The Athenaeum

Tag: short story

  • Riverswimmer

    Riverswimmer

    In the winter of my senior year, I would drive around for about an hour everyday after school. In the fall I had Cross Country, and so I thought I’d replace it with Chess club, and I did go for like a week, but everybody there was either a try-hard or they barely knew how to play. So I stopped going pretty quick, and instead I started driving around town until around 4:30, when I’d head home before Mom and Dad got back from work. You know, that sounds more boring than it is: one day I got all the way up to Hamilton. And there were times I’d go and visit places too, like the natural food store on Smoketown. I liked the way it smelled in there. They had a whole wall of fresh coffee beans in glass containers and it always smelled familiar (if that makes sense). They always thought I was a shop-lifter though, saying stuff like “Can I help you with anything?” and watching me walk around. People get really stressed out if you walk into a store and don’t buy anything. So I didn’t go in there too often.

    Anyways, it was during one of those drives that I ran into your old friends again. It was this really rainy day in April, and I saw them all, Lacy, Grace, Krissy, and Zeb, running down the sidewalk on Market without umbrellas. Lacy started waving and yelling for me to stop. There was a car behind me, but I can’t resist when people are all loud like that, so I did. Grace, Krissy, and Zeb opened the back-door on my side and started climbing in, and Lacy ran around the side and got shotgun as usual. They were drenched, and dripping water everywhere on the floor. I know you hated it when people got the seats all wet, but there was nothing I could do. They were crazy. Lacy was yelling “SPRING BREAK” when she climbed in and the rest of them were cracking up. I asked them where they wanted me to drop them off, but they weren’t listening. Zeb was drying his hair in the back by shaking his head and he was splashing Grace and Krissy, who were shouting and cackling about it. And Lacy was doing that thing where you act so excited about seeing someone that it sounds like you’re babying them. “Noah, it’s been so long! How are you?? Have you heard back from colleges yet???” 

    I said that I wasn’t sure, and they all thought that was a really funny answer. Zeb asked for aux and started playing Rex Orange County. I didn’t stop him. I asked them again where they wanted me to drop them off, but they didn’t care much, so I just turned when I felt like it. As we drove, they talked and laughed about all kinds of silly things, and I listened silently. Krissy had met some crazy people at college and was telling us about an old friend that had anger issues. Lacy was totally turned around in her seat to face the back, and she and Zeb were laughing along to Krissy’s story.  Grace pretended to be listening, but I could tell she wasn’t. I could see her in the rearview mirror, and she looked a little sad. But then she looked up and we made eye contact, so I stopped staring. 

    We were taking the winding road that leads from downtown to the riverfront, and we were just getting close to the river when Krissy ran out of things to say. Lacy saw the vast expanse of the river, risen high and mighty by the rainfall, and it fascinated her; she put her hand on my shoulder and told me I had to stop the car. I parked on the side of the road and she got out. Krissy and Zeb followed her, running down the grass to the bank of the water. They were getting soaked again, just after drying off and soaking the seat cushions of your car.

    Me and Grace hung back and stayed in the car for a minute. She leaned forward to talk to me, but didn’t say anything. I didn’t like the silence, so I asked her how her semester was. She said that it was fine, but that nothing really interesting happened to her like it had for Krissy. I said that was okay. There was a pause, and then she said “I’m here if you ever want to talk.” I said I was alright. “Are you sure?” I said yeah. I looked out through the side window and saw Lacy, Zeb, and Krissy taking off their shoes and socks. Grace looked out too and laughed: “They’re so stupid sometimes.” I told her that she should go out there, and she said she’d only go out if I did too, so we opened the car doors and walked out into the torrent.

    I had an umbrella in the trunk, but I didn’t bother fetching it. Me and Grace were already as soaked as the other three; we looked at each other and laughed. Lacy called out to us, cupping her hands: “SPRING BREAK!!!!” Grace yelled back “SPRING BREAK!” and everybody laughed. Lacy explained to us that we absolutely had to swim in the river right now because of the “spirit of spring break,” and Grace said it was stupid but agreed. She leaned down to untie her sneakers, while I stood in place awkwardly. Lacy and Zeb tried to convince me to take off my shoes but I said I didn’t want to. They didn’t push it on me or anything; I watched from dry(ish) land as they wildly ran into the water. 

    They laughed like maniacs as they swam in their sopping-wet clothes and splashed each other. I sat on the grass watching the crazy beauty of it all, until my legs got too cold and I walked back to the car. I opened the trunk and found an old white towel in the back, then I laid it out on the driver’s seat and sat down. From in the car, I couldn’t hear your friends anymore: I could only hear the sound of cars driving by and of pouring rain on the windshield. I turned on the car to listen to music, but my phone was dead, so I just listened to the Elliot Smith CD. It’s been in the car for years at this point. I remembered when you found it in dad’s old box of CDs from the 90s and how you got so excited to put it in your car. Then I thought about Zeb, and how he would always insist on using aux, so we’d only get to listen to the CD for the first couple minutes of the ride to school. I thought about how your friends never liked your music and how they still don’t. They’re not like us: they swim in rivers and never drown. They’ve never stared at the ceiling for hours, caught in the depths of their own uselessness. They laugh when things are funny and don’t worry too much when they aren’t. I thought about how they would get home fine even if I drove away, how they would cherish the memory of walking home together as some cinematic, youthful moment. And then I saw that it was almost 4:30, so I switched the car into drive and left.

  • God said cigarettes.

    God said cigarettes.

