The Names of the Dead
by Sarah Reith
Every day, she searches the names of
the dead. Today, they are underneath the
second half of a front page article about
the gains in Iraq. Yesterday, they were
bunched together in platoons. Tomorrow,
they will be the length of a honey-do list,
and there are days when the
announcement of them is longer than
they are.
The names of the dead, in small block
letters, like a quiet, solid voice. The phrase
has a magisterial sound, like someone very
old and ceremonial, or maybe just a formal
foreigner: the brother of Nancy, the sister
of Sam, the names of the dead, and the
sorrows they bear.
She doesn’t count them. She only sees
the shape of them, and the length of the
page they consume. She scans their
pictures with her eyes half averted.
Sometimes, the only available photo is
from middle school, and most of the time,
it is very, very bad.
His last name starts with an S. He is a
reservist out of California. Usually,
because it feels like cheating to actively
search for his name, like eating dessert
first or skimming to the end of a
suspenseful chapter, she will start
sedately at the beginning: Aaronson.
Barclay. And their first names, always
cherished, always intimate. She cannot see
a soldier’s first name without thinking of
his mother, of his wife, or of naked little
babies. It’s like she has a purely internal
structure for personal pronouns.
Sometimes, her gaze will race to the
bottom; and some days, someone with a
last name starting with a Y or a Z has
been killed. And then, because it’s too
late, she’s already started her grim
dessert, she trawls through the letters to
the top. She almost thinks she would be
relieved to find his name there.
She can still find his parents’ home. It’
s in her mind, but she can’t tell you where
it is. She has to drive it, take the exit off a
quiet highway where the creaking of the
country insects sounds as dusty as the
air, as dry and bright as unrelenting
sunshine. She will know the exit when she
sees it. She will know the row of rural
PO boxes, and the stretch of anonymous
trees. This grass, these sunburned hills,
this orchard of delicate fruits. This low-
lying house, and this old man with his
thick Nordic accent. This old dog named
after his wife, still living, who snores.
“Would you like his email address?”
asked the old man, smirking. “Oh, no, that
won’t be necessary,” she replied, in a
starburst of something that felt elegant,
and fierce. She was wearing black that day.
The names toll on and on. The women
wail and men weep, the way that children
do, unceremoniously, because there is no
safe convention for the tears of men, no
formal way for them to shed their tears,
only their blood and their sweat and their
lives.
She struggles through the names of
the dead. She missed a day, she missed a
weekend. She missed a three day weekend
once, and when she got home, none of
her papers were there. She thinks her
landlady threw them away, or her
neighbor. She thinks they threw away her
three days’ newspapers to make the
burglars think that she was home. She
thinks they saw her darkened windows,
that they shook their heads. ‘She could
have left the porch light on,’ she imagines
them thinking, excitedly, the way people
are when they see someone going down
the same old road again.
It could be over now. There were two
whole weeks, when she only got the
Sunday paper, because she spent two
hours every day, poring over every line of
every article, every correction, every back-
and-forth battle on the Op-Ed pages, and
she realized that she wasn’t reading
anything else, or writing, or watching a
movie or seeing a play; that she barely
looked up from the paper on her way to
work each morning: to see the snowy
egrets in their nightgowns, with their
black, unblinking eyes.
It could be over now. It could be over,
all of a sudden. He could be interred in
dust and lead, his mother weeping and his
dad’s old dog forlorn with human sadness.
There could be a sudden silence, an
extended version of the silence after
accidents, when the screaming and the
screech of brakes is stilled.
She wonders if that’s what it was like,
if it happened at all: or if there was
majesty and grace. She wonders if there
were screams and oaths and prayers, if
there was a silence that expanded and
then, one split-second of acceptance and
maybe even gratitude, for life and a few
years of love.
by Sarah Reith
Every day, she searches the names of
the dead. Today, they are underneath the
second half of a front page article about
the gains in Iraq. Yesterday, they were
bunched together in platoons. Tomorrow,
they will be the length of a honey-do list,
and there are days when the
announcement of them is longer than
they are.
