Town Fire

When the fire was finally put out, the townspeople began to walk among the ashes of what used to be their homes, their livelihoods, their belongings. Thankfully, there were no dead bodies among the ruins, but the twisted and scarred beams, the fragments of beloved old furniture and the stray blackened tool or child’s toy seemed almost like the severed limbs of loved ones.

A child ran into a hollow house, crying. His mother had hardly recognized the place as her own dwelling until he’d shouted and run inside. Now she watched in horror, locked in place by fear, as he began to climb the half collapsed staircase that led to the second floor. Her eldest daughter, who had been walking behind, holding the youngest of the family on her hip, thrust the baby at her frozen mother and ran after the child inside.

“Esav! No!” She snatched him up from the third stair and ran out of the house. As she stepped out of what used to be the front door, a loud crack sounded and a beam tumbled down inside, bring down half the second floor with it. Her mother clutched the baby so hard that the tiny thing began to cry, sensing its mother’s desperation.

“Hush, hush there. Hush now.” the mother snapped out of her stupor and patted the baby’s back. Tears ran down her face in a mixture of relief that her boy was safe, shame that she hadn’t done anything and pride that her daughter had.

They continued to walk through the town, looking for a place to shelter, along with everyone else.

The Man in the Park

The duck waddled across the expanse of green grass until it reached the fountain. Its head was a dark and glossy green that shone in the sunlight. As it slid into the water gracefully, it knew itself to be beautiful.

A man dressed in two pairs of pants, three button-down shirts, a windbreaker and an overcoat stared at the duck hungrily. His hair, some might say, looked like a nest. But the man knew that no nest would be as messy, as greasy, as greasy and limp as his hair was. The man knew that nests were works of art.

Watching the duck ruffled its feathers, the man sank to his knees. He hadn’t eaten in two days, but there was a fair amount of cheap wine in his system and he felt dizzy. He wished he’d saved some of the money he’d gotten from begging at subway stops and bought some seeds or oats to feed the ducks with. He knew that bread wasn’t good for them.

He tried to remember the last time that he’d handled a bird, helped to fix its wing or given it its shots. He couldn’t remember quite how he came to be this way, dressed in everything he owned, with only a few keepsakes stuffed into his pockets from a life he didn’t know how to live anymore.

Lying down on the grass, he shut his eyes and tried to catch a nap before the inevitable policeman would tell him to get up and move on.

Family Time

My school has this weird thing called “October Study Days,” two days off which we’re supposed to use to study. Of course, what that actually means is that we get a long weekend in lieu of an official fall break, and we use it to either a) go home for a bit, b) party every night or c) get some work done (and still, most likely, party every night).
Option (a) is out for me because home, which is at the moment where I grew up, is halfway round the world or so. Option (b) is out because I don’t particularly like partying. Option (c) would have been what I would have chosen if I had to stay on campus.
But I’ve concocted option (d) which is this: d) go visit brother in D.C and get the eff off campus for a while.
So I’m going on a mini-vacation, during which I still have a ton of reading and writing to do. But I’ll have some relaxation time as well, which will be lovely and much needed at the moment (as you may have noticed from my all too frequent melancholy posts of late).

How’s fall shaping up for all of you?

Armchair

An old woman sits before the fireplace. She clutches in her hand a photograph of the way she used to look. With the clarity of vision that comes only with old age and disappointment, she realizes that she was beautiful once. At least, she was beautiful outside. She can almost see the writhing black snakes that used to fill up her midriff and her heart, hissing and twining around one another, gloatingly, reveling in their hold on her.

A log crackles inside the fireplace and the old woman away from the photograph. There’s a cat by her feet, one of the several that she keeps around her, to remind herself that she still knows how to love. Not many people will let a gnarled old woman touch them, but cats don’t care how wrinkly she is, as long as she pets them.

She tries to get up, and falls back into her chair. She tries again, and falls again. She begins to weep. The cat by her feet sits up, stretches, and jumps into her lap, giving her an excuse to stay where she is. She wonders if another excuse is what she needs. The tears stop flowing as she gathers her resolve. She nudges the cat gently off of her lap and grips the arms of the chair firmly. She takes a deep breath.

She gets up.

Drip Drop

Drip. There is a computer screen in front of me. Drip. There is a glass window behind it. Drip. There are drops coming down from the roof of the library behind the window. Drip. There is a gravel yard beyond the water. Drip. There is a brick wall beyond the yard. Drip. There is a tree behind the wall.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.
Drop.
The sky is one long unbroken shade of gray, which seems to be fitting for the kind of day it is. My mind is not at peace. My soul is not at peace. My heart is not at peace. Peace is close to the word piece, which makes sense, since they’re all in pieces right now.
Drip. There goes a tear. Drop. There goes another. Drip. The smell of wooden paneling makes me cry. Drop. The thought of thousands of miles makes me cry. Drip. I feel far away. Drop. Everything is pressing too close.
Drip.
Drop.
Drip.

Counting on My Fingers

One,
I count. One is the first.
There isn’t much else to recommend it.
Two.
I count. Two is the best.
But it’s gone and can’t return.
Three.
I count. Three is pure fun.
I think of snow and fur.
Four and Five.
I count. Four and Five both start with F.
They will always be together.
Six.
I count. Six is hard.
It has some of two and some of three in it. Isn’t that beautiful?
Seven.
I count. Lucky number?
Not really.

