A Love Lost
By Linda M. Crate
you took what was once full
of golden autumn pirouetting
lovely lilting lily memories
among our hearts, and broke
it into chunks of blackened
blooms dusted by winter’s
hand, ripping us out by our
roots; shaking the love free
now we stand apart when we
should stand together, you
holding onto your pride like
you should have held my
hand; instead you threw it
to the mercy of the wolves,
and decided you were going
break the union of our love.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
1/30/12
Too Late
By Kieran Woodhall
“Hazel. Please don’t do this.”
I clutched desperately on to the open taxi door. I couldn’t even remember how we had ended up like this, a small insignificant argument gone out of control, leading to me pleading desperately while she threw her bags into a taxi.
Her last bag hit the back seat, without looking at me she moved to enter the taxi.
“Hazel.”
She stopped, her black swirled around her soft face as she turned to face me.
“What Luke?”
She stared me down with eyes that held back a thousand unshed tears.
“I can’t deal with this anymore.”
Her voice quivered at the end, pain and sadness finally began to break through her iron will. Despite all my pleading, I couldn’t think of anything to say. The words had left and soon so would she, so I did the next best thing I could, I stared at her taking in all of her beauty. One last time.
Her emerald eyes had lost their gleam; their laughter had been replaced by pain. A strand of black hair had gotten loose from her ordered straight hair. She pushed it back to its proper place before speaking again.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Silken lips clamped shut on her shaky voice, as she turned away I saw the first diamond tear roll down her cheek. Left mute I could only watch as the door slammed shut and the taxi began to slowly creep away.
I didn’t move while I watched the love of my life slip further and further away, nor did I move while my heart broke apart bit by painful bit. I simply stood there in my creased, crumpled and askew clothes, with my wild hair and pleading eyes. At that moment I wished, no… I hoped, no… I needed. At that moment I felt a desperate need rise up from my heart, soul and my very essence, to hold her and tell her something I hadn’t told her as often as I should have. Those three little words sighed out from between my parted lips, in a way more akin to a dying man’s last breath.
“I love you.”
But no, it was too late now…
The taxi stopped before it reached the end of the street, I held my breath as the door swung open. Hazel climbed out, for a brief moment our eyes met, hers were red from tears. Before I could react the moment had passed and she had begun making her way towards me, building up speed until her hesitant walk was a run. I began running to meet her, when she drew close enough she leapt into my arms, I wrapped my arms around her in a tight embrace. Before I could speak her soft lips were on mine in a desperate, timeless kiss. We finally broke away from the kiss, to hold each other close both of us afraid to lose the other. My lips were close enough to brush her ears as I whispered.
“I love you.”
- - -
My name is Kieran Woodhall, I live in Northampton in England and have enjoyed reading and writing for as long as I can remember. I am yet to have anything published to my name but I'm hoping that will change soon, fantasy is usually my favorite genre to write but I was recently convinced to write a few romance stories.
By Kieran Woodhall
“Hazel. Please don’t do this.”
I clutched desperately on to the open taxi door. I couldn’t even remember how we had ended up like this, a small insignificant argument gone out of control, leading to me pleading desperately while she threw her bags into a taxi.
Her last bag hit the back seat, without looking at me she moved to enter the taxi.
“Hazel.”
She stopped, her black swirled around her soft face as she turned to face me.
“What Luke?”
She stared me down with eyes that held back a thousand unshed tears.
“I can’t deal with this anymore.”
Her voice quivered at the end, pain and sadness finally began to break through her iron will. Despite all my pleading, I couldn’t think of anything to say. The words had left and soon so would she, so I did the next best thing I could, I stared at her taking in all of her beauty. One last time.
Her emerald eyes had lost their gleam; their laughter had been replaced by pain. A strand of black hair had gotten loose from her ordered straight hair. She pushed it back to its proper place before speaking again.
“I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Silken lips clamped shut on her shaky voice, as she turned away I saw the first diamond tear roll down her cheek. Left mute I could only watch as the door slammed shut and the taxi began to slowly creep away.
I didn’t move while I watched the love of my life slip further and further away, nor did I move while my heart broke apart bit by painful bit. I simply stood there in my creased, crumpled and askew clothes, with my wild hair and pleading eyes. At that moment I wished, no… I hoped, no… I needed. At that moment I felt a desperate need rise up from my heart, soul and my very essence, to hold her and tell her something I hadn’t told her as often as I should have. Those three little words sighed out from between my parted lips, in a way more akin to a dying man’s last breath.
“I love you.”
But no, it was too late now…
The taxi stopped before it reached the end of the street, I held my breath as the door swung open. Hazel climbed out, for a brief moment our eyes met, hers were red from tears. Before I could react the moment had passed and she had begun making her way towards me, building up speed until her hesitant walk was a run. I began running to meet her, when she drew close enough she leapt into my arms, I wrapped my arms around her in a tight embrace. Before I could speak her soft lips were on mine in a desperate, timeless kiss. We finally broke away from the kiss, to hold each other close both of us afraid to lose the other. My lips were close enough to brush her ears as I whispered.
“I love you.”
- - -
My name is Kieran Woodhall, I live in Northampton in England and have enjoyed reading and writing for as long as I can remember. I am yet to have anything published to my name but I'm hoping that will change soon, fantasy is usually my favorite genre to write but I was recently convinced to write a few romance stories.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
1/29/12
Oceans Apart
By M. Elaine Moore
An ocean lies between them. She's on one island and he's on another. It could be thousands of miles, or hundreds of yards. Neither knows, has any way of knowing. But a current runs between them, one that carries their messages back and forth, bobbing along on the open sea. The messages sustain them, keep them sane and alive and with hope. She's alone. He's alone. But they're not. Through the messages, they have each other.
The small plane carrying them to different vacations went down over the ocean with twelve passengers and a pilot onboard. Only the two of them survived, the currents carrying them in separate directions, God knows how far apart. He knows she exists, she knows the same of him. They try to remember each other from the flight. Is she the blonde or the brunette? Is he the businessman or the surfer guy? Neither knows exactly who they're dealing with, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they do exist, and one found a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed up onshore one day.
A briefcase also lay on the beach, likely washed up from the crash. It contained legal pads, pens, documents, and a calculator. Though the contents started out soggy, he laid them in the sun to dry. He rations the paper carefully, though there's enough to last years if he's careful to use small pieces in his notes. He always includes a blank piece and a pen inside the bottle so she can reply. It didn't start out that way. Once he found the bottle, he wrote a note begging whoever found it to help him. He was shocked to get the bottle back a week later with a new note scrawled on the back in what appeared to be eyeliner.
"I'm stranded as well," the note read. "I'm on an island alone, the victim of a plane crash. If you are rescued, please send help. ~Mia."
He couldn't believe his eyes. Of all the possibilities, he never imagined the note washing up on another deserted beach, being read by an equally stranded woman. What began as vast disappointment becomes a comfort. He isn't alone after all. For months, the notes move back and forth on that current. They write out their fears, their hopes, their histories. She is in fact, the blonde. He is in fact, the surfer, was on his way to a competition. She is Mia. He is Mardi. She teases him about his name, and it makes him feel human.
Through the notes, they become close. They live for the day they are rescued, no longer just for the sake of rescue, but because on that day, they know they will finally meet face-to-face. They know they can survive indefinitely on their separate islands. Food and water are not a problem, with fruit trees and crabs and freshwater springs abundant. Rescue is no longer about survival. It's about seeing whom it is that has kept them each alive through this hopeless ordeal, one which should have driven them mad, and caused them to give up.
They look up at the same dark sky at night, gaze at the same stars, make the same wishes. They touch the same warm seawater each time they put that bottle back in the current, and they touch each other's souls with what's written inside.
He is rescued, months and months after the crash. He asks the captain of the fishing boat who found him, where the current leads. He begs him to follow it, to rescue the woman he is now certain he's in love with. The captain knows the current well, is more than happy to follow it to the small island where it leads, miles and miles away.
As they motor into the little cove, his heart pounds. Then he sees her. She wades into the water wearing shorts and a tank top, and tosses the bottle in, blowing a kiss after it. Her blonde hair flies in the breeze, a sharp contrast to the dark tan of her skin. He watches her spot the boat and wave frantically. As they near, he jumps in and swims to shore, catching the bottle in his hand. His racing heart makes him dizzy. Coming out of the water, he smiles at her. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
"I believe this is yours," he says, and offers her the bottle. "I got your messages. I'm here to rescue you. Sorry it took me so long," he smiles, nodding over his shoulder. "I had to find a ride."
She smiles back, laughing. She throws her arms around him at last and presses her lips against his. "I would have waited for you forever."
- - -
M. Elaine Moore is a fiction writer and poet. She has written one novel and is at work on another. Her work can be seen at Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Four and Twenty Poetry, The Camel Saloon, Fifty-Word Stories, The Island Breeze, Three Line Poetry, Apollo's Lyre, Pond Ripples, One Forty Fiction, the Journal of Microliterature, and in Lady Ink Magazine.
By M. Elaine Moore
An ocean lies between them. She's on one island and he's on another. It could be thousands of miles, or hundreds of yards. Neither knows, has any way of knowing. But a current runs between them, one that carries their messages back and forth, bobbing along on the open sea. The messages sustain them, keep them sane and alive and with hope. She's alone. He's alone. But they're not. Through the messages, they have each other.
The small plane carrying them to different vacations went down over the ocean with twelve passengers and a pilot onboard. Only the two of them survived, the currents carrying them in separate directions, God knows how far apart. He knows she exists, she knows the same of him. They try to remember each other from the flight. Is she the blonde or the brunette? Is he the businessman or the surfer guy? Neither knows exactly who they're dealing with, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that they do exist, and one found a barnacle-encrusted bottle washed up onshore one day.
A briefcase also lay on the beach, likely washed up from the crash. It contained legal pads, pens, documents, and a calculator. Though the contents started out soggy, he laid them in the sun to dry. He rations the paper carefully, though there's enough to last years if he's careful to use small pieces in his notes. He always includes a blank piece and a pen inside the bottle so she can reply. It didn't start out that way. Once he found the bottle, he wrote a note begging whoever found it to help him. He was shocked to get the bottle back a week later with a new note scrawled on the back in what appeared to be eyeliner.
"I'm stranded as well," the note read. "I'm on an island alone, the victim of a plane crash. If you are rescued, please send help. ~Mia."
He couldn't believe his eyes. Of all the possibilities, he never imagined the note washing up on another deserted beach, being read by an equally stranded woman. What began as vast disappointment becomes a comfort. He isn't alone after all. For months, the notes move back and forth on that current. They write out their fears, their hopes, their histories. She is in fact, the blonde. He is in fact, the surfer, was on his way to a competition. She is Mia. He is Mardi. She teases him about his name, and it makes him feel human.
Through the notes, they become close. They live for the day they are rescued, no longer just for the sake of rescue, but because on that day, they know they will finally meet face-to-face. They know they can survive indefinitely on their separate islands. Food and water are not a problem, with fruit trees and crabs and freshwater springs abundant. Rescue is no longer about survival. It's about seeing whom it is that has kept them each alive through this hopeless ordeal, one which should have driven them mad, and caused them to give up.
They look up at the same dark sky at night, gaze at the same stars, make the same wishes. They touch the same warm seawater each time they put that bottle back in the current, and they touch each other's souls with what's written inside.
He is rescued, months and months after the crash. He asks the captain of the fishing boat who found him, where the current leads. He begs him to follow it, to rescue the woman he is now certain he's in love with. The captain knows the current well, is more than happy to follow it to the small island where it leads, miles and miles away.
As they motor into the little cove, his heart pounds. Then he sees her. She wades into the water wearing shorts and a tank top, and tosses the bottle in, blowing a kiss after it. Her blonde hair flies in the breeze, a sharp contrast to the dark tan of her skin. He watches her spot the boat and wave frantically. As they near, he jumps in and swims to shore, catching the bottle in his hand. His racing heart makes him dizzy. Coming out of the water, he smiles at her. She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
"I believe this is yours," he says, and offers her the bottle. "I got your messages. I'm here to rescue you. Sorry it took me so long," he smiles, nodding over his shoulder. "I had to find a ride."
She smiles back, laughing. She throws her arms around him at last and presses her lips against his. "I would have waited for you forever."
- - -
M. Elaine Moore is a fiction writer and poet. She has written one novel and is at work on another. Her work can be seen at Foliate Oak Literary Journal, Four and Twenty Poetry, The Camel Saloon, Fifty-Word Stories, The Island Breeze, Three Line Poetry, Apollo's Lyre, Pond Ripples, One Forty Fiction, the Journal of Microliterature, and in Lady Ink Magazine.
Saturday, January 28, 2012
1/28/12
Remember When
By Cara-Leigh Shepherd
Your words trail off into the breeze
And your laugh dances over the juvenile waves of our river.
I know you’re staring at the back of my head
Wishing to stroke your hard, callused fingers through the strands of my half clean hair.
While I carefully part the blades of summer grass exploring the world of insects hidden between the roots of your lawn, I know.
I know you’re admiring the light glancing off the earring peeking out the top of my ear you love to kiss.
Nothing could be wrong today. No one could disrupt our serenity.
Your birthday. You’re twenty today.
Today is the first day that I discover the taste of your skin.
The day I trace the lines of your smile and you show me what butterfly kisses feel like.
Our lips never meet. They never have. That’s going to happen in another six months on your bedroom floor. It’s going to be wonderful. But today, today we study each others' heartbeats and find hidden freckles. Every sensation is magnified today. Your voice is richer,
your eyes are deeper,
your skin is softer,
your smile is fuller,
your hands are stronger, and your smell is earthier.
Today you made me laugh. You told me that you were certain that lips and nipples were made of the same ‘stuff’. I believed you. Six months later you proved it.
Today you told me you didn’t love the name Hannah. I was devastated. That meant we would never have the little Hannah with messy hair and grubby feet I’d dreamed of.