    I’ve never seen God, but my brother did once. In 2007, hopelessly lost on a hiking trail in northern France, he stumbled across a field of matted grass. A train was passing through the field. He watched the windows of the train fly past, all so similar to one another. None were open but one. Towards the end of the train’s meandering body, a man in robes was sticking out his head into the wind; his mane of brown hair sent in every direction. To this day, my brother swears this man was God. He was not the spitting image of paintings or stained-glass windows. His skin was wrinkled and olive-coloured and He smoked a Gitanes cigarette. Upon seeing my brother in the field, He said just one word. Josh has never told me what this word was (and I have long suspected that he never even heard what it was), but he has suggested to me once or twice that it was three syllables long. The train was gone just as Josh realized what he had seen. When He saw Josh running after him, God vaguely waved and disappeared into the green of the horizon.

    Several minutes later, Josh’s hiking friends caught up with him, running and panting “Where were you?” He didn’t explain it to them. There were bigger worries, like how to get back to the trailhead. After some argument, the young men followed the train-tracks back into town. Josh bade his hiking friends farewell to walk back in time for dinner. He was halfway through the final week of his stay with our parents’ friends, the Mansouris. We visited the Mansouris once as kids and speaking truly, we barely knew them, but Josh was cutting any expenses he could in his trip across Europe. Josh says they were gracious hosts and that their cooking was exquisite.

    He remembers it quite clearly: for dinner there was roasted salmon and green beans and yogurt and strawberries. Like most meals he ate there, it passed in near-perfect silence. They ate their food and the sun set from behind the kitchen windows and every few minutes, Elodie would look at Josh. Her parents didn’t notice, or maybe they pretended not to. Following a fast ten minutes, Josh asked to be excused in some very tacky French and walked down to the harbour. It was a few minutes down a narrow street; the clouds were almost purple from being so grey and so dark. 

    It was called a harbour. Nowadays, the water there is too shallow for the exchange of merchandise, and the only vessel was a hardly-necessary bright orange life raft, barely visible in the dusk. Josh got out his pack of American cigarettes and sat down, his legs dangling over the wall moss that grows down to the water. He tells me that this was his first real chance to think over what he had seen. There was no good reason to assume that the man on the train was God, other than his exquisitely long beard, but Josh couldn’t get the thought of his head. He thought about calling his friend Kristjan, and he thought about calling me, but he was convinced we would laugh at him. We wouldn’t understand how His eyes looked through Josh, like a blind man who knows exactly what he is seeing. We couldn’t ever know the mythical awe that Josh felt, staring up at the open window. Nobody else I’ve ever talked to has even claimed to have seen God. Only Josh. This was one way he would always be alone. 

    When Elodie cleared her throat, Josh says he nearly jumped down into the river with fright. She apologized and sat next to him. Josh has never told me this, but I suspect he offered her a cigarette at that moment. Back then, Josh offered everyone cigarettes. They sat there in silence, listening to waves lap against bricks, either smoking or not smoking. Elodie broke the silence. “Your suitcase is packed.”

    Josh nodded and laughed in the way that he does. “Yes it is.” 

    “I’m going to Spain with you.”

    “Ellie, please.”

    “I’m all packed tooーI’ll leave a note. Mom will be angry with me, but she’ll get over it! I’m 18 years old, I’m an adult.”

    Josh sighed and focused extra hard on the darkness of trees across the water. He tries not to be insensitive. “We’ve had a good few weeks, ok. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have ever…I’m sorry about this.” 

    “You’re leaving tonight. You used me.”

    Josh threw his cigarette down to the life raft. He missed, and watched it bounce into the void. It made a fizzling noise. “Kind of, yeah I did. You used me too.”

    “How?” 

    When Josh didn’t answer, Elodie left. Josh stayed at the harbour, trying to perfectly recall what His face looked like. He had a birthmark on His left cheek, but perhaps it was a scar. Which one was it? Two hours passed. Josh walked back to the house. He was careful to be quiet walking upstairs. The wood was loud, and the Mansouris were light sleepers. His suitcase and his backpack were laid out on the bare mattress. There was a note with ripped edges balancing on the suitcase: Elodie’s e-mail written in pen. Josh folded the note into his back pocket, picked up his stuff, and left. That night, he slept at the train station. God wasn’t waiting for him. 

  • In the hour of moonboats.

    In the hour of moonboats.

    There was once a boy named Cliffton, who was the littlest among four siblings but the biggest among the neighborhood kids. Cliff loved his little friends, but he hardly ever saw them; his curfew was sundown, even on the dreamiest and warmest nights of the summer. Little Cliff often had nothing to do in the night but sit in his bedroom and look out at the moon and listen through his floorboards. Many nights there was absolute silence downstairs and he got very bored. On nights like these, he could expect to be checked on at least 3 times before falling asleep: twice by his mother and once by his father. 

    However, there was another kind of night. 

    On these very special nights, Cliff would hear through his floorboards the sound of adults ruthlessly shouting at each other. Cliffton called these nights “yelling nights,” and he eagerly awaited them, because a yelling night meant only one room visit. Just one late night visit from mom. That gave him plenty of time to climb down the drainage pipe and run off to the golf course, where he knew his friends would be waiting.

    There was once a clear and warm summer night that also happened to be a yelling night. Cliff, understanding how special this moment was, told his second-oldest sister where he was headed, hastily climbed out of his window, and snuck into the garage. He rooted around the clutter until he found a pile of wooden oars and life jackets. He picked up as many oars in his right hand as could fit and as many life jackets in his left, and wasting no time at all, he sprinted, under the streetlamps and into the evening.

    In the day, you couldn’t hang out on the golf course; there was a good chance that men in polo shirts would yell at you. In the night, however, those rolling hills of trimmed grass were roamed by children, who would sit around in a gossiping circle or play breathless games of tag. When Cliff ran over the crest of the hill called Dead Man’s Hill, he saw a half-dozen kids sitting around a sand trap and hollered madly for their attention, waving an oar through the air. When they saw him, they shouted back like a pack of wild animals and ran up to meet him.

    “Hurry! Hurry! Take these!” Cliff indiscriminately hoisted the life jackets and the oars upon anyone who could carry them. Seeing the confusion on their faces, he explained between rounds of excited panting: “Tonight [gasp] is the [gasp] night when the ships fly across the [gasp] sky.”