The Circus

The flyers were posted everywhere. And I mean everywhere. It was ridiculous. There was even one taped over the sink and when I brought my cereal bowl into the kitchen to wash it, I had to rip it off an throw it away. Late that same night, when I took my bowl there again, a flyer was taped there again. It really was ridiculous.

THE CIRCUS IS IN TOWN

That’s all the flyers said. But nobody had heard of any circus. Nobody knew what the flyers were talking about. And, mind you, it really was as if the damn things were speaking, shouting even. The college’s staff was getting annoyed; they thought the students were playing a prank. They held a few meetings, asking us all to quit it, to stop posting flyers where we weren’t supposed to. If anything, the flyers seemed to be even more numerous after those requests.
But I knew something was coming. I knew something was going to happen. I waited, holding my breath, feeling the clouds of destiny gather over the campus. I knew that the circus would reveal itself; the question wasn’t when or even how. It was why.

Paige [Flash Fiction]

Paige Crandall was frequently to be found standing on the docks, her short hair ruffling up a little in the breeze, a cigarette grasped loosely between the finger and thumb of her right hand. Her hair had gone grey early in life; she couldn’t be much older than forty, but with a head of steely bristles. Her clothing was an almost daily uniform of overalls over a white men’s t-shirt. In the winter, she’d wear a thick black coat over that, but it was usually unbuttoned, and the overalls and t-shirt could be seen underneath.

Nobody knew what to make of her. The residents of the dockside neighborhood knew her both by sight and by name, but none could quite recall how or when they’d ever met her, even though she knew all of them perfectly, and on her way home from the docks would often call out to them, asking this one how his wife fared and that one whether her son was coming home from boarding-school soon. She was friendly, you see. Positively charming, in her own way, although her smile was always tired and her eyes were careworn.

She lived in a small apartment above what used to be stables, but, of course, there were no horses there anymore. The stables were converted into a garage, and that was where Paige worked, mending old engines and changing tires. Everyone said she was the best mechanic in town. Some wondered why, in a dockside city like theirs, she mended cars and not boats. She liked the docks so much, they said, so why didn’t she want to work there?

There used to be rumors about her. People said that she took lovers often. They said she was a feminist. Some said she’d had a family once but that they’d been in an accident – whether they drowned or were killed in a car crash was greatly disputed. Someone said that she’d never had a family of her own but had been single for a long time. Nobody knew the truth, and eventually, they grew tired of talking about it. She was so nice, never hurt a fly, that there didn’t seem to be much point in speculating anymore. It would only lead to circular, pointless arguments, and besides, there were more interesting people moving in all the time for the neighborhood bar-frequenters to talk about.

Paige knew that it wouldn’t last, though. Her past was coming, she knew, and it would come from the ocean. When it did, when it caught up with her, the rumors would start flying around again. She only hoped that people would remember her kindness and interest in them when that happened.

All of the Reading

Today has been a reading day. This semester it seems that reading is overtaking writing in my daily activities, and while that’s okay, I’m still glad that I have my post-a-day challenge to keep me writing, as well as my writing class. But today is just one of those strange days where I feel like my eyes have been zooming back and forth continuously, reading one thing or another. One day, I’m going to want to remember the kind of Sundays I had at college, so here is what I read today:

1) David Copperfield while eating my breakfast in my pajamas.

2) The workshop submissions for my writing class. It was my second read, and I had a pen in hand to make notes and marks, but there weren’t many to make on the two stories I read today, since they were excellent.

3) Crime and Punishment, with many post-it notes and a pencil. I’m reading it very closely, for the second time (only read up to page 450 the first time, though, and am reading it again because after conversing with my professor, I decided that it required the kind of reading where I pay attention to little details and make a ton of notes. Which is what I’ve been doing.)

4) David Copperfield again while eating lunch.

5) I was in a writing workshop last year as well, and I’m working for the teacher who presided over that class. He trusts my judgement, which is incredibly flattering, and part of my work for him is reading stories by these two authors he hadn’t heard of till recently and deciding whether any of their stories are good enough to pass on to him and his current (or future) writing class. So I spent an hour reading a couple stories by A. E. Coppard in the one book of his that’s free on Google Books: Adam & Eve & Pinch Me: Tales.

6) Finished reading a play by a guy who was, funnily enough, in the same writing workshop with me last year. I’m going to be directing a reading of this play – an entirely new and foreign experience for me, but one I’m quite looking forward to, especially since the play is beautiful and moving.

Now I’m off to the library to read some more Crime and Punishment.

All of the reading. All. Of. It.

 

Cultivate

Conserve your energy.
You never know when you may need it.
Keep the waters above the red line.
You don’t want to dry yourself out.
Remember to switch the lights off.
You shouldn’t be wasteful.
Your resources are limited, you know.
Do you feel trapped?
Do you feel strained?
That’s okay. Life feels like that,
Sometimes.
Remember, even that which you hate
Must be cultivated and taken care of.
You never know when you’ll need it.