The names of the dead, in small block
letters, like a quiet, solid voice. The phrase
has a magisterial sound, like someone very
old and ceremonial, or maybe just a formal
foreigner: the brother of Nancy, the sister
of Sam, the names of the dead, and the
sorrows they bear.
She doesn’t count them. She only sees
the shape of them, and the length of the
page they consume. She scans their
pictures with her eyes half averted.
Sometimes, the only available photo is
from middle school, and most of the time,
it is very, very bad.
His last name starts with an S. He is a
reservist out of California. Usually,
because it feels like cheating to actively
search for his name, like eating dessert
first or skimming to the end of a
suspenseful chapter, she will start
sedately at the beginning: Aaronson.
Barclay. And their first names, always
cherished, always intimate. She cannot see
a soldier’s first name without thinking of
his mother, of his wife, or of naked little
babies. It’s like she has a purely internal
structure for personal pronouns.
Sometimes, her gaze will race to the
bottom; and some days, someone with a
last name starting with a Y or a Z has
been killed. And then, because it’s too
late, she’s already started her grim
dessert, she trawls through the letters to
the top. She almost thinks she would be
relieved to find his name there.
She can still find his parents’ home. It’
s in her mind, but she can’t tell you where
it is. She has to drive it, take the exit off a
quiet highway where the creaking of the
country insects sounds as dusty as the
air, as dry and bright as unrelenting
sunshine. She will know the exit when she
sees it. She will know the row of rural
PO boxes, and the stretch of anonymous
trees. This grass, these sunburned hills,
this orchard of delicate fruits. This low-
lying house, and this old man with his
thick Nordic accent. This old dog named
after his wife, still living, who snores.
“Would you like his email address?”
asked the old man, smirking. “Oh, no, that
won’t be necessary,” she replied, in a
starburst of something that felt elegant,
and fierce. She was wearing black that day.
The names toll on and on. The women
wail and men weep, the way that children
do, unceremoniously, because there is no
safe convention for the tears of men, no
formal way for them to shed their tears,
only their blood and their sweat and their
lives.
She struggles through the names of
the dead. She missed a day, she missed a
weekend. She missed a three day weekend
once, and when she got home, none of
her papers were there. She thinks her
landlady threw them away, or her
neighbor. She thinks they threw away her
three days’ newspapers to make the
burglars think that she was home. She
thinks they saw her darkened windows,
that they shook their heads. ‘She could
have left the porch light on,’ she imagines
them thinking, excitedly, the way people
are when they see someone going down
the same old road again.
It could be over now. There were two
whole weeks, when she only got the
Sunday paper, because she spent two
hours every day, poring over every line of
every article, every correction, every back-
and-forth battle on the Op-Ed pages, and
she realized that she wasn’t reading
anything else, or writing, or watching a
movie or seeing a play; that she barely
looked up from the paper on her way to
work each morning: to see the snowy
egrets in their nightgowns, with their
black, unblinking eyes.
It could be over now. It could be over,
all of a sudden. He could be interred in
dust and lead, his mother weeping and his
dad’s old dog forlorn with human sadness.
There could be a sudden silence, an
extended version of the silence after
accidents, when the screaming and the
screech of brakes is stilled.
She wonders if that’s what it was like,
if it happened at all: or if there was
majesty and grace. She wonders if there
were screams and oaths and prayers, if
there was a silence that expanded and
then, one split-second of acceptance and
maybe even gratitude, for life and a few
years of love.
Sarah Reith has previously
published her literary work in
The Village Rambler, Poetry
Motel, The Hurricane Review,
and Ecotone. This is her first
appearance in R-KV-R-Y.
published her literary work in
The Village Rambler, Poetry
Motel, The Hurricane Review,
and Ecotone. This is her first
appearance in R-KV-R-Y.
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