    “What kind of thips? Thips go on the othean, not the thky.” This was the lispy voice of Sam (a.k.a Tham), who was considered to be the smartest one among the group. Several among the ranks nodded in approval. 

    “Do you see the moon up there? It’s full tonight. Last time it was a full moon, I saw a bunch of ships cross the sky, remember?”

    “We all agreed that wath a meteor thower.” 

    “I thought, what if we offered to sail one of the ships? I think they could use some help up there, because I saw one of the ships was empty!” 

    The younger kids looked up at Cliff with wild enthusiasm, but Tham didn’t believe it and shook his head. Despite his skepticism, however, Tham fastened the straps of his life jacket and took an oar in his hand. As Cliff beckoned for everyone to run up to the peak of Dead Man’s Hill, he pointed at people and assigned positions. “Lily, you’re the navigator. Pip, you’re on starboard. Sam, you’re on port.”

    “Where is starboard?”

    Pip’s question disappeared into the air as the first ship appeared from behind a wispy cloud. Pip and Lily and Cliff and Tham and Kiara and Jess craned their necks and stared as the fleet took shape and subsumed the constellations. The ships were thin, bright, and made of wood that trembled with the breeze. They flew no flags, held no passengers. They simply floated through the sky, propelled by invisible rowers and steered by invisible captains. Their lunar shadows dangled over backyards and parking lots. 

    The kids screamed out to the ships like they had never screamed before, and they only got louder when they weren’t heard. They waved their arms and shined up flashlights; nothing worked. Agonizing minutes passed, and all the ships sailed on, with a graceful ignorance for the earth below. All except one: towards the rear of the flock there was a smaller boat that jerked around throughout the sky. There was no beauty or logic in its movements; it was a bird with a broken wing. The runt of the litter. And just as Cliff was starting to lose hope and Tham was forming the words “I told you tho” on his lips, this little boat descended upon the hill.

    Cliff was the first to jump onto the ghostly deck, and he outstretched his hand for the others, who looked around at the mothballs and dust that had consumed its floors. “Are you thure about this?” Tham shouted against the wind, but before he could jump back to the safety of the grass, the boat lurched up into the sky and Lily began to shout out orders. “We need to turn right, people! Get moving!”

    The decrepit old boat was falling behind the fleet, which had almost disappeared into the horizon by the time Cliff’s crew had assumed their positions. Pip, Tham, and Kiara plunged their oars into the night’s chasmic void and miraculously felt the boat ascend amongst the stars. From up here, they could only see the sketched suggestions of streets and porch-lights and cars. Much more clear was the deep-set light of the constellations and the immediate twinkle of the fireflies that courageously flew along the hull. The howling wind whipped glorious and cool upon bare ankles. The air was soft and endless: such is the grand tradition of midsummer nights. 

    Soon, they were flying at the very apex of the flock, gazing down upon dozens and dozens of puppeted ships. Having finally reached this great height, the crew could relax. Tham pointed out the North Star and the cloud of the Milky Way to anyone who would listen; Lily speechlessly watched the green of the trees, which reminded her vaguely of broccoli from this height; Kiara assured her little sister Jess that there was nothing to be afraid of; and Cliff simply stood at the frontmost edge of the boat and smiled. 

    There was no longer a window between him and the galaxy. On this night and at this hour, there were no parents, no floorboards, no wasted feelings. There was only laughter and wonder and the sky. Cliff thought about how short hours really are, and about how the future is really only the present in disguise. And no matter what teary-eyed mothers and fathers awaited him upon his return home, Cliff knew that there would always be a summer on the other side. From up here, he could almost see himself next summer, running through the woods below. 

    “Captain, thir, when are we planning to head back home?”

    Cliff awoke from his thoughts and turned to face Tham. He put his hand on Tham’s shoulder like he had once seen in a cartoon about sailors and said: “Sam, we’ll know when we know.”

  • The ezra assembly.

    The ezra assembly.

    I blacked out for several hours then woke up in the back of a truck. Hands and arms were tied. Felt around my back pocket. The ring was gone. Middle-aged man was walking over. Man knelt down. “Hello, Ezra.”

    “Mgggmmm.”

    I had been gagged. Man chuckled: “Pleasured to make your acquaintance. I’m Ezra.”

    “MGgGggm.” Fairly certain that he wasn’t Ezra. I was Ezra. It’s not a common name. 

    The Other Ezra walked to the front compartment and said something. Truck pulled over. Several more curly-haired men came out with beige badges and carrying batons. Dragging me into the woods like where dogs go to be shot. I barked and whimpered.

    About a dozen men. The crew were like Russian Dolls of each other. And the oldest, with enough size for the others to fit, was sauntering up to me. He put his hands together smug. 

    “We apologize for the interruption Ezra. We’re essentially a non-violent organization, however, in this instance the stakes were extraordinarily high. You will understand.” “MMMGGGmm.”

    “Yes, I’m glad to hear it.”

    A younger man walked forward with the little box and the older man took it. I was hollering madly. Could feel the ropes loosening with my movement. 

    “You have been forcefully invited to an emergency meeting of an autonomous organization of men known colloquially as The Ezra Assembly. Why an emergency meeting, you ask?” He shook the box. “Why, you’re the emergency! You and this sterling silver ring. We found you on the beach, carrying it. Now, what could you have been planning to do with this ring?”

    He waited. “That was not a rhetorical question Ezra.”

    “He’s been gagged, Sir Ezra.”

    “Un-gag him then!”

    The gag ripped off. My hollers formed words and the words were loud. “HELP! HELP! ANYONE HELP!” The cold feeling of a knife on my skin. Decided to stop yelling.

    “My question.”

    “Give me my ring!”

