, bracing herself to see this mysterious face,
but to her dismay she realizes the face is hidden in the late afternoon shadows of the alley.
Feeling a strange hand slide up her thigh, she cries out again, and tries to twist out of the way.
Part of her wants more of his touch; for the first time in a long while she is overcome with a
feeling of Alive; his touch makes her skin sizzle as if she has been drinking liquid fire. And yet,
even in her half-terror some part of her mind registers the fact that somehow she knows this
touch. All thought flees from her mind though, as he holds her up against the wall and she hears
him unzipping his pants. Alarm bells ring deafeningly through her head and she goes limp in her
disbelief.
She worries that if she tries to fight too hard, he will produce some kind of weapon and
kill her, but she can’t help struggling as much as she dares. She starts to go for his face with her
fingernails. He pushes in closer to her, pressing her harder into the wall and grabbing her hands,
stopping her nails from clawing at his eyes. He leans in. She notices the dirty yellow talon-like
claws gripping her wrist; she notices that in her struggling she has led them almost out of the
shadows; she notices that the air she is breathing smells just like cigarettes and whiskey.
She staggers, looks up at him and as her eyes meet his startlingly clear light brown eyes,
he leans in and whispers gently into her ear

(between the idea/and the reality/between the motion/and the act/falls the Shadow


And suddenly she knows. She knows All and she is Alive. Her body goes limp as she wraps her
right leg up high around his waist and collapses against him. He adjusts slightly and gently slips in to her,
feeling her from the inside as a warm, inviting sheath. He has a fleeting thought about scandalizing the
drones: this is most definitely not in their plan, but he quickly dismisses it when he hears her cry out and
tighten her leg around his waist. He knows; he feels All and he is Home.


- - -
Kelly is a Creative writing student at the University of South Florida, freelance writer, from Plant City, Florida.