But it's okay, because we could have a Josie with a spotty nose and a laugh like rain. Or an Erin who loved wearing mommy's high heels and climbing trees. But I’ll miss Hannah.
I do miss Hannah. I miss you more. Nothing was wrong that day; your beautiful birthday; the day you became my favorite. It was yesterday. Yesterday you were gone.
My senses can never be sharp enough to detect your voice, feel your skin, smell your breath. Sometime I wish memories faded easier. Because yesterday was two years ago. You wouldn’t recognize my heartbeat anymore. It can’t seem to skip anymore. It limps.
My beloved, I miss you, say my name.
- - -
I am a 21 year old English major from Cape Town, South Africa. My cheeks go red without asking and my brain has more questions than answers. My heart needs a leash but not as much as my tongue.
By Cara-Leigh Shepherd
Your words trail off into the breeze
And your laugh dances over the juvenile waves of our river.
I know you’re staring at the back of my head
Wishing to stroke your hard, callused fingers through the strands of my half clean hair.
While I carefully part the blades of summer grass exploring the world of insects hidden between the roots of your lawn, I know.
I know you’re admiring the light glancing off the earring peeking out the top of my ear you love to kiss.
Nothing could be wrong today. No one could disrupt our serenity.
Your birthday. You’re twenty today.
Today is the first day that I discover the taste of your skin.
The day I trace the lines of your smile and you show me what butterfly kisses feel like.
Our lips never meet. They never have. That’s going to happen in another six months on your bedroom floor. It’s going to be wonderful. But today, today we study each others' heartbeats and find hidden freckles. Every sensation is magnified today. Your voice is richer,
your eyes are deeper,
your skin is softer,
your smile is fuller,
your hands are stronger, and your smell is earthier.
Today you made me laugh. You told me that you were certain that lips and nipples were made of the same ‘stuff’. I believed you. Six months later you proved it.
Today you told me you didn’t love the name Hannah. I was devastated. That meant we would never have the little Hannah with messy hair and grubby feet I’d dreamed of.
But it's okay, because we could have a Josie with a spotty nose and a laugh like rain. Or an Erin who loved wearing mommy's high heels and climbing trees. But I’ll miss Hannah.
I do miss Hannah. I miss you more. Nothing was wrong that day; your beautiful birthday; the day you became my favorite. It was yesterday. Yesterday you were gone.
My senses can never be sharp enough to detect your voice, feel your skin, smell your breath. Sometime I wish memories faded easier. Because yesterday was two years ago. You wouldn’t recognize my heartbeat anymore. It can’t seem to skip anymore. It limps.
My beloved, I miss you, say my name.
- - -
I am a 21 year old English major from Cape Town, South Africa. My cheeks go red without asking and my brain has more questions than answers. My heart needs a leash but not as much as my tongue.
Friday, January 27, 2012
1/27/12
I Love You
By Linda M. Crate
I love you fully like
the scent of apples
consuming the air
of fall in it’s fragrant
embrace of cider kisses.
I love you deeper
than the many depths
of the unknown deeps
of the jade lazuline
ocean eroding rocks.
I love you higher
than the mountains
of the highest peaks
covered in their ivory
snow frigid like winter.
If you remember nothing
else: remember I love you.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
By Linda M. Crate
I love you fully like
the scent of apples
consuming the air
of fall in it’s fragrant
embrace of cider kisses.
I love you deeper
than the many depths
of the unknown deeps
of the jade lazuline
ocean eroding rocks.
I love you higher
than the mountains
of the highest peaks
covered in their ivory
snow frigid like winter.
If you remember nothing
else: remember I love you.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
1/26/12
Dripping
By Dans Lustvagen
You're an old flame for sure, baby.
There's a part of my being that still lusts after you, gets turned on when I think about that tattoo I watched you get just above your pubic bone. There's still a part of me that thinks about you when I kiss her, when I run my hand through her hair and wish it was yours.
Lets run away together, just for an afternoon, a couple of lusty afternoons. Lets strip naked in the woods and take a few hours to really enjoy each other, to really get a handle on the curves and hard lines we know we'll never touch again.
You're an old flame, baby. When she's gone, I want you here. I want to make a wet spot on the couch with you. I want to explore you with my tongue, leave you dripping.
- - -
Dans Lustvagen lives in another world, a world of twenty-thousand girls and milk and rectangles. To an optometrist, he's the man with the golden eyeball. Now tighten your buttocks, pour juice on your chin because I promised my girlfriend I'd take up the violin.
By Dans Lustvagen
You're an old flame for sure, baby.
There's a part of my being that still lusts after you, gets turned on when I think about that tattoo I watched you get just above your pubic bone. There's still a part of me that thinks about you when I kiss her, when I run my hand through her hair and wish it was yours.
Lets run away together, just for an afternoon, a couple of lusty afternoons. Lets strip naked in the woods and take a few hours to really enjoy each other, to really get a handle on the curves and hard lines we know we'll never touch again.
You're an old flame, baby. When she's gone, I want you here. I want to make a wet spot on the couch with you. I want to explore you with my tongue, leave you dripping.
- - -
Dans Lustvagen lives in another world, a world of twenty-thousand girls and milk and rectangles. To an optometrist, he's the man with the golden eyeball. Now tighten your buttocks, pour juice on your chin because I promised my girlfriend I'd take up the violin.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
1/25/12
Why I will Never Name a Star after Her
By Matthew Dexter
The astronomy teacher scratches her thumbnail against my neck, massages the moles that must feel like asteroids, the infected pimple a flaming comet; she prepares to take my virginity in the space where a man was murdered. The victim’s name is tattooed on her hip. She wears the gunman’s clothes, sleeps with him, and refuses to wash them.
She just turned twenty-three. I’m fourteen and this is the last day of the semester and we’re sitting in this igloo we just built as she grinds her ice axe against the gnomon of the sundial.
I could have told someone, confronted the employee at Home Depot who stood in the shadows of the dog houses.
We are embraced by snowfall. It burns and then the roof caves in. The ice buries us beyond our lips. We have to dig each other out. Hobble away in opposite directions, the strawberry polish embedded in my shoulders.
Concussed, the constellations are unimpressed. That orbit out of line, the madman inside of me nothing more than a hermaphrodite with a great surgeon.
That night a star fell from the sky in Somalia as pirates smoked amphetamines we watched it gliding toward some moonless unknown horizon. How can we measure its mass?
Sunday morning church bells still ring, young teachers will be abusing powers, wars will be waged in the name of science, students will be deflowered, and I will be a woman.
- - -
Matthew Dexter lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Like nomadic Pericú, he survives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet.
By Matthew Dexter
The astronomy teacher scratches her thumbnail against my neck, massages the moles that must feel like asteroids, the infected pimple a flaming comet; she prepares to take my virginity in the space where a man was murdered. The victim’s name is tattooed on her hip. She wears the gunman’s clothes, sleeps with him, and refuses to wash them.
She just turned twenty-three. I’m fourteen and this is the last day of the semester and we’re sitting in this igloo we just built as she grinds her ice axe against the gnomon of the sundial.
I could have told someone, confronted the employee at Home Depot who stood in the shadows of the dog houses.
We are embraced by snowfall. It burns and then the roof caves in. The ice buries us beyond our lips. We have to dig each other out. Hobble away in opposite directions, the strawberry polish embedded in my shoulders.
Concussed, the constellations are unimpressed. That orbit out of line, the madman inside of me nothing more than a hermaphrodite with a great surgeon.
That night a star fell from the sky in Somalia as pirates smoked amphetamines we watched it gliding toward some moonless unknown horizon. How can we measure its mass?
Sunday morning church bells still ring, young teachers will be abusing powers, wars will be waged in the name of science, students will be deflowered, and I will be a woman.
- - -
Matthew Dexter lives in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Like nomadic Pericú, he survives on a hunter-gatherer subsistence diet.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
1/24/12
You're a Gem
By Linda M. Crate
My eyes were transfixed on some gems,
They were the black opals of your eyes,
The ivory of your teeth; the ruby of your lips.
They were the pyrite of your golden locks,
They were the pearls of your bare flesh -
They were the the amethysts of your tongue.
You're a gem to me, I wish you could see.
But I hear you sigh about how ugly you are -
And how your angelic beauty brings you down.
I wish that you could see the things I see,
Because you're worth more than tarnished silver.
Her eyes may be the prettiest jade stones,
Her hair the beautiful black of an onyx,
Her lips the lovely dark pink of garnet,
Her skin the clearest white of diamonds,
But her soul as obsidian as a lump of coal.
She is the tarnished silver not you, my friend.
Because you, my dear, are simply a pretty gem -
The prettiest of gem stones that I've ever seen,
And I'm not just saying that because I love you.
I say these words because they're honestly true.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
By Linda M. Crate
My eyes were transfixed on some gems,
They were the black opals of your eyes,
The ivory of your teeth; the ruby of your lips.
They were the pyrite of your golden locks,
They were the pearls of your bare flesh -
They were the the amethysts of your tongue.
You're a gem to me, I wish you could see.
But I hear you sigh about how ugly you are -
And how your angelic beauty brings you down.
I wish that you could see the things I see,
Because you're worth more than tarnished silver.
Her eyes may be the prettiest jade stones,
Her hair the beautiful black of an onyx,
Her lips the lovely dark pink of garnet,
Her skin the clearest white of diamonds,
But her soul as obsidian as a lump of coal.
She is the tarnished silver not you, my friend.
Because you, my dear, are simply a pretty gem -
The prettiest of gem stones that I've ever seen,
And I'm not just saying that because I love you.
I say these words because they're honestly true.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
Monday, January 23, 2012
1/23/12
Longing
By Virginia Young
- - -
Formerly a writer for local newspapers, I paint and write fiction of all lengths. I live on the south shore of Massachusetts with my husband and a variety of furry and feathered creatures.
By Virginia Young
You are my oxygen, she thought each time she saw him, certain that without him, she would collapse and disintegrate like crepe paper in water. She could not, would not, suffer the absence of him for long. She would die without him and it would all be over. It terrified her when she realized how much she loved him, and that’s when she ran. It was nearly twelve years later when the call came from her brother.
“Come on Madi,” his voice begged, “do this for me.”
Madi sat down at the white marble-topped island in her kitchen over-looking Tilson Sands at Rhode Island’s posh coastal stretch. She’d been fortunate finding and buying this quaint gardener’s cottage. Small, with one bedroom and an open floor plan, she’d decorated with beautiful and useful antique chests of drawers and soft sofas and chairs in crimson against white-walled backdrops and colorful oriental rugs. It was a warm and comfortable common room. The charm of the place had captivated her, twelve-hundred miles from where she’d grown up, from where she’d left Simon. Now, with the phone pressed against her right ear, she walked into her living room space and sat down as her eyes scanned the workmanship, the post and beam structure with its wide plank floors, the mellow patina reminding her of melted butter. And the clear, leaded glass windows invited sunlight to display itself in diamond shapes of pure northern light.
“Are you there?” Robert asked when she’d given him no reply.
Madi sighed as quietly as she could manage and asked, “Why me?”
Madi thought about her brother, three years her senior. His best friend had been the love of her life, he just hadn’t known it. She didn’t think she could ever measure up to him. He was handsome, sweet, smart and funny. Her thirteen year old heart was hooked from the moment his sixteen year-old frame filled her parents’ kitchen doorway for the first time. That depth of feeling didn’t go away. She loved him for years, dating others in high school and college, always making the comparison. No one could be Simon.
“He needs a new start, Madi. I mean the guy has had it tough, nineteen freaking months in Iraq, and for the second time. Be his friend, let him in. I know you always had a crush on him. Come on, I’m asking you to just kind of guide him. He’s my best friend. If he’d stay here in Chicago, I’d watch over him, but I can’t just leave my practice and follow him around. He wants Rhode Island where he spent part of his childhood. He asked about you.” There was silence following his statement. “Madi?”
“I did not have a crush on Simon. Why did you say that?”
She could hear Robert sigh. “Okay, so no crush. But you liked him, everyone liked Simon. Help him out by just offering some friendship, Madi. Come on, give the guy a break.”
“I had no idea Simon had ties here, when is he arriving? I’m busy as heck, you know that. Even though I work mostly from home, I have days I need to go in to Providence and Boston. I have things going on, Rob.”
“I know that, Madi.”
“Has he found a place to stay? I mean, he can’t stay here, you know what I have for space.”
“He found an efficiency unit. His allotment doesn’t give him much, I offered him money, but you know him. He’s proud. He’s a smart guy and I hope to hell he gets his life back, but they said it could be a long and bumpy road. He has those damn night tremors. Post traumatic stress they call it. The guy’s a hero, Madi. He’s the best. Please.”
Madi bent over in half feeling nearly ill at the thought of letting Simon in to her life again. It had taken years to purge the passion she’d felt for him and although she had never quite succeeded, here she was, about to face the demons again, the love that was so strong it molded her into shapeless jelly. She pushed her waist-length auburn hair back from her tear-filled eyes and struggled with the words. “I’ll give it a try, Rob, but I guarantee nothing. I’m not his therapist. I can offer him a cup of coffee here and there, and I can show him around Tilson, but other than that…”
“Fantastic,” Robert said. “I knew you’d come through for us, Mad. I’m not asking you to do any more than befriend him. Give him some hope. So, is it okay for me to give him a call tonight with your address and phone number?”
Madi shivered and managed a weak “yes” before their conversation slid around to their parents and finally to an end.
With the phone in her hand, she straightened her back and walked to where a comfortable sofa waited. She sat down at one end, her eyes following the grey-white clouds floating over the sea. She was thirty and a successful analyst who found solace in painting soft seascapes in watercolor to fill the self-inflicted emptiness. Simon was thirty-three and a mess.
When he knocked on her door two days later, she stood for a few moments almost breathless with anticipation. Not much more than a boy when she’d seen him last, she was leaving for Boston to attend college. He was enjoying the party life of Chicago with her brother while attending Northwestern before entering the service. When she stepped forward and opened the door, she thought she might faint. He was more handsome than she had remembered; that dark hair, those green eyes, and his shoulders were broad. He didn’t look ill in any way, and then he smiled.