    “Ezra. This is going to prove much more difficult and tedious if you do not play along. You are a guest in the Assembly, and we have a certain code of manners.” 

    He waited. “It was an engagement ring. You were planning to propose, weren’t you?”

    “Leave Katherine out of this!”

    Sir Ezra looked to his men and shook his head in amazement. “You have had twenty-three years of life and still you have the manners of a twelve year-old. Please don’t embarrass us.”

    “Who is us? Who are you people?”

    “The important question is who are you, Ezra. You have known Katherine for how long? Five months, something like that? And you know that she has a controlling side that will not mesh well with your inexorably free spirit.”

    “I’m in love with her! I shall ask for her hand—” I was drowned out by boos. Must have offended these strange men, they were looking at me with complete disgust. They shouted at me.

    “She’s crazy!”                “You idiot!”                “She’ll take the kids!”

    Sir Ezra silenced them with a simple wave of his hand. “You are in love with attention Ezra. Katherine is a human person who you will grow to loathe. But there is no use arguing with you. At this age, you are interminably stupid.”

    “I resent that! I’ll have you know I’m pursuing a doctorate in—”

    “Yes, we ought to discuss this as well. When you decided to pursue a graduate degree, did you really interrogate why you were doing it? Or did you just want to stay out of the scary professional world for as much time as possible?”

    The nerve of these men! Kidnapping me, then rudely questioning my life choices! In a burst of anger, I jumped to my feet and grabbed the knife. Before the men could jump on me, I tightly grabbed onto one of the younger Ezras and put the knife against his neck. “One step closer!”

    These men, these ridiculous and cruel men, looked at me with absolute fright. There was this strange silence. Nobody could move and I was somebody and so I was paralyzed too. Sir Ezra had his hands above his head. “Please, Ezra, don’t be rash. We can talk about th—”

    He was interrupted by the Ezra in my arms, who shrieked and thrashed around! I panicked and let him go; he fell to the ground clutching his chest. And with his fall, the sea of men around him toppled to the ground, crying out to the heavens and dying in front of me. Within ten seconds I was the only one left. 

    This wasn’t my fault and I had to get back to the beach.

    I ran as fast as my legs could carry me to the highway. My watch was gone, but judging from the sun, it must have been nearing seven. I know it’s dangerous and all, but I had to get back before sunset so I waved my arms around on the shoulder. The first couple who pulled over were headed to Nags Head, not far from our hotel. I thanked them gratuitously. We sat in silence for an hour. 

    It hurts your feet to run on the beach, but there she was! Sat on a seaside rock and reading. I yelled out as I got close, wheezing and my heart burning. This was the moment I had been waiting weeks for. 

    “Where were you? I hate it when you do that, you just disappear and I have no idea where you’ve gone! You could’ve died and I would’ve—”

    “Will you marry me, Katherine?”

  • Here Lies Caesar and His Men: Worshipped, Lost, Magnificent, Doomed; Homesick but not Forgotten

     

    All this happened both forever ago and about a half a second since, in a span of around thirty seconds. It seems like an unapproachable distance of separation though, since then, that last year of school I thought I wouldn’t miss or think about now. Things were still fresh, a little more promising, a little less cruel.     Brewing summer, ocean in abundance. I still remember the classroom windows and their view, how I would sit on the rocky table with its uneven legs and glare outside – the water view, the birds colliding with the sun, the sun swathed in a bright blue sky. Good weather reminds me of these memories. How one time, near graduation and on the cliff approach of a hot, thick, buzzing summer, school ended for the day and I walked down the hill and into the mid-afternoon, my only thought being that I needed to go for a swim. I called you, and you were hesitant, but with stupid persistence I managed to convince you to join. So I got on the bus headed your way, towards home, because there was this little beach tucked behind this neighborhood on the way, and I planned to meet you there. It’s special because rarely anyone goes there, and tourists hardly know anything about it, so it was all to ourselves (excluding the straying man or two).

    But I accidentally got off the bus early–this bus full of people and salt and sunscreen–I think I can still smell the sun clinging on to all their bodies (slapped pink) and freckled faces (slapped red), all of us pressed together in this stuffy, contained space: as the bus moved bravely forward into this heat; my eyes snatching bits of the shore view from those windows; with the lazy, sunny conversation getting drowned underneath the sound of an engine… so like I said, I got off this bus early, around a few stops early. I can’t remember if I realized this before or after I got off, if I wanted to save face or not. I thought I should just keep walking until I eventually get to the neighborhood, as the bus rolled past with all its passengers of flight and fury – and I was about a quarter of the way there when I saw this woman walking towards me from a stop just ahead. An older woman, who was also on the same bus as me, and was smiling without her teeth. I can’t remember well, but she was so kind and offered to hold all my things on the bus – or offered me a seat, or both. So she was smiling at me and when we finally reached each other, still walking and small-smiling, she said – probably meaning nothing of it and with joking, light provocation (lighter than air) –

    “Guess we both got off at the wrong stop.” I smiled and amicably agreed. I guess we did.  

    You must understand something, because looking back on this now I am struck with happy grief, at the realization that all life has really been is me accidentally getting off at the wrong stop. Anyway, I reached the beach soon enough, with the first thing worth getting out of being my shoes and socks. I stripped down out of uniform – tugged off my school tie and trousers, tucking in all my things on sharp rocks or in my bag. I only went swimming in just my underwear and pressed white school shirt (in this moment I preferred half-hearted decency over everything) which was now limp and wilting from sweat, and no longer crisp. I remember squinting out at the horizon, flat, bright – blue – and there was this boat off in the distance that made me wonder and worry if they saw me and would stop to say hello.  

