SEARCHING ”“ a Serial Novelle CHAPTER 1

By Patrick Cabello Hansel

Angel swore it was an owl. It was calling from a tree hidden deep behind the locked cemetery gates. He remembered that an owl calling meant death, but for whom? Himself? One in his family? A friend who had a death wish? He tried to see the owl through the fog that was beginning to creep in from Cedar Avenue, but he could not. It continued to call, lonely, vigilant, demanding.

Angel tried to laugh about it: of course there”'d be an owl in the cemetery. Nothing but dead people there! But he didn”'t know anyone in that cemetery. They didn”'t bury Latinos there. They didn”'t bury anyone there anymore. Mr. Bussey, in his 4th hour history class at Roosevelt, had talked about the Civil War veterans buried there, the heroes of the Underground Railroad, the first murderers and their victims. It was the old dead who laid there, the ones who had grown tired of being restless and wandering, the dead who had settled in for the long millennium”'s wait for the final trumpet.

No, this owl was calling for someone outside. Someone still living, who didn”'t know their number was up. That was a fact: death was on the prowl in the neighborhood.… Read the rest “SEARCHING ”“ a Serial Novelle CHAPTER 1”