“Holy smoke,” he said as he appraised her from head to toes. “Who gave you permission to grow up so beautiful?”
Madi stepped back and he stepped inside.
“This is nice,” he said as his eyes scanned the room. “It suits you.”
Madi swallowed and wondered if her dry mouth could find words. She closed the door to chilled October wind and invited him to sit and asked would he have coffee. When he accepted, his hands in his trouser pockets, walking slowly around the room taking in the details, Madi poured two mugs of coffee and handed one to him.
“You still take it black?” she asked.
Simon’s mouth formed that familiar crooked little smile. “I can’t believe you remembered. What’s it been, twelve years? Wow, I’m impressed.”
Madi sat down at one end of a sofa and found the strength to look directly into his wonderful eyes as he seated himself across from her . He’d been her romantic downfall, the boy she knew to be sought after by every girl in all the local towns. He was too handsome, too charming, completely divine, but so out of reach for a plain, skinny little teenager with long, straight hair and no particular abilities other than devouring book after book, absorbing the flowing prose with a fervor.
“I remember a lot,” she said with just the slightest hint of a smile.
Simon shook his head cradling the mug of hot coffee in his hands. “Me too,” he said. “You know, if you hadn’t been Rob’s sister, I’d have been all over you.”
Madi squinted her eyes and then looked away from him before placing her coffee mug on the table next to her. “Simon, you had every girl in Chicago and surrounding towns after you - the star football player, the perfect dancer, the good student. Even my parents talked about what you were made of. You wouldn’t have given me the time of day.”
Simon looked at her as he sat forward. “I’m telling you, Madi, I had this thing for you. If you hadn’t been Rob’s little sister, oh yeah, I’d have been right there.”
Madi sat very still for a few moments looking at his face for even a glimmer of a smile. He was serious, and she was silently amazed.
“So,” Simon said, “Rob told you I live in town? It’s not much, nothing like this, but at least I’m back. I missed the ocean in Chicago. This is the area where my grandparents lived, and so did I until I was twelve. It feels like home, I’m really glad to be here.”
Madi nodded. “I understand. Listen, I go out of town on consultations sometimes. If you ever want to come here and just unwind, I’ll give you a key. You can call, and if I don’t answer, just come over. Make yourself some coffee, enjoy the view.”
“You’d let me use your place? I’d love being able to come here. It’s only about a two mile walk. Thank you, Madi, I’m grateful for the invitation. And I accept.”
“Did you walk here this evening?” she asked.
Simon took a swallow of coffee and nodded. “No car at this point. The doctors don’t think I should be driving for a while. The feet work; it’s okay.”
Madi remembered that he’d had Corvettes, a red one, then a silver one, gifts from an indulgent father. “Well, if you come here and you feel too tired to walk back into town, these two sofas are comfortable. There are blankets in that chest of drawers by the door, just make yourself at home.”
After she’d said the words, she wondered if she’d offered too much. But he was walking, and if he came here at night, what would be the harm in his sleeping on a sofa? After all, this wasn’t a stranger, this was Simon.
Madi opened her eyes, squinting against early morning light and noted that there was the feeling of warmth and weight across her side and waist. Simon. Simon had let himself in and sometime during the night slipped in beside her. She turned just enough to see his relaxed face so near to her hair. She thought about waking him and causing a fuss, scolding him for being there uninvited to her bed. She turned away, allowing the right side of her face to once again rest on her pillow and then she smiled. She could scold him from now until forever, but he would not change, and she loved his being there, against her, always claiming to have slept better, without the troubling dreams, her at his side. Simon. And then she reminded herself that he was broken. It would not be fair, and maybe not real, to accept the relationship she longed for.
She deliberately moved slowly, slipping her bare legs from beneath the covers and pulling the satiny fabric of her nightshirt down over her knees. She would make coffee, he would want that black brew first thing. As she started to stand, his hand reached out for hers.
“Hey,” she said, “let go.”
He pulled her back into the supple lavender scented sheets, hugging her close to him.
“Let go,” she said. “And what are you doing here anyway? Really Simon, you’re like a stray cat. I never know when you’re going to show up.”
He smiled and closed his beautiful eyes for just a moment.
“I’ve wondered more than a few times over the last few months about my logic in having given you a key. I think it might be time for you to forfeit that.”
He unwillingly let go of her hand and shifted himself up against a pillow, his sage green t-shirt revealing lean, muscled arms. “You’d make me give up the key? I still get those headaches. This is the only place I sleep without waking in misery. You wouldn’t really take my key away, would you?” He smiled, and at the same time, gave her a pleading look.
“Oh yes, I would,” she said and then she moved away toward the bathroom. In the privacy of that small room, she looked into the mirror and smoothed back her hair, brushed her teeth and gently rubbed her face and neck with a warm, damp cloth and a touch of almond soap. Having completed that brief motion, she looked at her eyes and knew that it would take almost nothing to flood them with tears. Simon. So forbidden to her; more unattainable than ever in his vulnerable condition.
In the kitchen where she scooped coffee into a French press, he watched her as he lazily leaned against the white, marble-topped island in the center of the room.
Madi refused to acknowledge his presence, but she thought back to a few nights ago when he’d knocked on her door after eight and joined her once again in watching an old movie. His hand had rested, almost singeing the skin on her bare knee and she’d deliberately moved away, standing and walking to the kitchen from where she’d offered coffee.
“Are you sorry to know me, Mad?” He interrupted her thoughts. “Do you want me to go?”
She turned for just a moment and glanced at him. He looked saddened and she sighed before turning back toward the stove. “Come on, Simon. I’m not sorry to know you, not at all sorry if I’ve helped you in any way, but having you climb into my bed is another issue. I told you that the sofa was yours when you need it. I never invited you to crawl in beside me.”
He smiled as he poured himself a cup of coffee. “But we fit so well together. I love sleeping next to you.”
Madi gave him a stern glance. “That’s not in my guide book on friendships with people who have issues with nightmares and headaches. For God’s sake, Simon, I’m a therapist, but not yours, and it’s a good thing too. I mean,” she said with a spatula and two eggs in her hands, “what do you suppose people would think if they knew you slept with me? Slept with me. That has a connotation of its own. People would never believe we just sleep.”
“When did you become so concerned about what others think?” He asked as he ran his fingers through thick hair. “You push me away, Madi. I’d be here with you every night if you’d let me, you must know that. When I stay away, it’s to give you a break from me.”
Madi turned away from him toward the stove. She didn’t want a break from him. She was about to crack the eggs into a pan when she noticed him walking back toward the bedroom, leaving his nearly full cup of coffee on the otherwise clear island, as if it was the one important thing in the room. She closed her eyes and then opened them again as she slipped the eggs back into their carton. Simon, she thought, I cannot injure you. I’m supposed to help mend you. Simon.
She waited a few minutes then walked toward the bedroom where she would try to explain, maybe at last to empty her heart and tell him the truth, but he was gone. She sat down on the edge of the bed and pressed her left palm against the pillow where he had slept.
Weeks passed by and she did not see him. She changed the sheets and her own pillow case several times, leaving his as it was, where she could close her eyes at night to touching where he had been, and where she would open her eyes in the morning to see the empty space.
- - -
Formerly a writer for local newspapers, I paint and write fiction of all lengths. I live on the south shore of Massachusetts with my husband and a variety of furry and feathered creatures.
Sunday, January 22, 2012
1/22/12
Field Trip
By Ethan Renoe
It is for fear that the other may evaporate in your absence that you delay bidding goodnight to a loved one. It is the reason time becomes light and travels as such when that person is near, and yet, in the midst of it, you cannot seem to soak in enough of the other's presence to be satisfied for some time.
They are your water; your oxygen.
Bleeding becomes trivial if they are not red.
Molly, it would be nice to have you on the other side of my skull, but since you're in there, make yourself at home.
Fix some supper and call me Captain.
And please, Darlin', don't evaporate.
- - -
By Ethan Renoe
It is for fear that the other may evaporate in your absence that you delay bidding goodnight to a loved one. It is the reason time becomes light and travels as such when that person is near, and yet, in the midst of it, you cannot seem to soak in enough of the other's presence to be satisfied for some time.
They are your water; your oxygen.
Bleeding becomes trivial if they are not red.
Molly, it would be nice to have you on the other side of my skull, but since you're in there, make yourself at home.
Fix some supper and call me Captain.
And please, Darlin', don't evaporate.
- - -
Saturday, January 21, 2012
1/21/12
Swan Princess
By Linda M. Crate
People had their obsessions and their fetishes. Some were normal, others were a little absurd. One of the things she enjoyed were swans. She had swan dresses, earrings, necklaces, high heels, lamps, and the like. She had told people her name ought to have been Odette. Some people got the reference right away and laughed, but most people just gave her a blank stare. It was clear that not everyone got the Swan Princess reference.
She was twenty eight years old and still single.
Her mother told her that maybe if she didn’t dress so eccentrically she might find a date or maybe if she got a more competitive job than a librarian she might be able to snag someone in by the lure of money. She knew that her mother was desperate for grandchildren so she didn’t hold it against her, but she thought the right man would come at the right time. She wasn’t so eager to get on the fast track to love. Especially not after her best friend Ginny had divorced her husband Gregory three weeks ago. It was because of torrid affair that he had with Ginny’s sister Gayle.
She could not imagine not being able to trust one’s sister. It was times like these that she thanked her lucky stars that she was an only child. She could not imagine being in Ginny’s position.
It would be hard enough to get over the fact that someone cheated on them without the added bonus of that person being a relative. She shook her head. Valerie was just pleased that she didn’t have any siblings. She had no sister that could wrench the silver lining from her clouds.
She found herself with a nose caught in a book at the coffee shop when a handsome stranger bumped into her. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized, frowning. He had almost tripped over one of her bags.
“I bump into you, and you apologize?” he laughed, a humourous twinkle in his brown eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see the lovely creature behind the book.”
She found herself blushing profusely. “Oh stop it,” she laughed. “Shameless flirt!”
“I am not,” he protested, grinning. “I really happen to like you, Odette,” he winked.
She found her heart melting. A man that actually would understand her Odette jokes and make them with her? She heard her mother’s voice in her head telling her to marry him now. Trying to ignore this, she smiled. “What is it that you like about this swan?” she asked, batting her lashes sweetly. She pulled a strand of curly blonde hair from her green eyes.
“I like that you have your own sense of fashion. It’s nice to see a woman that doesn’t listen to the fashion tips of Vogue.”
She laughed, not knowing if that were a compliment or an insult. She would take it as a compliment unless told otherwise. “Well, thank you, I think.”
He laughed.
“You have very handsome eyes,” she told him.
“Not as pretty as yours, but I think your best feature is your smile. I’ve seen you here for several weeks, and I’ve come to a decision —.”
“What’s that?” she interjected.
“You don’t smile enough,” he informed her.
She laughed. “You have a remedy for that, I suppose?”
“I do,” he nodded. He leaned forward and placed a delicate kiss on her lips, gentler than the petals of a rose, but just as sweet. “Are you free tonight?” he asked. “I would like to see you again, but I have to get to work.”
She smiled. “Yes, I’m free tonight, where would you like to meet?”
“That old Italian restaurant on Davenport suit your fancy?”
“That sounds lovely,” she agreed. She tried to restrain some of the contained joy that had bottled up inside of her. “What time?”
“Six?”
“That sounds perfect, if I’m a little behind it’ll be because I’m closing up the library. I shouldn’t be running too late, though.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Swan Princess.”
She laughed. “All right, Prince Derek,” she teased, waving him goodbye. As soon as he had stopped waving at her and was out of sight, she pulled out her phone. “Mom, you won’t believe this. . . no, I didn’t quite my job as head librarian.” She rolled her eyes at her mother’s persistence to get her to do something more ‘worthwhile’. “I have a date tonight at six. No, mom, I’m not going to change everything about my appearance. He happens to like me just the way that I am.” After a few more moments of conversing, she hung up her phone, feeling relieved. Sometimes talking to her mother was simply strenuous. She had a feeling, however, that today was going to be a good day.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
By Linda M. Crate
People had their obsessions and their fetishes. Some were normal, others were a little absurd. One of the things she enjoyed were swans. She had swan dresses, earrings, necklaces, high heels, lamps, and the like. She had told people her name ought to have been Odette. Some people got the reference right away and laughed, but most people just gave her a blank stare. It was clear that not everyone got the Swan Princess reference.
She was twenty eight years old and still single.
Her mother told her that maybe if she didn’t dress so eccentrically she might find a date or maybe if she got a more competitive job than a librarian she might be able to snag someone in by the lure of money. She knew that her mother was desperate for grandchildren so she didn’t hold it against her, but she thought the right man would come at the right time. She wasn’t so eager to get on the fast track to love. Especially not after her best friend Ginny had divorced her husband Gregory three weeks ago. It was because of torrid affair that he had with Ginny’s sister Gayle.
She could not imagine not being able to trust one’s sister. It was times like these that she thanked her lucky stars that she was an only child. She could not imagine being in Ginny’s position.
It would be hard enough to get over the fact that someone cheated on them without the added bonus of that person being a relative. She shook her head. Valerie was just pleased that she didn’t have any siblings. She had no sister that could wrench the silver lining from her clouds.
She found herself with a nose caught in a book at the coffee shop when a handsome stranger bumped into her. “Oh, sorry,” she apologized, frowning. He had almost tripped over one of her bags.
“I bump into you, and you apologize?” he laughed, a humourous twinkle in his brown eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see the lovely creature behind the book.”
She found herself blushing profusely. “Oh stop it,” she laughed. “Shameless flirt!”
“I am not,” he protested, grinning. “I really happen to like you, Odette,” he winked.
She found her heart melting. A man that actually would understand her Odette jokes and make them with her? She heard her mother’s voice in her head telling her to marry him now. Trying to ignore this, she smiled. “What is it that you like about this swan?” she asked, batting her lashes sweetly. She pulled a strand of curly blonde hair from her green eyes.