    While waiting for you I would lay in the water floating on my back (which I’m told is called The Starfish) and blink through stinging blurry eyes, spotting vague whispers of a cloud here and there. I would then get out of the water and sit in the warm sand, my knees tucked into my belly. This moment (a moment I know now to have special significance as it is something like a point of no return) spent waiting and accompanied only with that brutal sun, and that feeling of wet strands of hair clinging to my cheek – that feeling of a moment lasting forever…

    You came eventually.  

    And we were the only ones on the beach for some long, special stretch of time – excluding a straying man or two.  

    But when I saw you walking down to meet me for the first time, I remember you were saying something like hello, you brought food for us to eat, and you were sorry for taking so long. I can’t really remember the rest of the conversation after that. All I remember for certain – with happy, wistful conviction and with joking, light provocation (lighter than air), is that you got off at the right stop.  

  • Empty Ovens

    The smell of ash and winter clung to her stockings like the babies her husband prayed for. Itchy and tight, she couldn’t resist a scratch. Scrtttch. One chipped talon gave birth to a new run.
    “Ripped another pair?” Molly, her bus buddy, eyed the dark stocking. Molly never ripped her stockings; her legs were always deliciously bare. Jane shrugged.
    At home, Jane hung up her coat, put away her shoes, and placed her keys in the old ashtray-turned-holder of knickknacks. Walking into the living room, she saw John wasn’t home yet. No coat flung over back of sofa or shoes to trip over down the hallway.
    She turned the oven on to preheat, and flipped on the radio on her way to the bathroom. Stripping herself bare, she looked into the mirror. The harsh light gave her déjà vu and brought the lines left behind by her stockings into sharp relief. They seemed almost garish, purpling into prophecy along her waist. Jane turned away and twisted the faucet, eager to wash away a day’s worth of work.
    The radio switched to music and John shouted out hello. Jane didn’t answer, lost in steam and shampoo. Cold air rushed in as the glass door slid open, and John jumped in behind Jane. His hands encircled her waist and he dropped a kiss on her shoulder.
    “It’s the still the seventeenth.” His hands wandered and Jane kept her eyes closed. The water seemed hotter, air harder to breathe. Steam turned from soothing to suffocating, and Jane thought about how she was going to drown by air in a shower. At least she wasn’t alone, she thought, as John started coughing against the back of her neck.
    “Turn down the heat.” Jane went to twist the faucet again just as the world started screaming. “Fuck, what is that?”
    John ran out of the shower, skidding on the checkered tile. Jane turned the shower off completely and followed, dripping her way to the kitchen where the wailing was at its highest. John was frantically waving a dish towel under the smoke alarm, and Jane remembered the time she watched a documentary on the Discovery Channel with her mother about rain dances in aboriginal communities.
    “What’s in the oven, Jane?” Jane can barely hear John over the ear-splitting whine of the alarm. The oven must have been dirty, maybe it was the tuna casserole from yesterday. Jane walked over to the oven and deliberately shut it off.
    “Nothing.”

  • The alt-nah

    A silent political fringe so low-key they’ve never actually been classified. Enter, the alt-nah…

    Typically, nobody would actually identify as being part of the alt-nah because politics is just…nah. Hillary being crooked? Nah. Trump being… I don’t have enough words to finish that description? Nah. Having a voice in a country full of voices? Nah.
    Leaders within this hidden movement come in many forms. Perhaps one of the most wiry of the bunch is MMA fighter, Conor McGregor. In perfect alt-nah fashion, he leads this movement with pointed tweets like “Fuck politics and fuck religion. I just want to swing a few lefts and a few rights for a couple of hundred mil in peace”. Essentially his followers interpret this as live your life and don’t give a fuck about anything that affects your surroundings.
    Common phrases found within the movement include everything from a laissez-faire attitude that “politicians can’t do anything for me anyway” or “the system is entirely corrupt”. Typically, all these quotes can be chalked down to “not like it makes a difference anyway”.
    Surprisingly, the alt-nah does act consistently within the political system regardless. The most common example of this is in voting. This is perhaps the most exciting point throughout the year that the alt-nah gets to tout the fact that “their vote doesn’t matter anyway”. Not like any votes counted in the last US election or anything or the PC leadership race…
    You may be asking yourself, how does one join the alt-nah? Well, if you’re tired of the system not working for you, if you don’t really give a sh*t whether its Tommy Tea party taking your money and spending it on blow or Tammy the nanny giving your hard earned dollars to everyone else, you’re in luck. All it takes is a lack of shits to give and a few baseless quotes and you too can help!

  • Red Bullet

    Red Bullet

    She was a flame.
    The hot red poker was always cracking down on my fingers as I reached to grab the black butt on the bullet of her favourite lipstick. The glossy silver of the tube, how smooth the strawberry tip crept up, the tiny click when the cap was placed back to its home that resonated throughout my stomach. It was a forbidden luxury. One that, “You’re too young to be playing with!” Bobbing around in the back of my mind whenever my hands got too itchy.

    She was a scarlet wound.
    I remember how her face almost matched the interior of the tube. The wine dark river of blood pockets flushed up into her temples. The cylinder was snatched before my chubby fingers had a chance to hold on. I never even had time to cry.

    She was the flick of salmon’s tail.
    My first date would have been perfect with the addition of that red lipstick. I thought I had planned the most impeccable route out of the house, setting up traps like a labyrinth to keep my mother busy while he waited around the corner of our overgrown front gates. I quickly learned that my mother was the Minotaur and you could not escape. I had to scrub so long to remove the streak of crimson tides from my cheek, smudged from angry fingers, that my date left thinking I wasn’t coming anymore. She held my jaw between her thumb and pinky and I could smell the heat pouring from her nose.

    She was the magenta of an August sunset.
    We were curled so tightly on the couch, wrapped in blankets and late night snacks. My heart was broken but her arms were so warm. She left ruby red kisses in my hair, traces of the chemical compounds found in lipstick placed along the ridge of my scalp.

