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Jason M. Thornberry’s work appears in The Los Angeles Review of Books, Soundings East, Harbor Review, The Antonym, TAB: The Journal of Poetry & Poetics, Broadkill Review, and elsewhere. His work examines family, disability, and social justice. Jason holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Chapman University.

“Coffins of Styrofoam” is a flash fiction piece which first appeared in the Hash Journal in 2020. This journal is now offline.

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Coffins of Styrofoam

In a shrinking studio apartment lived Hank. Hank’s room overflowed with trinkets, detritus and all the things he could never bring himself to get rid of. One day, a wealthy property developer purchased Hank’s apartment complex. Eager to make good on his investment, the developer posted a sign in the weeds beyond Hank’s tiny window, which read:

In 60 days, the structure at this address will be removed to make room for a bank.

But Hank never saw the sign. He went about his business, accepting Amazon packages pushed through the swollen slot in his heavy front door, stacking shipping boxes on top of other shipping boxes until the cardboard columns embraced the ceiling. He went to bed the moment the sun fell from the sky. That night, Hank dreamt, as he often did, of a castle. A stately castle with a thousand rooms, fifty-foot ceilings, and more than enough room for his stuff. His stuff and the stuff he didn’t have yet. That night, a knight arrived at the door of Hank’s castle, climbing down from his horse and knocking at the castle door. But Hank didn’t answer. 

And on the morning of the sixtieth day, Hank unwound at home, hemmed in by his stuff. He could scarcely move without bumping into cobwebby filing cabinets, musty magazines, and distended manila folders full of broken rubber bands, receipts, chits, and quittances. Hank was up up up, on the tip of his tiptoes, topping off a teetering telamon of travel guides when he swore he smelled smoke. 

Shove-grunting the guides beside his heavy front door, Hank rested his palms on its frame. Peering through his engorged mail slot, he made out the tall and sobersided profile of a prolific property developer, gliding astride a yellow bulldozer—all but a few fragmented yards from Hank’s front door.

Puffing an enormous cigar, the developer screamed: “I’m here to have what’s mine, you lout. Get out, get out, get out, get out!” 

Hank had no idea his home was in danger of gentrification. He hadn’t seen it on the news; he hadn’t read it in the local newspaper, and he never noticed the yellow breeze-blown sign in his yard. Hank was, by all accounts, innocent of such destabilizing information. Such a fact would have been sure to give him nightmares. But Hank was wide awake, and it was true, and there was nothing he could do. So, he cleared his throat, turned on his squeaky voice, and pleaded with the developer: “At least let me grab a few things.”

Looking around, as if for the first time, Hank could suddenly see the crates and compartments, the pyramids of prickly, Pepsi-stained paperwork. The mountainous and (to Hank’s mind) pulchritudinous pile of prizes pulled from the gullet of gumball machines and figurines engulfed in coffins of Styrofoam. The cartons of shoes he’d never worn, the books he’d never perused or even opened. 

“I’ll be right out,” Hank shouted, heaving a Hefty bag full of photographs over one shoulder. And with a great, grueling yank, Hank pulled on the front door with all his strength. But as he pulled on the door, the tower of travel guides toppled, trapping him beneath. He made a murmuring sound no one could hear beneath the mottled rubble.

Incensed by the delay (he had a round of golf to play that day), the developer bit down on his cigar, revving his bulldozer, stomping the gas pedal, releasing the clutch, and plunging toward the formidable front door.

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