“I like that you have your own sense of fashion. It’s nice to see a woman that doesn’t listen to the fashion tips of Vogue.”
She laughed, not knowing if that were a compliment or an insult. She would take it as a compliment unless told otherwise. “Well, thank you, I think.”
He laughed.
“You have very handsome eyes,” she told him.
“Not as pretty as yours, but I think your best feature is your smile. I’ve seen you here for several weeks, and I’ve come to a decision —.”
“What’s that?” she interjected.
“You don’t smile enough,” he informed her.
She laughed. “You have a remedy for that, I suppose?”
“I do,” he nodded. He leaned forward and placed a delicate kiss on her lips, gentler than the petals of a rose, but just as sweet. “Are you free tonight?” he asked. “I would like to see you again, but I have to get to work.”
She smiled. “Yes, I’m free tonight, where would you like to meet?”
“That old Italian restaurant on Davenport suit your fancy?”
“That sounds lovely,” she agreed. She tried to restrain some of the contained joy that had bottled up inside of her. “What time?”
“Six?”
“That sounds perfect, if I’m a little behind it’ll be because I’m closing up the library. I shouldn’t be running too late, though.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Swan Princess.”
She laughed. “All right, Prince Derek,” she teased, waving him goodbye. As soon as he had stopped waving at her and was out of sight, she pulled out her phone. “Mom, you won’t believe this. . . no, I didn’t quite my job as head librarian.” She rolled her eyes at her mother’s persistence to get her to do something more ‘worthwhile’. “I have a date tonight at six. No, mom, I’m not going to change everything about my appearance. He happens to like me just the way that I am.” After a few more moments of conversing, she hung up her phone, feeling relieved. Sometimes talking to her mother was simply strenuous. She had a feeling, however, that today was going to be a good day.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
Friday, January 20, 2012
1/20/12
Anniversary Waltz
By Fred E. Beaulieu
As evening descends on a small Midwest farm
The sky slowly reddens and dusk spreads its charm
While cares and concerns of the daytime take flight
Soon phantoms of present and past will unite
A light from the doorway spills out through the air
Revealing a figure descending the stairs
A rose in his hand, dressed in formal attire
And driven by dreams of impassioned desires
He heads round the back, past the old garden shed
Through rustling cornfields, towards what lies ahead
Then into a clearing of special design
To witness a vision of beauty divine
She’s graced by a gown that he longs to embrace
And bears not a trace of ill health on her face
Approaching his spouse in this sanctified hour
He offers his gift of a single red flower
While crickets commence with their soft serenade
These lovers encircle the grass promenade
Then Japanese lanterns of fireflies take flight
To glitter the field and enrapture the night
As stars cast a glow from their stations on high
And fleeting black figures of birds whisper by
The dancers converge in a waltz, slow and long
And sway to the rhythm of nature’s sweet song
Within this enchantment, the partners entwined,
The cares of this world are left so far behind
No words need be spoken, their eyes say it all
While dancing like guests at a grand royal ball
Too soon it is over, the lovers retreat
The man turns in silence, their hour complete
He heads for the farmhouse while tears stream his face
His heart bearing emptiness none can replace
For seven long years since his wife left his side
He’s fought to continue while aching inside
Now all that sustains him are dreams of romance
And moments they share in a summer night’s dance
- - -
I am a lifelong resident of West Michigan, and have enjoyed a rewarding career in computer programming. My interests include music, reading, puzzles, old movies, and of course poetry. I enjoy writing poems which reflect the many faces of life and love.
By Fred E. Beaulieu
As evening descends on a small Midwest farm
The sky slowly reddens and dusk spreads its charm
While cares and concerns of the daytime take flight
Soon phantoms of present and past will unite
A light from the doorway spills out through the air
Revealing a figure descending the stairs
A rose in his hand, dressed in formal attire
And driven by dreams of impassioned desires
He heads round the back, past the old garden shed
Through rustling cornfields, towards what lies ahead
Then into a clearing of special design
To witness a vision of beauty divine
She’s graced by a gown that he longs to embrace
And bears not a trace of ill health on her face
Approaching his spouse in this sanctified hour
He offers his gift of a single red flower
While crickets commence with their soft serenade
These lovers encircle the grass promenade
Then Japanese lanterns of fireflies take flight
To glitter the field and enrapture the night
As stars cast a glow from their stations on high
And fleeting black figures of birds whisper by
The dancers converge in a waltz, slow and long
And sway to the rhythm of nature’s sweet song
Within this enchantment, the partners entwined,
The cares of this world are left so far behind
No words need be spoken, their eyes say it all
While dancing like guests at a grand royal ball
Too soon it is over, the lovers retreat
The man turns in silence, their hour complete
He heads for the farmhouse while tears stream his face
His heart bearing emptiness none can replace
For seven long years since his wife left his side
He’s fought to continue while aching inside
Now all that sustains him are dreams of romance
And moments they share in a summer night’s dance
- - -
I am a lifelong resident of West Michigan, and have enjoyed a rewarding career in computer programming. My interests include music, reading, puzzles, old movies, and of course poetry. I enjoy writing poems which reflect the many faces of life and love.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
1/19/12
The Love Game
By Sanchari Sur
she didn’t mean to ask him out. it had been unplanned. impulsive. she didn’t even pay much attention to him when they were introduced that night at nuit blanche. all she could think of was, oh-my-god, he smokes. how disgusting. but then she had been tired. and cold. and cranky. and had sworn at her friend, the one who had introduced her to him. used the f word twice. that’s when he had smiled at her. wait, no. he had smirked. this brown boy from delhi hadn’t run in the opposite direction out of fear and disgust. instead, he had been amused. that’s when her heart had skipped a beat. this was romance to her. she had suddenly had had the urge to know him. so, she had messaged him on facebook. two whole days later (as had seemed decent), after surreptitiously finding out that he was single and on the market. and he had responded with an invitation for coffee and his number. she had reveled in her sense of sudden empowerment. look at me, she had thought, asking a boy out all on my own. so grown up. they had met and gabbed. coffee had turned into dinner and then, another coffee. he had been a true gentleman. holding open doors for her. offering to pay each time, even though she had insisted on going dutch. refraining from lighting up all night. she hadn’t been sure if she wanted him as a potential boyfriend then, but while parting, he had flashed that smile. the one that made his eyes disappear. that’s when she knew she had wanted to see him again. if only for that smile. so she had waited for him to make a move. which he did, two days later. and she had waited two more days before responding (oh, the rules of dating). and now, it was a week later. and silence on his end. so, this is how it ends, she thought. this game of love.
- - -
Sanchari Sur is a Bengali Canadian who was born in Calcutta, India. Her poetry and short fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Asia Writes, Corvus Magazine, Red River Review, Red Poppy Review, Urban Shots - Crossroads (India: Grey Oak/Westland, 2012) and elsewhere. You can find her at http://sursanchari.wordpress.com.
By Sanchari Sur
she didn’t mean to ask him out. it had been unplanned. impulsive. she didn’t even pay much attention to him when they were introduced that night at nuit blanche. all she could think of was, oh-my-god, he smokes. how disgusting. but then she had been tired. and cold. and cranky. and had sworn at her friend, the one who had introduced her to him. used the f word twice. that’s when he had smiled at her. wait, no. he had smirked. this brown boy from delhi hadn’t run in the opposite direction out of fear and disgust. instead, he had been amused. that’s when her heart had skipped a beat. this was romance to her. she had suddenly had had the urge to know him. so, she had messaged him on facebook. two whole days later (as had seemed decent), after surreptitiously finding out that he was single and on the market. and he had responded with an invitation for coffee and his number. she had reveled in her sense of sudden empowerment. look at me, she had thought, asking a boy out all on my own. so grown up. they had met and gabbed. coffee had turned into dinner and then, another coffee. he had been a true gentleman. holding open doors for her. offering to pay each time, even though she had insisted on going dutch. refraining from lighting up all night. she hadn’t been sure if she wanted him as a potential boyfriend then, but while parting, he had flashed that smile. the one that made his eyes disappear. that’s when she knew she had wanted to see him again. if only for that smile. so she had waited for him to make a move. which he did, two days later. and she had waited two more days before responding (oh, the rules of dating). and now, it was a week later. and silence on his end. so, this is how it ends, she thought. this game of love.
- - -
Sanchari Sur is a Bengali Canadian who was born in Calcutta, India. Her poetry and short fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Asia Writes, Corvus Magazine, Red River Review, Red Poppy Review, Urban Shots - Crossroads (India: Grey Oak/Westland, 2012) and elsewhere. You can find her at http://sursanchari.wordpress.com.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
1/18/12
Bereft
By Linda M. Crate
Holly had always been a romantic at heart. Especially after seeing her best friend Layla was engaged to her high school sweetheart. It just seemed that love was some great enchantment, it certainly was the most wonderful feeling in the world. One she wouldn’t have traded for anything.
She had fallen in love with her own fiancé Damian when in college. He always seemed to know the right thing to say, and he was much more intuitive than most men she knew. Not to mention he had a wonderful sense of humor — that was the thing that lead him straight to her heart, that and he wasn’t too hard on the eyes. That didn’t hurt, either.
Yesterday night had started off perfectly fine. He had taken her to her favorite restaurant. Shortly after they started ordering dinner, however, she noticed some woman taking pictures of her and Damian. A woman she had never seen before. When she asked him about it, he just insisted that she were some jealous ex and not to worry about it. She tried not to, but she found it unsettling that this woman was on a date with some other man just so that she could take pictures of her ex boyfriend. It just seemed a bit odd to her.
“Don’t worry, baby, it’s fine.”
She nodded, but she was disconcerted. This didn’t add up. “Is there any particular reason she’s here at our favorite restaurant? You didn’t take her here before, did you?”
“Only once, I promise, I didn’t realize she was such a creep. I assure you of that,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t know she’d follow us here.” He massaged his temples. “But don’t let her bother you,” he smiled. “She’s ancient history.”
She had tried to let it go, but it needled and wheedled at the orifices of her mind until she couldn’t stand the nettling anymore. She found the woman that had been taking pictures of them the night before at a local coffee shop.
Maybe she ought to have let it go, but she couldn’t let that woman just get away with trying to intimidate her for the rest of her life. She walked over to the woman. “Hey!” she cried.
The other woman turned and looked her over. “You have a lot of nerve coming up to me, girl. Mhmm.”
“Excuse you? You’re the one that’s Damian’s ex.”
“Who the hell is Damian?”
“You know my fiancé. The guy you were taking pictures of last night,” she scoffed. She flecked strands of auburn hair from her green eyes.
The black woman burst out laughing. “He told you his name was Damian? Sweetheart, his name is Albert Darwinian. Look him up in the phone book.”
Holly felt a twinge of annoyance, surely this woman was wrong! Still, curiosity had gotten the better of her. She showed up on Albert’s front lawn, saw the chocolate lab frolicking about out back with the kids, and the beautiful blonde that had to be his wife. She stood waiting for Albert to get home — except it wasn’t Albert, it was Damian.
That night she had confronted him — along with his wife. His wife made the ultimatum that he choose one of them. Of course, he chose his wife. He tried to apologize to Holly, he and Jessica had children he explained, but she pulled away.
“Don’t touch me!” she spat.
“My sentiments exactly,” the wife sneered, grabbing Albert’s arm. “Come on, darling.”
She stood on the edge of the embankment, looking into the spooling of moon silver in the lake. It didn’t quite seem fair that the universe had decided to take him from her to hand him, instead, to some bimbo that didn’t deserve him; anyway.
Her friends told her that she deserved better, perhaps, they were right, but she didn’t want anyone but him. Her heart ached and pined away — like a nymph that couldn’t find love she was caught between the rocks of erosion and the fierceness of the sea. Either held the power to destroy her.
Not for the first time that night she started crying again.
She used to think that love was something that was the stuff of fairy tales come alive. It was a magic that lilted on the painted tissue paper wings of butterflies that flitted from flower to lovely flower in succession, it was something that blossomed like flowers that never wilted. Yet she found that sometimes love was nothing more than a cold hearted man that pulled the strings to your heart apart simply because he could.
Love could be as cruel as she was kind.
It left her cold and bereft like the sun left the moon.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
By Linda M. Crate
Holly had always been a romantic at heart. Especially after seeing her best friend Layla was engaged to her high school sweetheart. It just seemed that love was some great enchantment, it certainly was the most wonderful feeling in the world. One she wouldn’t have traded for anything.
She had fallen in love with her own fiancé Damian when in college. He always seemed to know the right thing to say, and he was much more intuitive than most men she knew. Not to mention he had a wonderful sense of humor — that was the thing that lead him straight to her heart, that and he wasn’t too hard on the eyes. That didn’t hurt, either.
Yesterday night had started off perfectly fine. He had taken her to her favorite restaurant. Shortly after they started ordering dinner, however, she noticed some woman taking pictures of her and Damian. A woman she had never seen before. When she asked him about it, he just insisted that she were some jealous ex and not to worry about it. She tried not to, but she found it unsettling that this woman was on a date with some other man just so that she could take pictures of her ex boyfriend. It just seemed a bit odd to her.
“Don’t worry, baby, it’s fine.”
She nodded, but she was disconcerted. This didn’t add up. “Is there any particular reason she’s here at our favorite restaurant? You didn’t take her here before, did you?”
“Only once, I promise, I didn’t realize she was such a creep. I assure you of that,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t know she’d follow us here.” He massaged his temples. “But don’t let her bother you,” he smiled. “She’s ancient history.”
She had tried to let it go, but it needled and wheedled at the orifices of her mind until she couldn’t stand the nettling anymore. She found the woman that had been taking pictures of them the night before at a local coffee shop.
Maybe she ought to have let it go, but she couldn’t let that woman just get away with trying to intimidate her for the rest of her life. She walked over to the woman. “Hey!” she cried.
The other woman turned and looked her over. “You have a lot of nerve coming up to me, girl. Mhmm.”