    She was hard as the brick my father had used to build our house.
    I asked her politely. Without emotion, as if it was a trivial question coming out of thin air. She told me the story of my birth. She told me the story of the first time he cursed in front of her. She told me the story of her hands over her ears in the back of her closet with red lipstick painted across her cheeks, down the bridge of her nose, because he didn’t like the colour red anymore. She told me the story of the day she vowed to wear nothing but red until death took over. As she unscrewed the bullet and as the pigments touched my lips she told me the story of how she never wanted to see me in red.

  • how many days are in a weak?

    how many days are in a weak?

    The first day, you’ll wake up – groggy, almost as if you had just been dreaming the entire time.

    You’ll reach to find your loved one in the bed, and come up short. The bed that once shared entwined legs will no longer be full of another warm body, but instead; pillows strewn and blankets piled high.

    You’ll fall back to sleep, thinking they’ll be right back; maybe they just got up to go pee, or maybe they’re out having their morning coffee. You’re still half asleep, you aren’t thinking straight. What time is it anyway?

    Three hours later, the sun is peeking into your room, and you rub your eyes. You check your phone: your background is still the same, but you have no texts, and no missed calls.

    It’s 11 am – you slept in later than you planned, and you wonder what he’s doing.

    You get up, wash your face, get dressed, make yourself some breakfast. You call his phone while doing so, only to be reminded by his voicemail that he is no longer the one you thought you knew.

    At first, it doesn’t hit you. It just feels like you had a bad fight and that you’re going to make up – you always do.

    At first, it’s almost like your loved one is just away working. Only 21 more days… but then again, who’s counting?

    After distracting yourself all day, it’s night-time, and you realize you’re lonely (are you lonely? are you just alone?).

    You see, that’s the thing about learning how to be single. You have to ask yourself these things. You have to accept that some questions won’t be answered.

    The second day, your mom will come to visit. She’ll pat your hand, and ask you how you’re doing. You’ll tell her you’re fine, you may even smile apologetically. She’ll offer to take you to lunch – go. There’s no point sitting in the house. After an hour or two, you’ll ask her to stop being a helicopter parent – you need your space.

    The third day, your best friend will call. She’s worried about you. She’s called a few times, but you haven’t worked up the nerve to answer. You finally tell her what happened. She’ll call him an asshole and tell you that you deserve better. She’s right; but that isn’t what you want to hear.

    On the fourth day, you smile at your customers. You ask them all how they are, and when they say, “And you?”, you tell them “I’m good”, to be polite. You take their orders and make small talk while they pay their bills. You hope the regulars don’t notice that you’re not yourself.

    You wake up on the fifth day feeling more energetic than the last four, you haven’t cried in two days and you consider that a win. You start filling the empty spaces where his things used to sit, with pictures of your friends, new books, some flowers.

    The sixth and seventh day blend together. Has it already been a week? Your friend sends you quotes to help you feel better. You start reading poetry and make a new playlist. You force yourself to listen to the songs he said reminded him of you.

    On the 10th day, you call his sister. Ask how she’s been, ask if she’s heard from him. She tells you he’s away working; that he hasn’t said much. Must be nice to be able to leave – in more ways than one.

    Two weeks later, his friend comes into your work and tells you that he’s sorry for what happened. You tell him it’s not him who should be apologizing. He laughs, a little uncomfortably. Almost as if he doesn’t know what else to say. But then he does: He tells you the truth about his friend, your love…ex-love. Everything you needed to hear, and didn’t quite know it at the time. He gives you a hug, kisses you on the top of the head. You fight back the tears, you’ve never been one to cry in public. You wait until you get home, and you let the tears flow freely in the shower. You’re annoyed by how it still affects you.

    That’s the thing about learning how to be single again. You have to let yourself heal. You need to give yourself time to mourn the loss of someone you used to spend so much time with. You have to tell yourself to let go, and stop making an effort. You have to convince yourself to stop wasting your time on something that doesn’t exist anymore. You have to put the past behind you, and focus on the moment in front of you. You have to remind yourself that you don’t need to be with someone in order to feel validated. You aren’t like the girls you see in movies, you’re your own saving grace.

    A month later, as you pull away in the moving truck, you realize that it’s best to leave everything behind. Everything except the memories and the lesson it taught you. You pull away and then –

    Just like that, you stop counting.

  • Creation of a Daydream

    He always had a pack of cinnamon gum and a cigarette behind his ear. His baggy jean jacket sat on his shoulders like it was meant to be there, those beat up converse looked like they could fall apart at any given moment. He walks like he’s confident and shy at the same time, his smile blooms like a flower and his eyes are in a constant state of daydreaming. I often wonder what such a person could be thinking about but it’s not what’s in his daydreams I suppose, it’s what those daydreams will become.

    Poetry is a concept humans created to put words into meaning that sounds beautiful, even if it’s devastating. Poets draw on the emotions of others to suck them into their pages and throw their words at them like knives. The wounds we carry with the pain of the words can be wonderful. The sentiment of reading a poem rests in the minds of the consumers. The thought and the time and the pressure.

    Time is another concept created by humans. Time was created to hold people in a frame and keep them running from the grabbing hands which rotate around the circumference of a plastic prison. Killing time should be a criminal offence. However being lost in time is a gift, being lost in wonderland, a place where everything glows.

    Wonderland can be anything, it’s your place. My wonderland is a place of peace and love. Starry eyed lovers and delicate flowers that sway in the soft breeze. This moment shatters when I blink and remember the reality. The cigarette falls from his ear.

    I drift through the multiverse. I don’t understand the concept of a universe. There is no explanation as to why only one place in time can exist. Every decision that is made, every heart that is broken, every time I make you laugh, every pin that is dropped causes a new world to bloom. How wonderful would it be to have the power to drift between all of these places without effort of imagination. To experience these things with you.

