For a Pint of Plum Liquor
by Arjun Razdan

In puffs the kettle on the old oven sends the smoke. Pictures of elders have moist frames from the heat generated in the room. He sits at his desk, trembling hands, hands trembling from having drunk a little bit too much of his cherry brandy yesterday. Outside, the apple tree has shed its foliage. The pear tree is nearly bare rising into the cadre of the window, piercing it. Beyond, you see the bare mountains now almost brown from the gone sheen of the sun and a year past. He looks at his mother in one of the photos, sheepskin coat and turning over the beads, and then he looks down on the desk in front of him, at the square pocket of brown paper that is the postcard. He lifts it from his desk, takes a stamp and puts his saliva to the back of the tampon, before