“Excuse you? You’re the one that’s Damian’s ex.”
“Who the hell is Damian?”
“You know my fiancé. The guy you were taking pictures of last night,” she scoffed. She flecked strands of auburn hair from her green eyes.
The black woman burst out laughing. “He told you his name was Damian? Sweetheart, his name is Albert Darwinian. Look him up in the phone book.”
Holly felt a twinge of annoyance, surely this woman was wrong! Still, curiosity had gotten the better of her. She showed up on Albert’s front lawn, saw the chocolate lab frolicking about out back with the kids, and the beautiful blonde that had to be his wife. She stood waiting for Albert to get home — except it wasn’t Albert, it was Damian.
That night she had confronted him — along with his wife. His wife made the ultimatum that he choose one of them. Of course, he chose his wife. He tried to apologize to Holly, he and Jessica had children he explained, but she pulled away.
“Don’t touch me!” she spat.
“My sentiments exactly,” the wife sneered, grabbing Albert’s arm. “Come on, darling.”
She stood on the edge of the embankment, looking into the spooling of moon silver in the lake. It didn’t quite seem fair that the universe had decided to take him from her to hand him, instead, to some bimbo that didn’t deserve him; anyway.
Her friends told her that she deserved better, perhaps, they were right, but she didn’t want anyone but him. Her heart ached and pined away — like a nymph that couldn’t find love she was caught between the rocks of erosion and the fierceness of the sea. Either held the power to destroy her.
Not for the first time that night she started crying again.
She used to think that love was something that was the stuff of fairy tales come alive. It was a magic that lilted on the painted tissue paper wings of butterflies that flitted from flower to lovely flower in succession, it was something that blossomed like flowers that never wilted. Yet she found that sometimes love was nothing more than a cold hearted man that pulled the strings to your heart apart simply because he could.
Love could be as cruel as she was kind.
It left her cold and bereft like the sun left the moon.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
1/17/12
LOVE TRAPPED IN A LABYRINTH
By K.Balachandran
Hardly seventeen
madly in love,
(with each other
you fallaciously believe)
but reality is disguised
wearing a different garb
and on the road
that goes astray.
all you are in love
is to love itself
or to oneself,
but the fact remains
hidden always.
perfect
Narcissus-
you decide
the labyrinth
as your preferred
rendezvous
-a false step you took
but both do not notice.
the labyrinth of misconceptions
would never allow you
to be together, or be in deep love!
the labyrinth
makes your love complex.
narrow corridors,
turns and twists unexpected,
not easy to negotiate,
in exasperation, you yell out,
there is no response,
you became addicted to
the repetitive perambulations,
within the labyrinth
till you get tired
of all this-
love wouldn't get a chance.
- - -
K.Balachandran has been writing news stories and features almost two decades for a mass selling newspaper(1.5 million copies in the last count) which brought him face to face with dramatic moments of human existence ranging from rare ecstasies to bitter disappointments;a roller coaster ride incomparable that helped to gain valuable insights.But what became a casualty in the bargain was creative expression and precision in the use of language, as language to a journo was a mere tool for basic communication.Now a penitent, writing poetry is his antidote which he does in English, Malayalam, his native tongue and Tamil.
He lives in the coastal town Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, the lush and green State at the south west sea board of India, a prime tourist destination known for it's scenic beauty which incidentally is the original spice country sought by Greeks, Romans and Phoenician's from time immemorial.
By K.Balachandran
Hardly seventeen
madly in love,
(with each other
you fallaciously believe)
but reality is disguised
wearing a different garb
and on the road
that goes astray.
all you are in love
is to love itself
or to oneself,
but the fact remains
hidden always.
perfect
Narcissus-
you decide
the labyrinth
as your preferred
rendezvous
-a false step you took
but both do not notice.
the labyrinth of misconceptions
would never allow you
to be together, or be in deep love!
the labyrinth
makes your love complex.
narrow corridors,
turns and twists unexpected,
not easy to negotiate,
in exasperation, you yell out,
there is no response,
you became addicted to
the repetitive perambulations,
within the labyrinth
till you get tired
of all this-
love wouldn't get a chance.
- - -
K.Balachandran has been writing news stories and features almost two decades for a mass selling newspaper(1.5 million copies in the last count) which brought him face to face with dramatic moments of human existence ranging from rare ecstasies to bitter disappointments;a roller coaster ride incomparable that helped to gain valuable insights.But what became a casualty in the bargain was creative expression and precision in the use of language, as language to a journo was a mere tool for basic communication.Now a penitent, writing poetry is his antidote which he does in English, Malayalam, his native tongue and Tamil.
He lives in the coastal town Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, the lush and green State at the south west sea board of India, a prime tourist destination known for it's scenic beauty which incidentally is the original spice country sought by Greeks, Romans and Phoenician's from time immemorial.
Monday, January 16, 2012
1/16/12
But I Do Still Miss You
By John Ogden
In another life, I sit here with a warm beer in my hand, jaw slack, my mind slowly spreading out between my ears as thoughts of you melt what's left of my sanity.
In another life, the light of my television is the beacon of sanctuary. Relics of you dot the floor, burnt pictures and toys you never enjoyed mingling with the broken bottles and crushed cans of our aftermath.
In another life, I miss you, and I'm incapable of dealing with it.
In this life, I just decided to get a new cat.
- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.
By John Ogden
In another life, I sit here with a warm beer in my hand, jaw slack, my mind slowly spreading out between my ears as thoughts of you melt what's left of my sanity.
In another life, the light of my television is the beacon of sanctuary. Relics of you dot the floor, burnt pictures and toys you never enjoyed mingling with the broken bottles and crushed cans of our aftermath.
In another life, I miss you, and I'm incapable of dealing with it.
In this life, I just decided to get a new cat.
- - -
John Ogden was conceived of a government form and a passing mailbox. He lives somewhere out in the woods of a rural land more akin to the fantasy realms of literature than real life, and his favorite dirt bikes will always be the broken ones.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
1/15/12
Fools In Love
By Linda M. Crate
“I can’t do this!” Her hands shook horribly, and she felt queasy inside. She stood up and ran out of his house. She felt bad, but she couldn’t help it. She just had flashes of Jeremiah leaving her at the altar.
Later that night, she sat on her couch, she knew that she had made the wrong decision. She wanted to marry Caleb so badly. Yet she had been so terrified that he would leave her at the altar like Jeremiah. That was not a chance that she had wanted to take. So she paced around her apartment, raking her hands through her thick black hair. Goodness knew that she was an idiot.
There was a knock at her door.
“Yes?” she remarked, tearfully. She knew that she had made the biggest mistake of her life, and she was sure that Caleb would hate her forever. There was a good chance that she was overreacting, but he might actually dislike her now. She would assume the worst just so she wouldn’t get her hopes up so they could be dashed. That would be enough to shatter her heart completely, she was certain.
“It’s me, Caleb. Marci told me why you overreacted. I’m really sorry, Nora, I didn’t know who Jeremiah was, let alone what he had done to you.”
Nora prized open the door. “I’m sorry, Caleb, I should have told you.”
“Will you marry me?”
“You still want me?”
He nodded.
“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she laughed, as tears fell down the bridge of her narrow nose. She couldn’t believe it, he still wanted her. Either he was crazy or he was in love. Possibly both.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
By Linda M. Crate
“I can’t do this!” Her hands shook horribly, and she felt queasy inside. She stood up and ran out of his house. She felt bad, but she couldn’t help it. She just had flashes of Jeremiah leaving her at the altar.
Later that night, she sat on her couch, she knew that she had made the wrong decision. She wanted to marry Caleb so badly. Yet she had been so terrified that he would leave her at the altar like Jeremiah. That was not a chance that she had wanted to take. So she paced around her apartment, raking her hands through her thick black hair. Goodness knew that she was an idiot.
There was a knock at her door.
“Yes?” she remarked, tearfully. She knew that she had made the biggest mistake of her life, and she was sure that Caleb would hate her forever. There was a good chance that she was overreacting, but he might actually dislike her now. She would assume the worst just so she wouldn’t get her hopes up so they could be dashed. That would be enough to shatter her heart completely, she was certain.
“It’s me, Caleb. Marci told me why you overreacted. I’m really sorry, Nora, I didn’t know who Jeremiah was, let alone what he had done to you.”
Nora prized open the door. “I’m sorry, Caleb, I should have told you.”
“Will you marry me?”
“You still want me?”
He nodded.
“Yes, I’ll marry you,” she laughed, as tears fell down the bridge of her narrow nose. She couldn’t believe it, he still wanted her. Either he was crazy or he was in love. Possibly both.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
Saturday, January 14, 2012
1/14/12
Alarm clock: My bane
By Jeremy Jones
Sleep, I beg you, come swift. When you take me away from this world, I am with her. She is mine again, and I am hers. We are husband and wife, best friends, soul mates, each others reason to live. In my dreams. I never want to wake, never want to be ripped from her arms. The early morning alarm breaks my heart every time when I realize she isn’t with me. When I realize she can’t be with me, I want to die. It hurts every time I have to rise from my bed, the bed I used to share with her. It seems like a life time ago since I had her last and I fear the sun rising. Sleep you gentle goddess, please take me with you and grant me my one wish: her; my dream girl.
- - -
I am 25 and a new writer that has been published once. I like to write prose poetry and flash fiction. Most of my work borders ultra-violence or simply very dark, almost horrific and sappy love poems that stem from my life, love, and family.
By Jeremy Jones
Sleep, I beg you, come swift. When you take me away from this world, I am with her. She is mine again, and I am hers. We are husband and wife, best friends, soul mates, each others reason to live. In my dreams. I never want to wake, never want to be ripped from her arms. The early morning alarm breaks my heart every time when I realize she isn’t with me. When I realize she can’t be with me, I want to die. It hurts every time I have to rise from my bed, the bed I used to share with her. It seems like a life time ago since I had her last and I fear the sun rising. Sleep you gentle goddess, please take me with you and grant me my one wish: her; my dream girl.
- - -
I am 25 and a new writer that has been published once. I like to write prose poetry and flash fiction. Most of my work borders ultra-violence or simply very dark, almost horrific and sappy love poems that stem from my life, love, and family.
Friday, January 13, 2012
1/13/12
Fragile
By Matthew Nadelhaft
- - -
Matthew Nadelhaft graduated from the Napier University Creative Writing MA Program and is the editor for Edinburgh spoken-word/storytelling group Illicit Ink. His short fiction has been published in An Electric Tragedy, Blood and Lullabies, The Reader’s Digest 100-Word Story Competition, Desire Magazine, and Zombies Ain’t Funny. He is a reviewer for Tangent and TangentOnline and has designed several boardgames, including the internet-hit “Oh No, There Goes Tokyo!” and an award-winning adaptation of Stephen King's "The Shining."
By Matthew Nadelhaft
THIS is not
When you left I felt part of my heart go with you. ribs and tunnelled through my flesh. I can’t live
where you’ll find
it when you
wake
UP.
- - -
Matthew Nadelhaft graduated from the Napier University Creative Writing MA Program and is the editor for Edinburgh spoken-word/storytelling group Illicit Ink. His short fiction has been published in An Electric Tragedy, Blood and Lullabies, The Reader’s Digest 100-Word Story Competition, Desire Magazine, and Zombies Ain’t Funny. He is a reviewer for Tangent and TangentOnline and has designed several boardgames, including the internet-hit “Oh No, There Goes Tokyo!” and an award-winning adaptation of Stephen King's "The Shining."
Thursday, January 12, 2012
1/12/12
Smooth
By Alessandra Siraco
Liz hated the word “moist” but it was hard to hate her. It probably should have been easy. She would have hated Melanie’s Diner because everything in it was moist. Moist French fries, moist napkins. It smelled like fried food and sort of like those canned peaches that are too sugary. My suitcases were on the bench next to me, still with tags from the plane from Hartford. I loved visits to Ben in North Carolina partly because I also loved Melanie’s. I sat on the plastic bench across from Ben and watched him pick the smaller half of the sandwich to eat first, holding both up and then choosing before taking a bite.
“I’m glad you’re visiting,” he said.
My French fries were too hot but I ate them anyway, dragging them in ketchup before shoving them in my mouth and chewing too hard.
“I can’t believe Liz moved out,” I said.
“You really didn’t know?”
“No.”
“She didn’t hint or anything?”
“No. Her stuff was just gone yesterday.” I felt my eyes get hotter than the French fries and I didn’t bother to wipe my eyelids because I knew more tears would be coming. The tears dropped into my plate, mixing with the ketchup, turning it a runny shade of pink, and I ate a fry dipped in tear ketchup. It tasted salty.
Ben finished the half of his sandwich and took a drink of Diet Pepsi. His brown hair was getting longer and overgrown but I had missed him so much that it didn’t bother me like it sometimes did. I looked up from my French fry tear ketchup at him.
“Don’t worry,” he said, putting a hand over mine. “You’ll have a spare room for the rest of your lease, now.”
I looked at his hands, darker than the rest of his body for some reason. There were rough spots on them, covering the fingers and parts of the back of his hand. They felt rough but embedded, not new patches, old ones, like they were always supposed to be there. They had been there for a while. I loved them.
“He’s going to dump you,” Liz said, a little drunk, tipping over and breathing out heavily as she flopped onto the couch with the felt-velvet black covering over it. Her breath smelled like wine and the cheese stick she had just eaten half of and left on the stained coffee table of my living room. My living room.
Liz took another bite of the cheese and put it down. Even drunk, she took small bites. She sat on the couch, biting the cheese in tiny bites, so small that I didn’t even know how she tasted the cheese. She held the cheese stick with her long fingers, gesturing as she talked.
“This is so good,” she said, moaning. She made sex noises when she ate really good food, but I never knew how to tell her that. “So good.” She took a napkin and daintily wiped each of her fingers individually. “It’s not dry or old-tasting at all.”
“It’s moist, Liz.”