    The jean jacket is hung up on the wooden coat rack and I am laying on the grass alone. I hear his footsteps on pavement thundering in my ears. My eyes open slowly and focus on the leaves of the tree above my head. Ready to fall to the ground as gracefully and the first dewdrop falls from a flower petal after a light shower. The leaves are shaped precisely with points at the ends and edges that appear to have been slightly burned in a bonfire. Curled up along the edges. Oranges, reds, yellows, and browns tangle together to become a mural of fall.

    Cinnamon stings my senses and I turn away from its scent. Shivering, I wander aimlessly down the freezing riverside. The water flows silently under its shelter of ice. I am at peace but war rages around me. Nothing is permanent and everything will fade to nothing. Eventually these thoughts will evade me and I will cough from the cold I am about to catch.

    The beat up converse fall apart completely. My life is not broken. My hair is long now and I’ve coloured it to shine against the sun’s rays and the moon’s glow. My face is faded but I am completely aware of my stance. I am in the middle of a clearing near the entrance of my thoughts. Unable to move I accept the fate before me. I fall but I do not hit the ground.

    The blooming flower that is his smile is now wilted and discoloured. Escaping reality is my favourite pastime. Once you drift away and fall asleep everything that is broke repairs itself. Or at least that’s the illusion I am living in. Please forgive me.

  • Those Smoky Eyes

    Those Smoky Eyes

    Her eyes were dark and smoky. His eyes were dazed and glazed. His senses dulled.
    He couldn’t remember the last time he felt something real, not fabricated within the illusion
    reflected by the clouds of drug induced haze. He knew he had to get out. Get out of this rut
    he called “living”, drenched in booze and drugs, oozing in and out of his system. There was no peace, no serenity to hold him there. All there was for him was chaos, unhappiness—addiction.
    That one word.
    That one word he had heard so much about. He was warned again, and again, but he didn’t listen. He was hooked. It wasn’t even just the drugs; it was everything about the life. He had made some permanent rose coloured glasses with his deep-fried brain. He slept on an old futon mattress on the floor in sheets soaked in sweat, booze, and sex. He lived the life of the delinquent, but felt like a king.
    He needed to get out, but there she was in all her glory. Her skin aglow with the dim lighting from the street light coming through the window. She was truly beautiful. As sailors fell for the sirens and crashed upon the deadly rocks, he fell for her. Her leading him deeper and deeper into her brown eyes, deeper and deeper in to his pit of despair.
    He sat up on the edge of the mattress on the floor. He held his head in his hands. He knew what he had to do. But he didn’t want to go, he knew it was right. It is going hurt. The rustling of the sheets behind him began to move—the girl who he had thought he could love forever. Why did he have to do this again?
    More moving brought him from his thoughts and spurred him into action. He stood up and put on his clothes. He had everything on when she asked him where he was going. “It has been good, but we can’t do this anymore.”
    He couldn’t see her face but he knew what it looked like. The streams of tears caught the only light in the room, fragile crystals that weren’t supposed to be seen. He wished he hadn’t looked.
    “I’m sorry… Peace.”
    It felt like ripping off a huge piece of duct tape stuck on leg hair, but now it was okay. There was a weight that was lifted. His heart was broken and shattered, but it has released his soul to roam free. He left the apartment, into a building of many years of memories. He turned and went down the steps that always smelt a bit off and through the doors onto the stoop.
    He shoved his hands into his pockets to protect them from the crisp morning air. He searched through his pockets: wallet, lighter, phone, joint, earbuds. He took out his earbuds and plugged himself in. It was almost time for the sun to rise. He hit play. As the guitars and drums began to blare into his ear, he began to walk. Leaving the memories behind him. It was cold. He should have worn more the night before. He wasn’t headed home quite yet either. He needed to see the sun rise and he knew exactly where.
    He walked down to the mudflats and walked along a dyke. Farther and farther away from the town in the light darkness of early dawn. He didn’t reach his destination until the sky began to warm up with the beginning rays of sun. It was a rock he had walked out to his first year there. That version of him would have so many questions, he would not be able to answer any of them. He knew he really wouldn’t change anything. You can’t deny who you are, you just have to change it. At least, he knew that now. He was so different, but nothing really had changed. It was funny like that.
    The sun rose slowly above the dark earth illuminating the farm fields with soft pink light. A new dawn, the same old, same old, so he took out the stale joint he had in his pocket, and he lit it.

  • Sun–buzz–rise

    As he stared into her eyes, the silence seemed to creep up onto them. It hung there, sitting with them.

    Buzz. Buzz.

    Her phone. Her parents must have walked into her room where she was supposed to be sleeping. She took it out of her pocket, glancing at the glaring name of her father, pressed end, and placed the device back into her pocket. She returned her gaze upon his.

    “ You should probably go.”

    He saw how her warm green eyes were reaching out. She didn’t want to go. They reminded him of the mother he used to know, though the whites of her eyes were usually pinkish. Her whites were whiter than an undisturbed, fresh snowfall. He wished his eyes could be like hers, so perfect and untouched, but his had started to look like his mother’s more and more often. She was so perfect. The early light of the sunrise finally hit her face, caressing it. She turned her head to face it. The light bounced off of her pale face, illuminating it.

    “ My, isn’t it beautiful. I have never seen anything like it.” She smiled. Her teeth seemed to become opaque white crystals, brightening the sunrise.

    “ Yes it is,” he replied, without even looking into the direction of the rising sun. She turned her head and saw his gaze. The silence of nature was never broken. They spoke through their gaze. They began to lean in.

    Buzz. Buzz.

    Buzz. Buzz.

    She shoved her hand into her pocket and picks up: “ What?”

    “ Where are you young lady?”

    “ I woke up early and went for a walk.”

    “ Why didn’t you leave a note?”

    “ I thought I would be back by the time you guys got up.”

    “ That is no excuse, young lady. You are to come home immediately.”

    “ But dad…”

    “ No buts. We will discuss your punishment when you get home.”