She rolled her eyes. “I have an audition on Monday.” Liz wanted to move to New York and audition for Broadway shows, even though she’d never been cast in a show during college. I had gone to each of the shows she was in the ensemble for, though, and she wasn’t good.
“Oh,” I said.
“It’s for an off-Broadway show. If I get cast in it, I’ll probably be able to get on Broadway, because the director also works there.”
“Better not count on it,” I said.
“On what?”
“Getting cast.”
Liz took a big bite of the cheese stick. “Bitch,” she muttered. “I think I’m going to find a guy at The Tap. I think next week it will happen.”
“At a bar?”
“I think it could happen,” she said again. She leaned back on the couch, pushing some crumbs off of it. “I just want someone who can dance. Ballroom dance.” She was completely serious. “Can Ben ballroom dance?”
I shrugged. Ben was coming to visit in eleven hours.
“Maybe you can ask him,” I said. I felt my back blend into the soft fabric of the back of the couch. My other roommate’s door was shut but there was a trail of orange liquid going into it, with an empty bottle outside her door. The windows of our living room were open but it still smelled like beer and something rotting, probably the eggplant in our fridge. The door to the fridge was half-open too. The calendar that we had made out of construction paper back when Liz was still living with us was falling down, and the pink strips were faded in the spots that the sun hit them. It was still labeled October even though it was almost May.
“I’m not going to ask him,” she said. “You guys just hole up in your room anyway when he visits.”
“You’re being stupid,” I said. We were mean to each other. It’s how it went. I was never so mean as to move out, though. “Liz,” I said, “do you think he’s really going to dump me?”
“I think you should dump him,” she said. “I’m just being honest. I just don’t think he’s good enough for you.” She flipped her hair back a bit. “I just think you could do better. You can find someone not long distance. You can find someone who can ballroom dance.”
“I don’t want someone who can ballroom dance.”
“Why? Everyone in Jane Austen novels can.”
“Life isn’t a fucking Jane Austen novel, Liz.”
“It can be.” Liz flipped her hair again. “I think that boys should be able to ballroom dance. And preferably have a British accent.” The sad thing was she was being completely serious.
“Go to London, then.”
“I’m going to New York,” she said. “Can I stay here tonight?”
“You moved out,” I said, and she glared at me, her long hair shining in the fluorescent room. “You can’t stay here.”
“I told you,” she slurred, “it was too loud in this room. It was just too loud. I needed to move out for,” she pushed her hands up, her elegant hands making the gesture in the air like they always did, “for me.”
“You didn’t tell me until after you moved out.” The air was cold as I walked by and slammed the fridge door shut.
“I’m going to bed. Mary said I could stay over whenever I wanted, ‘cause technically the room is still mine.” Liz stuck her boots on the back of the couch and lay her back down flat against the cushions, her legs in the air and one over the side, straddling the corner of the couch. Her long brown straight hair was falling towards the floor.
I made her leave, like she had wanted to, when she moved out.
The cab came four minutes after we called, and it smelled like McDonald’s French fries. Ben let me get in first but then he walked around the cab, after a minute, and got in the other side. The seats were fabric and felt dirty, worn down on the seat parts, so that I didn’t want to sit directly on them.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“We’re going to the mall,” I said.
Ben smiled, a little sadly, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, ready. “I’ll get it, Amanda,” he said.
The cab driver looked in the rearview mirror. The streets were dark and it was Hartford, a city, a bad city, if I wasn’t here with Ben. It was almost dark out. The cab driver had on a backwards Yankees hat, bent around the edges and frayed on the bill so it looked like the wind was always whipping just the front of his hat. It was blue, but faded, almost white.
“The Westfarms Mall?” he asked, pulling out of my apartment complex a little too fast. The cab went over the curb leading out of the complex, and I felt the bump as we went back to the ground. Ben had driven up that morning from visiting a friend nearby, and met me at the mall. I’d met him for breakfast there that morning, at this great buffet place that was open early, and we’d left both of our cars there because there was limited parking near my apartment. We’d gotten the cab from the mall parking lot.
He had dumped me there.
“I can’t anymore,” he’d said. “I’m sick of long distance. I love you but it’s too hard.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he’d said, embarrassed that he’d blurted it all out.
He hadn’t say anything else, just let it sink in that it wasn’t because it was long distance. It was because I was mean, because I was mad, all the time, because I was a giant ball of sadness about Liz and Connecticut and, ironically, about being long distance with him.
Ben sat on the other side of the cab, and I sat crunched up against the window. The glass was cold and a little moist.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my nose running in the hotness of the cab. The driver looked in the rearview mirror again and saw that I was staring at Ben. He turned his eyes back to the road and then to his cell phone, ringing on the seat next to him.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Ben said. “I really am. I can’t do it anymore, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t do it. You’re—” Ben looked into my eyes, his dark and light around the pupil, and then looked down at the dirty seat of the cab. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m what?”
“We’ve already talked about it, Amanda. I can’t do long distance anymore. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, “I miss you too much.”
“That makes no sense.” My voice was louder now, and the cab driver could probably hear me but I didn’t know if he cared. He was driving slowly, for a cab driver.
“It’s too hard.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“You haven’t been fair.”
The cab suddenly stopped and I went forward, my seatbelt still dangling on the side near the door. I banged my head on the plastic cover on the back of the passenger seat in front of me, my forehead sliding down from the tears that made my whole face wet. I rubbed the top of my forehead.
“Liz said you were going to break up with me.”
“Why did she say that?”
“Because,” I said, “she knew it. She was right. She’s always right.”
“She’s not always right,” Ben said, moving a little bit closer. I felt the seat shift as he shifted, but he didn’t move very close. Just a little. “She’s not. She shouldn’t have moved out.”
“I know.”
“Did you yell at her?”
“I told you I did. She’s a bitch.”
Ben looked at me and then squinted his eyes a little bit, like his cat did when she was angry with him. “You don’t have to be bitchy about it, Amanda.”
The cab was driving more slowly now, past the corner that led into the apartment complex and down through the trees that lined the entryway. Once we passed the trees, there were houses—beaten-down, beaten-up, chipped white paint and no trim left on them. I could see tricycles with wheels missing, and people sitting on the porches, smoking and yelling. A kid in a front yard was crying and another was drinking something out of a Gatorade bottle, sitting down near the edge of the road screwing up his face as he took a gulp.
The cab drove carefully because the road was narrow. We drove by the Welcome to Connecticut sign that was posted near my apartment complex, even though Connecticut started way before the complex did. The cab driver pushed his Yankees hat around so it was sideways. Somebody told me once that that was a sign of being in a gang. I didn’t know if it was true but I wondered if Ben recognized it as that. He leaned towards me a little and I thought he was going to move in—it’s all right, I was just kidding, I don’t actually mean it, you’re worth the long distance—but instead he just looked forward through the windshield of the cab.
“Is this the way we usually get to the mall?” he asked, looking directly at the cab driver.
“Yes,” the cab driver said. Marcus, said his name tag ID posted on the back of the seat. It was covered in plastic that was scratched around only the picture part. I couldn’t see his face on the photo but his hair was a different color, from what I could make out from the scratched picture.
The cab turned and I knew that it wasn’t the right direction. There was a house that was painted dark blue and wasn’t chipped. People sat on the lawn in lawn chairs, reclining on the white plastic. We stopped at a stop sign in front of a house with a woman who was wearing a Red Sox jersey, Wakefield, and the cab driver shoved his Yankees hat to the other side of his head so the logo was facing out towards the street.
“Ben,” I whispered, and he glanced over quickly, hearing the tears in my voice, afraid that I was going to keep begging him to not break up with me. “This isn’t the right way.” I whispered it so the cab driver couldn’t hear.
The driver turned on the radio, to a religious station. It was in a different language but the first sentence I heard was English: “Bless the Lord Jesus,” the announcer said, and launched into another language. The voices went up and down, getting louder and softer as more people joined in. We drove past more houses, getting nicer and then back to the chipped paint. This was the Hartford that I knew, depressed and distant. The rich Hartford lie in between; the nice Hartford. Some of Connecticut was beautiful, but not the part near me.
The cab driver turned at a stop sign and we were on a street that I recognized. Far away from the mall. It was behind an old church that was painted bright orange. It had the kind of wall that looks smooth and gummy, and the top of it was carved in wavy lines. It was faded, now, and there was an alleyway beside it that had old water bottles and Stop & Shop bags in it. The cab driver turned the radio station to another one, still not in English, and turned it up really loudly. He glanced in the rearview mirror at us and then picked up his cell phone.
Ben looked over at me. I was glaring at him.
“What?” he said. He moved closer to the window.
“You don’t have to move over,” I said. “I’m not going to like, pounce on you, Ben.”
He ignored me and gestured towards the church. “Why are we pulling in here?” I looked and noticed he was right; we were pulling into the alleyway, slowly driving over the weathered speed bumps.
“Should we say something?” I whispered. Ben looked at the cab driver, who was talking on the phone softly, in another language. We couldn’t hear him over the music very well, anyway.
Ben didn’t answer me, but frowned again, squinting his eyes. When he leaned over to get a better look at the alleyway, I could smell the soap he used, distinct, the scent stuck to his skin. Ben looked carefully at the cab driver and at the cab meter.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the cab driver, leaning forward so I’d be closer to Ben. Maybe he could smell my scent too, cinnamon body lotion scrubbed on quickly in the car ride to the parking lot of the mall that morning. Ben turned towards me and moved backwards, back to his seat, adjusting back, away from me. “Where are we going? We were actually going to the mall.”
“We are,” the cab driver said, and shut off the engine. He got out of the cab and threw his Blackberry on the passenger seat, darting towards the back of the alley. It was getting darker and we were obviously not at the mall.
I watched him walk around the back of the church and disappear behind a dumpster and a clothes bin for Goodwill. The streetlights were on by now but there were none behind the church, the orange stucco gleaming in front and dark and shadowy in the back. A few houses were around but most had the lights off; some had people sitting on front porches, in shorts too short for late April in Connecticut, smoking cigarettes. Through the open window I could smell the smoke, and then the smell of pot.
“What is he doing?” I asked, sticking my head closer to the glass of the cab so I could get a look.
“It’s a drug deal, Amanda,” Ben said. “Did you see his hat?”
“I didn’t know that was a true thing.”
Ben nodded. “It is.”
“Well, should we leave?”
Ben looked at me and crossed his arms. He was wearing a gray shirt, and his face was tan from the early spring. “We’ve been driving for ten minutes. We’re probably too far to walk back.”
“I know where we are.”
“Well, can we walk?”
“No.”
He didn’t mention that I had suggested it. I wanted him to sit in Melanie’s Diner with me after Liz had dumped me, to go back to the first time I was dumped, by her, because even that was better than this.
The cab driver came back holding a Duane Reade bag. There are no Duane Reades in Connecticut. Liz told me that she went to Duane Reade before each audition to buy gum, a tradition. Apparently it didn’t bring her much luck, though.
The cab driver shoved the bag on the passenger seat near him and got back in the cab.
“We’ll go to the Westfarms Mall, now,” he said.
He drove out of the church alleyway and down the street the same way we came in, but instead of turning where we were supposed to to get to the main stretch, he turned onto another side street, and then another.
He was running the cab meter, driving us through the deep end of Hartford to get to the mall and jack up our cab fare.
“Ben,” I whispered, leaning towards him. The music was off now and the cab was silent. Ben moved backwards on reflex, towards the window.
“Would you calm down?” I said. “I’m not going to keep begging you to not dump me.” Ben didn’t look up, not surprised anymore at how mean I was. I’d been mean for a year, on the phone and on Skype and on text messages.
“What?”
“This isn’t the way to the mall.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” he asked. He was angry right back at me.
I shifted towards him, just to annoy him. He shifted backwards. The cab driver looked back at us and turned left, onto the road near where the mall was.
Ben paid the cab driver.
“I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, probably,” he said. He gave me a hug. “Bye, Amanda. I’m sorry.” He left the parking lot, his car parked next to mine pulling out of the space.
I sat in my car as he drove away, pretending to be getting ready to leave too, but after he started leaving I twisted the charm bracelet he had given me around my wrist, looking at the ice cream cone charm new out of the box only a month ago, pulling it and sparkling it against the floodlights from the parking lot’s few dim lights. The charm was different colors, light pastels in the shape of fake crystals for the ice cream, and the cone was silver.
A middle schooler walked by and stared at me, adjusting her black sweatshirt around her body, and kept walking. She was smoking and I didn’t know where she’d gotten the cigarettes, but the Westfarms Mall was pretty lenient. Pretty drug-friendly.
My phone rang and I answered it quickly.
“I’m coming back,” Ben said, talking into the receiver quickly, like he didn’t really want to be on the phone with me. “I forgot my sweatshirt was in your car. Have you left yet?”
I saw his sweatshirt, lying on the backseat, wedged in between the seat and the door from years ago, probably. It was black and said “Puma” on the front in big white letters, and the sleeves were stretched out so that the elastic on the wrists was not elastic anymore.
“Sorry,” he said, speaking louder like he thought I couldn’t hear him. “I’m sorry.”
I hung up and got out of the car to reach in the back and grab the sweatshirt. I put my hands into the sleeves, but didn’t put the sweatshirt on, holding my hands in the sleeves and facing the sweatshirt towards me, as if someone was wearing the sweatshirt, as if he was, and as if we were holding hands inside the sleeves, a secret, warm.
The streetlight went out, and I stood in darkness, holding the sweatshirt alone, leaning up against the car, feeling the heat from the day that became fleshed into the car’s black metal. It smelled like gasoline in the parking lot, and like smoke coming from behind the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. I breathed in the smell of the sweatshirt, sweat and salt from the beach and smoke from bonfires and his soap scent still embedded in it even after years, and listened to his car, coming back.
“Thanks, Amanda,” he says, taking the sweatshirt and looking at me oddly as he realizes that my hands are in his sleeves. “Why are your hands stuck in the sweatshirt like that?” His brown eyes look down at my hands and I want to hold his. They’re big, and I once talked to Liz about them.
“Ben’s hands are great,” I’d said, sipping my Diet Pepsi and pointing to the street where we were turning, to find an apartment. “They have rough spots on them, and they feel sturdy. Did you notice that?”
She’d shaken her head. “I don’t think I’ve noticed it,” she’d said. “But look, the apartment’s there”—and we turned into the apartment complex, past the chipped white painted houses and the Welcome to Connecticut backwards sign. “I don’t know,” she’d said. She’d flipped her hair and looked around, putting her dainty fingers on the window and tracing the fog off of it. “I kind of wanted to be closer to the train. I’m going to be going to New York a lot, you know. For auditions.”
“I like it,” I’d said. “We’re done looking. You’ve already shot down too many.”
She’d glared at me and I’d glared back, picking this apartment and making her sign the lease.
I used to run my fingers over Ben’s, my red nail polish skimming the surface of his rough spots, and I used to pretend that my hands could smooth his, even though they obviously never did.
I clutch my fingers together in the sleeves of his empty sweatshirt.
“Amanda,” he says, “come on. Give it to me.”
I can smell the gasoline and salt and French fries from Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. This year he started putting lotion on his hands, and the rough spots are gone, and as he takes the sweatshirt from me and pulls it over his head, “Puma” straight across his chest, I feel his hands scrape against mine for a second, smooth scraping, smooth, smooth.
- - -
I recently graduated Trinity College in Hartford and am currently an M.F.A. student at Emerson College. I have taken classes with Steve Yarbrough and Ladette Randolph, and am working in insurance while I hone my writing skills.
By Alessandra Siraco
Liz hated the word “moist” but it was hard to hate her. It probably should have been easy. She would have hated Melanie’s Diner because everything in it was moist. Moist French fries, moist napkins. It smelled like fried food and sort of like those canned peaches that are too sugary. My suitcases were on the bench next to me, still with tags from the plane from Hartford. I loved visits to Ben in North Carolina partly because I also loved Melanie’s. I sat on the plastic bench across from Ben and watched him pick the smaller half of the sandwich to eat first, holding both up and then choosing before taking a bite.
“I’m glad you’re visiting,” he said.
My French fries were too hot but I ate them anyway, dragging them in ketchup before shoving them in my mouth and chewing too hard.
“I can’t believe Liz moved out,” I said.
“You really didn’t know?”
“No.”
“She didn’t hint or anything?”
“No. Her stuff was just gone yesterday.” I felt my eyes get hotter than the French fries and I didn’t bother to wipe my eyelids because I knew more tears would be coming. The tears dropped into my plate, mixing with the ketchup, turning it a runny shade of pink, and I ate a fry dipped in tear ketchup. It tasted salty.
Ben finished the half of his sandwich and took a drink of Diet Pepsi. His brown hair was getting longer and overgrown but I had missed him so much that it didn’t bother me like it sometimes did. I looked up from my French fry tear ketchup at him.
“Don’t worry,” he said, putting a hand over mine. “You’ll have a spare room for the rest of your lease, now.”
I looked at his hands, darker than the rest of his body for some reason. There were rough spots on them, covering the fingers and parts of the back of his hand. They felt rough but embedded, not new patches, old ones, like they were always supposed to be there. They had been there for a while. I loved them.
***
“He’s going to dump you,” Liz said, a little drunk, tipping over and breathing out heavily as she flopped onto the couch with the felt-velvet black covering over it. Her breath smelled like wine and the cheese stick she had just eaten half of and left on the stained coffee table of my living room. My living room.
Liz took another bite of the cheese and put it down. Even drunk, she took small bites. She sat on the couch, biting the cheese in tiny bites, so small that I didn’t even know how she tasted the cheese. She held the cheese stick with her long fingers, gesturing as she talked.
“This is so good,” she said, moaning. She made sex noises when she ate really good food, but I never knew how to tell her that. “So good.” She took a napkin and daintily wiped each of her fingers individually. “It’s not dry or old-tasting at all.”
“It’s moist, Liz.”
She rolled her eyes. “I have an audition on Monday.” Liz wanted to move to New York and audition for Broadway shows, even though she’d never been cast in a show during college. I had gone to each of the shows she was in the ensemble for, though, and she wasn’t good.
“Oh,” I said.
“It’s for an off-Broadway show. If I get cast in it, I’ll probably be able to get on Broadway, because the director also works there.”
“Better not count on it,” I said.
“On what?”
“Getting cast.”
Liz took a big bite of the cheese stick. “Bitch,” she muttered. “I think I’m going to find a guy at The Tap. I think next week it will happen.”
“At a bar?”
“I think it could happen,” she said again. She leaned back on the couch, pushing some crumbs off of it. “I just want someone who can dance. Ballroom dance.” She was completely serious. “Can Ben ballroom dance?”
I shrugged. Ben was coming to visit in eleven hours.
“Maybe you can ask him,” I said. I felt my back blend into the soft fabric of the back of the couch. My other roommate’s door was shut but there was a trail of orange liquid going into it, with an empty bottle outside her door. The windows of our living room were open but it still smelled like beer and something rotting, probably the eggplant in our fridge. The door to the fridge was half-open too. The calendar that we had made out of construction paper back when Liz was still living with us was falling down, and the pink strips were faded in the spots that the sun hit them. It was still labeled October even though it was almost May.
“I’m not going to ask him,” she said. “You guys just hole up in your room anyway when he visits.”
“You’re being stupid,” I said. We were mean to each other. It’s how it went. I was never so mean as to move out, though. “Liz,” I said, “do you think he’s really going to dump me?”
“I think you should dump him,” she said. “I’m just being honest. I just don’t think he’s good enough for you.” She flipped her hair back a bit. “I just think you could do better. You can find someone not long distance. You can find someone who can ballroom dance.”
“I don’t want someone who can ballroom dance.”
“Why? Everyone in Jane Austen novels can.”
“Life isn’t a fucking Jane Austen novel, Liz.”
“It can be.” Liz flipped her hair again. “I think that boys should be able to ballroom dance. And preferably have a British accent.” The sad thing was she was being completely serious.
“Go to London, then.”
“I’m going to New York,” she said. “Can I stay here tonight?”
“You moved out,” I said, and she glared at me, her long hair shining in the fluorescent room. “You can’t stay here.”
“I told you,” she slurred, “it was too loud in this room. It was just too loud. I needed to move out for,” she pushed her hands up, her elegant hands making the gesture in the air like they always did, “for me.”
“You didn’t tell me until after you moved out.” The air was cold as I walked by and slammed the fridge door shut.
“I’m going to bed. Mary said I could stay over whenever I wanted, ‘cause technically the room is still mine.” Liz stuck her boots on the back of the couch and lay her back down flat against the cushions, her legs in the air and one over the side, straddling the corner of the couch. Her long brown straight hair was falling towards the floor.
I made her leave, like she had wanted to, when she moved out.
***
The cab came four minutes after we called, and it smelled like McDonald’s French fries. Ben let me get in first but then he walked around the cab, after a minute, and got in the other side. The seats were fabric and felt dirty, worn down on the seat parts, so that I didn’t want to sit directly on them.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
“We’re going to the mall,” I said.
Ben smiled, a little sadly, and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, ready. “I’ll get it, Amanda,” he said.
The cab driver looked in the rearview mirror. The streets were dark and it was Hartford, a city, a bad city, if I wasn’t here with Ben. It was almost dark out. The cab driver had on a backwards Yankees hat, bent around the edges and frayed on the bill so it looked like the wind was always whipping just the front of his hat. It was blue, but faded, almost white.
“The Westfarms Mall?” he asked, pulling out of my apartment complex a little too fast. The cab went over the curb leading out of the complex, and I felt the bump as we went back to the ground. Ben had driven up that morning from visiting a friend nearby, and met me at the mall. I’d met him for breakfast there that morning, at this great buffet place that was open early, and we’d left both of our cars there because there was limited parking near my apartment. We’d gotten the cab from the mall parking lot.
He had dumped me there.
“I can’t anymore,” he’d said. “I’m sick of long distance. I love you but it’s too hard.”
“What?”
“I’m sorry,” he’d said, embarrassed that he’d blurted it all out.
He hadn’t say anything else, just let it sink in that it wasn’t because it was long distance. It was because I was mean, because I was mad, all the time, because I was a giant ball of sadness about Liz and Connecticut and, ironically, about being long distance with him.
Ben sat on the other side of the cab, and I sat crunched up against the window. The glass was cold and a little moist.
“Are you sure?” I asked, my nose running in the hotness of the cab. The driver looked in the rearview mirror again and saw that I was staring at Ben. He turned his eyes back to the road and then to his cell phone, ringing on the seat next to him.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” Ben said. “I really am. I can’t do it anymore, though.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t do it. You’re—” Ben looked into my eyes, his dark and light around the pupil, and then looked down at the dirty seat of the cab. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m what?”
“We’ve already talked about it, Amanda. I can’t do long distance anymore. I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, “I miss you too much.”
“That makes no sense.” My voice was louder now, and the cab driver could probably hear me but I didn’t know if he cared. He was driving slowly, for a cab driver.
“It’s too hard.”
“That’s not fair,” I said.
“You haven’t been fair.”
The cab suddenly stopped and I went forward, my seatbelt still dangling on the side near the door. I banged my head on the plastic cover on the back of the passenger seat in front of me, my forehead sliding down from the tears that made my whole face wet. I rubbed the top of my forehead.
“Liz said you were going to break up with me.”
“Why did she say that?”
“Because,” I said, “she knew it. She was right. She’s always right.”
“She’s not always right,” Ben said, moving a little bit closer. I felt the seat shift as he shifted, but he didn’t move very close. Just a little. “She’s not. She shouldn’t have moved out.”
“I know.”
“Did you yell at her?”
“I told you I did. She’s a bitch.”
Ben looked at me and then squinted his eyes a little bit, like his cat did when she was angry with him. “You don’t have to be bitchy about it, Amanda.”
The cab was driving more slowly now, past the corner that led into the apartment complex and down through the trees that lined the entryway. Once we passed the trees, there were houses—beaten-down, beaten-up, chipped white paint and no trim left on them. I could see tricycles with wheels missing, and people sitting on the porches, smoking and yelling. A kid in a front yard was crying and another was drinking something out of a Gatorade bottle, sitting down near the edge of the road screwing up his face as he took a gulp.
The cab drove carefully because the road was narrow. We drove by the Welcome to Connecticut sign that was posted near my apartment complex, even though Connecticut started way before the complex did. The cab driver pushed his Yankees hat around so it was sideways. Somebody told me once that that was a sign of being in a gang. I didn’t know if it was true but I wondered if Ben recognized it as that. He leaned towards me a little and I thought he was going to move in—it’s all right, I was just kidding, I don’t actually mean it, you’re worth the long distance—but instead he just looked forward through the windshield of the cab.
“Is this the way we usually get to the mall?” he asked, looking directly at the cab driver.
“Yes,” the cab driver said. Marcus, said his name tag ID posted on the back of the seat. It was covered in plastic that was scratched around only the picture part. I couldn’t see his face on the photo but his hair was a different color, from what I could make out from the scratched picture.
The cab turned and I knew that it wasn’t the right direction. There was a house that was painted dark blue and wasn’t chipped. People sat on the lawn in lawn chairs, reclining on the white plastic. We stopped at a stop sign in front of a house with a woman who was wearing a Red Sox jersey, Wakefield, and the cab driver shoved his Yankees hat to the other side of his head so the logo was facing out towards the street.
“Ben,” I whispered, and he glanced over quickly, hearing the tears in my voice, afraid that I was going to keep begging him to not break up with me. “This isn’t the right way.” I whispered it so the cab driver couldn’t hear.
The driver turned on the radio, to a religious station. It was in a different language but the first sentence I heard was English: “Bless the Lord Jesus,” the announcer said, and launched into another language. The voices went up and down, getting louder and softer as more people joined in. We drove past more houses, getting nicer and then back to the chipped paint. This was the Hartford that I knew, depressed and distant. The rich Hartford lie in between; the nice Hartford. Some of Connecticut was beautiful, but not the part near me.
The cab driver turned at a stop sign and we were on a street that I recognized. Far away from the mall. It was behind an old church that was painted bright orange. It had the kind of wall that looks smooth and gummy, and the top of it was carved in wavy lines. It was faded, now, and there was an alleyway beside it that had old water bottles and Stop & Shop bags in it. The cab driver turned the radio station to another one, still not in English, and turned it up really loudly. He glanced in the rearview mirror at us and then picked up his cell phone.
Ben looked over at me. I was glaring at him.
“What?” he said. He moved closer to the window.
“You don’t have to move over,” I said. “I’m not going to like, pounce on you, Ben.”
He ignored me and gestured towards the church. “Why are we pulling in here?” I looked and noticed he was right; we were pulling into the alleyway, slowly driving over the weathered speed bumps.
“Should we say something?” I whispered. Ben looked at the cab driver, who was talking on the phone softly, in another language. We couldn’t hear him over the music very well, anyway.
Ben didn’t answer me, but frowned again, squinting his eyes. When he leaned over to get a better look at the alleyway, I could smell the soap he used, distinct, the scent stuck to his skin. Ben looked carefully at the cab driver and at the cab meter.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to the cab driver, leaning forward so I’d be closer to Ben. Maybe he could smell my scent too, cinnamon body lotion scrubbed on quickly in the car ride to the parking lot of the mall that morning. Ben turned towards me and moved backwards, back to his seat, adjusting back, away from me. “Where are we going? We were actually going to the mall.”
“We are,” the cab driver said, and shut off the engine. He got out of the cab and threw his Blackberry on the passenger seat, darting towards the back of the alley. It was getting darker and we were obviously not at the mall.
I watched him walk around the back of the church and disappear behind a dumpster and a clothes bin for Goodwill. The streetlights were on by now but there were none behind the church, the orange stucco gleaming in front and dark and shadowy in the back. A few houses were around but most had the lights off; some had people sitting on front porches, in shorts too short for late April in Connecticut, smoking cigarettes. Through the open window I could smell the smoke, and then the smell of pot.