    “ Fine.”

    She stuffed the interrupting device back into her pocket.

    “ I should go.”

    “ You should.

    ” He nodded. With the phrase leaving his mouth, he felt their hearts tear apart. She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

    “ We should do this again.”

    “ Yeah, we should. ”

    She then sped away to race home to parents who would end up giving no punishment, or a minor one at least.

    He sat there in the silence, procrastinating. He did not want to go back to the place people would call home. He did not want to go back to a place where they wouldn’t even care to ask him where he has been. The only thing that might happen is that they ask him if he has any money to satisfy their itch. He did not want to go back to the room he sleeps in, ignoring the problems around him. He did not want to go back to hell.
    All he wanted to do was watch the sun rise high into the clouds. He wanted to watch how the sun lit up the world. He wanted to see the pearly white smile light up his world. He wanted to make this peaceful sanctuary last a bit longer before the brutality of the urban world destroys it. He laid back and let the pinkish rays illuminate and warm his dark cold body. He felt free. He felt happy. He wanted to stay in heaven, but reality had enough of it and tore him down as the rumble of the morning garbage truck barged by.

  • How Can I Know What Love Is

    Love is one of the earliest concepts I remember being introduced to. It was the unbreakable connection between family. You could fight all you wanted and the love stayed strong. I never understood that love; it never seemed as strong as the anger I held as a child. Yet something soothed the anger, shrinking the blinding flames singeing my emotions. I still never felt it outright, but in hindsight that was my love for my family. I still felt wrong about how I loved. It felt weak, simple, and easy to lose. Surely love should feel like more than cheap, thin, one-size-fits-all gloves. Despite wanting to love differently, there were problems at home. The glove still got wet, was lost, or formed holes. My fingers still froze. I wish this paragraph was meant to go somewhere, unfortunately this isn’t the time for that to happen. My discomfort about my lack of love still has a stronger effect than the love itself when it comes to family.

    Fortunately, I have found a love that feels good. It has a warm, calm effect. It is wrapping yourself in a blanket fresh from the dryer. I feel that love for a bird. She knows who she is and she’ll hate me for writing this. It’s often said that writers are mainly motivated by their pursuit of sex. Personally, I would agree with that, but not on this occasion. Today I’m simply writing for marmite. You see, love is absolutely not something I understand. I do, however, embrace it. To be specific, love comes from a friendship through which you often stay up until near the dawn discussing your lives, school, politics, the mundane and everyday, you also share in your adoration of a particular trio of British automotive journalists, police officers who are reflections of the best and worst parts of you both, a small, fictional paper company based in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Most importantly, love is understanding what it can mean for a bird to have a complete and utter disregard for marmite.

  • Untitled

    He was drugs and drugs were him. They were circling through his system as oxygen would. He floated among the clouds as the drugs suffered the day. When the drugs came back home and put their head on the pillow, he came falling from those clouds, crashing against the bed where his body sleeps. The drugs then get up and leave, leaving him alone. He would toss and turn.

    Toss and turn.

    Toss and turn.

    No sleep. He wanted the drugs to come back and rock his aching mind and body back to sleep. He wanted the to come back and distract his mind from those horrifying thoughts and memories that circulated in his head. His mind gave him not one moment of peace.

    6 hours of this.

    No, he could not do it, but he must. He must. He needs a break from drugs, to show himself and others he did not need them, but he loved them so very much. They were the only things who truly understood him. They were the only things who didn’t judge him. They even took over his body when he asked them to allow him to escape the earthly chains of hell.

    Hell. Hell on earth is where he lived. He knew he must get out, but if he left, drugs would be left alone. No one would go talk to them. No one would be friends, then lovers with them as he had become. He could not leave his beloved drugs in this world alone.

    But he needs to get out, leave this world for another. He romanticizes it. It must be a bittersweet end. He imagines tasting a bittersweet taste as he leaves this world. If only he was a dog. They have the life: just lie in the sun all day then play and be fed. Not having a single worry in the world. Or a cat, just get drugs and get pampered. It is okay to be a bitch if you are a cat. You are a cat.

    It must be nice to have someone look out for you. People around stopped caring. All of them. They did not care what he did with himself. They found out he had started going out with Mary Jane, they all stopped talking to him. Leaving him alone. Then he started whoring himself out to Acid and Shrooms and Molly. He had a brief encounter with Chris Dolmeth and Mescaline. He then fell in love with several Hashishes: the Afghan, the Nepalese, and the Moroccan. These were his friends, because all the other ones had left. These were his family, because the others did not give a shit. These were his role models, because no one else seemed to show an interest and look out for him.

    He should leave. Yes, he should. He did not want to be alone though. He called them all up, begging them to come over. After calling and waiting for an hour, they were all there. His friends. His family. Drugs.

    He began to caress and make love to them. Allowing them to enter his body and stay there. He was in his clouds. The drugs had their body. He was drugs and drugs were him.

    He placed the metal cylinder into his mouth. The metal tasted bittersweet. He muttered the incomprehensible words, he did not even understand what he had said, but he knew they understood. He closed his eyes. He let a breath out.

    Bang.

  • A Crash In The Distance

    A Crash In The Distance

    Waves crash against the sand in the distance as I look along the beach in the dim, blue light of nautical twilight. I can taste salt on my skin when I lick my dry lips where I had been biting them during the anxieties of the day. The sand feels like ice between my toes as the warmth of the sun dissipates. My dress brushes lightly against my thighs and to stop the tickling I sit down and sink into the dune. Somewhere a fire burns, adding light to a rapidly darkening scene, but I can’t see it. Knowing it is there however, brings a smile to my lips and I close my eyes to continue listening to the crash of the waves in the distance. When I open my eyes again I find your hand on my shoulder and realize the crash of the waves have climbed further up the beach, and they are not so far in the distance anymore

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