“What is he doing?” I asked, sticking my head closer to the glass of the cab so I could get a look.
“It’s a drug deal, Amanda,” Ben said. “Did you see his hat?”
“I didn’t know that was a true thing.”
Ben nodded. “It is.”
“Well, should we leave?”
Ben looked at me and crossed his arms. He was wearing a gray shirt, and his face was tan from the early spring. “We’ve been driving for ten minutes. We’re probably too far to walk back.”
“I know where we are.”
“Well, can we walk?”
“No.”
He didn’t mention that I had suggested it. I wanted him to sit in Melanie’s Diner with me after Liz had dumped me, to go back to the first time I was dumped, by her, because even that was better than this.
The cab driver came back holding a Duane Reade bag. There are no Duane Reades in Connecticut. Liz told me that she went to Duane Reade before each audition to buy gum, a tradition. Apparently it didn’t bring her much luck, though.
The cab driver shoved the bag on the passenger seat near him and got back in the cab.
“We’ll go to the Westfarms Mall, now,” he said.
He drove out of the church alleyway and down the street the same way we came in, but instead of turning where we were supposed to to get to the main stretch, he turned onto another side street, and then another.
He was running the cab meter, driving us through the deep end of Hartford to get to the mall and jack up our cab fare.
“Ben,” I whispered, leaning towards him. The music was off now and the cab was silent. Ben moved backwards on reflex, towards the window.
“Would you calm down?” I said. “I’m not going to keep begging you to not dump me.” Ben didn’t look up, not surprised anymore at how mean I was. I’d been mean for a year, on the phone and on Skype and on text messages.
“What?”
“This isn’t the way to the mall.”
“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” he asked. He was angry right back at me.
I shifted towards him, just to annoy him. He shifted backwards. The cab driver looked back at us and turned left, onto the road near where the mall was.
Ben paid the cab driver.
“I’ll see you at Thanksgiving, probably,” he said. He gave me a hug. “Bye, Amanda. I’m sorry.” He left the parking lot, his car parked next to mine pulling out of the space.
I sat in my car as he drove away, pretending to be getting ready to leave too, but after he started leaving I twisted the charm bracelet he had given me around my wrist, looking at the ice cream cone charm new out of the box only a month ago, pulling it and sparkling it against the floodlights from the parking lot’s few dim lights. The charm was different colors, light pastels in the shape of fake crystals for the ice cream, and the cone was silver.
A middle schooler walked by and stared at me, adjusting her black sweatshirt around her body, and kept walking. She was smoking and I didn’t know where she’d gotten the cigarettes, but the Westfarms Mall was pretty lenient. Pretty drug-friendly.
My phone rang and I answered it quickly.
“I’m coming back,” Ben said, talking into the receiver quickly, like he didn’t really want to be on the phone with me. “I forgot my sweatshirt was in your car. Have you left yet?”
I saw his sweatshirt, lying on the backseat, wedged in between the seat and the door from years ago, probably. It was black and said “Puma” on the front in big white letters, and the sleeves were stretched out so that the elastic on the wrists was not elastic anymore.
“Sorry,” he said, speaking louder like he thought I couldn’t hear him. “I’m sorry.”
I hung up and got out of the car to reach in the back and grab the sweatshirt. I put my hands into the sleeves, but didn’t put the sweatshirt on, holding my hands in the sleeves and facing the sweatshirt towards me, as if someone was wearing the sweatshirt, as if he was, and as if we were holding hands inside the sleeves, a secret, warm.
The streetlight went out, and I stood in darkness, holding the sweatshirt alone, leaning up against the car, feeling the heat from the day that became fleshed into the car’s black metal. It smelled like gasoline in the parking lot, and like smoke coming from behind the Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. I breathed in the smell of the sweatshirt, sweat and salt from the beach and smoke from bonfires and his soap scent still embedded in it even after years, and listened to his car, coming back.
“Thanks, Amanda,” he says, taking the sweatshirt and looking at me oddly as he realizes that my hands are in his sleeves. “Why are your hands stuck in the sweatshirt like that?” His brown eyes look down at my hands and I want to hold his. They’re big, and I once talked to Liz about them.
“Ben’s hands are great,” I’d said, sipping my Diet Pepsi and pointing to the street where we were turning, to find an apartment. “They have rough spots on them, and they feel sturdy. Did you notice that?”
She’d shaken her head. “I don’t think I’ve noticed it,” she’d said. “But look, the apartment’s there”—and we turned into the apartment complex, past the chipped white painted houses and the Welcome to Connecticut backwards sign. “I don’t know,” she’d said. She’d flipped her hair and looked around, putting her dainty fingers on the window and tracing the fog off of it. “I kind of wanted to be closer to the train. I’m going to be going to New York a lot, you know. For auditions.”
“I like it,” I’d said. “We’re done looking. You’ve already shot down too many.”
She’d glared at me and I’d glared back, picking this apartment and making her sign the lease.
I used to run my fingers over Ben’s, my red nail polish skimming the surface of his rough spots, and I used to pretend that my hands could smooth his, even though they obviously never did.
I clutch my fingers together in the sleeves of his empty sweatshirt.
“Amanda,” he says, “come on. Give it to me.”
I can smell the gasoline and salt and French fries from Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse. This year he started putting lotion on his hands, and the rough spots are gone, and as he takes the sweatshirt from me and pulls it over his head, “Puma” straight across his chest, I feel his hands scrape against mine for a second, smooth scraping, smooth, smooth.
- - -
I recently graduated Trinity College in Hartford and am currently an M.F.A. student at Emerson College. I have taken classes with Steve Yarbrough and Ladette Randolph, and am working in insurance while I hone my writing skills.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
1/11/12
An Immortal Sunset
By Linda M. Crate
Aure twisted her head when she heard her husband Charlotte coming. He had always hated his name, finding it rather unfortunate and cruel of his parents even if they had wanted a girl; she liked it. She thought it suited him. It was unique. The witch could tell that her husband was upset even if she hadn’t seen his face yet — the lilting in the damphyre’s steps. She supposed if she were a half-vampire she might be moody, too, but her husband always seemed to be in a ‘mood’ when he wasn’t around her.
She paused in her trimming of the rose garden behind their spacious yard to consider him for a few moments. His hands were covered in thick peels of dirt that turned his lily-white skin charcoal. “Are you all right, Charlotte?”
Her husband frowned at her. “No, Aure, I’m scared.”
“You, scared? Vampire and werewolf slayer? I never would have guessed,” she teased lightly. “What’s bothering you, love?”
“I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”
“For what?”
“This father business. What if I’m a horrible father? My father abandoned my mother when I was six — I wouldn’t want to turn out like that.”
“You won’t,” Aure soothed. “I know you won’t be. You’re not your father, Charlotte. If you were, you never would have fallen in love with someone like me. Didn’t you tell me before that your father was a violent sort and your mother, too?”
“Yes,” he sighed.
“Don’t worry, history sometimes repeats itself, but I can’t see you leaving,” she remarked.
“Why?” he asked, bluntly.
“Because I have you wrapped around my little finger,” she smirked.
Charlotte laughed, brushing strands of blonde hair from her blue eyes. “I think it’s rather questionable who has whose finger wrapped around them,” he grinned, leaning forward to place a swift kiss on her lips.
“Good point,” Aure remarked, when they resurfaced for air. She laughed, looking out at the stream. “I just hope that if we do have more than one child that they’re kinder to one another than Obscurum was to me,” she remarked, thinking of her late sister.
Charlotte nodded, brushing strands of her long blonde hair. “I’m sure they would be. How couldn’t they be with a mother like you?”
Aure smiled, giving him a soft peck on the cheek. “You’re sweet.”
“Not as sweet as you,” he grinned. “You often bring out the best in me.”
“I am rather good at that, aren’t I?” she joked.
“Yes,” he answered in earnest. He pulled one of her hands to his lips and gently kissed it. “I just hope that I’m a better father than mine was.”
“You will be.”
“Whatever happens we’re not giving our children cruel names.”
Aure laughed. “Surely not,” she agreed. She knew that names were a very temperamental subject with Charlotte as he hated his own. She looked up into his brown eyes. “I do hope that they get my sense of grooming, though,” she sighed, looking at his raven locks. “Your hair is always so unruly.”
“Blame it on my mother’s genetics. She always had twigs and leaves in her hair. She didn’t even bother to pull them out. My father liked it.” He shook his head. “My father was an odd sort of fellow, even for a vampire.”
“Clearly, if he should name his son Charlotte,” she giggled.
Charlotte smiled.
She knew that she would remember that moment forever. Charlotte rarely smiled, it seemed like the perfect moment of immortality. The sun was singing it’s last hymn as it was being devoured by the trees — it’s golden light haloing the trees, the sky was cut into ribbons of plum and rosemary and the clouds were orange. It was a beautiful moment she knew would be impossible to forget.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, gently.
“Because this is a perfect moment. You are genuinely smiling and not because I asked you to.”
Charlotte laughed, as he fit his fingers between the fingers of her hand. “Being around you makes me feel the happiest I’ve ever been. Those years of being a social pariah and an outcast weren’t fun. I feel if I hadn’t found you, I would have become my father.”
“Well, thank goodness I found you then.” She smiled, enjoying the sensation of his fingers laced with hers. “I know without you in my life, it wouldn’t be nearly as rich nor would I have so many adventures.”
Charlotte grinned. “Yes, those were rather unpredictable and wild.”
“Just like your hair.”
He rolled his eyes, kissing her.
“Was that our polite way of telling me to be quiet, love?”
“It was.”
“I think I liked it,” she winked.
He laughed.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
By Linda M. Crate
Aure twisted her head when she heard her husband Charlotte coming. He had always hated his name, finding it rather unfortunate and cruel of his parents even if they had wanted a girl; she liked it. She thought it suited him. It was unique. The witch could tell that her husband was upset even if she hadn’t seen his face yet — the lilting in the damphyre’s steps. She supposed if she were a half-vampire she might be moody, too, but her husband always seemed to be in a ‘mood’ when he wasn’t around her.
She paused in her trimming of the rose garden behind their spacious yard to consider him for a few moments. His hands were covered in thick peels of dirt that turned his lily-white skin charcoal. “Are you all right, Charlotte?”
Her husband frowned at her. “No, Aure, I’m scared.”
“You, scared? Vampire and werewolf slayer? I never would have guessed,” she teased lightly. “What’s bothering you, love?”
“I just don’t know if I’m cut out for this.”
“For what?”
“This father business. What if I’m a horrible father? My father abandoned my mother when I was six — I wouldn’t want to turn out like that.”
“You won’t,” Aure soothed. “I know you won’t be. You’re not your father, Charlotte. If you were, you never would have fallen in love with someone like me. Didn’t you tell me before that your father was a violent sort and your mother, too?”
“Yes,” he sighed.
“Don’t worry, history sometimes repeats itself, but I can’t see you leaving,” she remarked.
“Why?” he asked, bluntly.
“Because I have you wrapped around my little finger,” she smirked.
Charlotte laughed, brushing strands of blonde hair from her blue eyes. “I think it’s rather questionable who has whose finger wrapped around them,” he grinned, leaning forward to place a swift kiss on her lips.
“Good point,” Aure remarked, when they resurfaced for air. She laughed, looking out at the stream. “I just hope that if we do have more than one child that they’re kinder to one another than Obscurum was to me,” she remarked, thinking of her late sister.
Charlotte nodded, brushing strands of her long blonde hair. “I’m sure they would be. How couldn’t they be with a mother like you?”
Aure smiled, giving him a soft peck on the cheek. “You’re sweet.”
“Not as sweet as you,” he grinned. “You often bring out the best in me.”
“I am rather good at that, aren’t I?” she joked.
“Yes,” he answered in earnest. He pulled one of her hands to his lips and gently kissed it. “I just hope that I’m a better father than mine was.”
“You will be.”
“Whatever happens we’re not giving our children cruel names.”
Aure laughed. “Surely not,” she agreed. She knew that names were a very temperamental subject with Charlotte as he hated his own. She looked up into his brown eyes. “I do hope that they get my sense of grooming, though,” she sighed, looking at his raven locks. “Your hair is always so unruly.”
“Blame it on my mother’s genetics. She always had twigs and leaves in her hair. She didn’t even bother to pull them out. My father liked it.” He shook his head. “My father was an odd sort of fellow, even for a vampire.”
“Clearly, if he should name his son Charlotte,” she giggled.
Charlotte smiled.
She knew that she would remember that moment forever. Charlotte rarely smiled, it seemed like the perfect moment of immortality. The sun was singing it’s last hymn as it was being devoured by the trees — it’s golden light haloing the trees, the sky was cut into ribbons of plum and rosemary and the clouds were orange. It was a beautiful moment she knew would be impossible to forget.
“Why are you smiling?” he asked, gently.
“Because this is a perfect moment. You are genuinely smiling and not because I asked you to.”
Charlotte laughed, as he fit his fingers between the fingers of her hand. “Being around you makes me feel the happiest I’ve ever been. Those years of being a social pariah and an outcast weren’t fun. I feel if I hadn’t found you, I would have become my father.”
“Well, thank goodness I found you then.” She smiled, enjoying the sensation of his fingers laced with hers. “I know without you in my life, it wouldn’t be nearly as rich nor would I have so many adventures.”
Charlotte grinned. “Yes, those were rather unpredictable and wild.”
“Just like your hair.”
He rolled his eyes, kissing her.
“Was that our polite way of telling me to be quiet, love?”
“It was.”
“I think I liked it,” she winked.
He laughed.
- - -
Linda Crate is a Pennsylvanian native born in Pittsburgh yet raised in the rural town of Conneautville. Her poetry has recently been featured in Magic Cat Press, Black-Listed Magazine, Bigger Stones, and Vintage Poetry. One of her short stories has been featured in Carnage Conservatory and she has an upcoming short story for publication in Dark Gothic Reconstructed Magazine in April 2012.
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