The first thing you noticed about Edie was her bottom. Seen from the front, her bottom curved up and spread out a full ½ foot on either side of her body. Squat, toppled together and cinched by a tiny waist, she made the most of custom jeans and form fitting shirts. If she tried longer tops they would camp out on her bottom. Dresses were only minimally more successful as her legs were stubby so dresses retreated to her waist. She had learned to cope with her body. Her mind was another matter.
Her voice rustles in my ears so pleasant… My head rests on the softest belly in the world… Her wet skin is like a piece of silk made only for me… My lips…
“Shut up your drooling and snoring mouth once for all!“ My pillow somehow screamed at me and woke me up from a sweetest dream. It was right down on my face, like a white cloud of death, trying hard to suffocate me. So, I must keep telling bedtime tales again and again, just to put that fat bag of feathers back to sleep and keep myself alive. He was sitting in the recliner reading the paper when she approached from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dishtowel.
She said, “You swear a lot.” Without looking at her, he said, “I know.” “Why do you do that?” “I don’t know.” “You don’t let the kids do that.” “That’s because they’re little kids, and I’m not.” “What kind of lesson is that?” “An important lesson. I’m teaching them that adults are not always infallible.” She turned and walked away, muttering under her breath something about a new truck. He thought, “That’s funny, I don’t have a new truck.” The graveyard was deserted, as it should be at midnight. Frost nibbled at my toes, the air cloudy with my breath as I located the fresh plot. Hours ago they had gathered. People that loved him, people that knew him, people that were sad to see the back of him. I was not one of them. Scribbled on a simple cross was his name. Reading it filled me with fear. I had prayed for this moment. The soil shifted a little under my feet, as if I was in danger of joining him, but it held. I danced until dawn.
They stood hunched over, huddled in a semi-circle. Undistracted by street traffic. Or the gaze of distant spectators.
Mary noted a plethora of voices, but couldn’t pinpoint what the attendees were observing. As the group gradually dispersed, a lone figure remained. Overlooking the body sprawled over cement. Repeatedly tugging at its lifeless limbs. Decidedly letting go. Hit and run? Car? Bicycle? No witnesses stepped forward to report. An ominous stranger arrived, scaring away the last mourner. One magpie was unceremoniously scooped up, dumped into a receptacle. Sidewalk cleaned, as if nothing had happened. Mary closed her living room blinds. I waited for the airport shuttle in a rainstorm, got stuck in traffic, finally arrived, and stood in line for an hour before being x-rayed. My flight was delayed and ultimately cancelled. I spent the night not sleeping in a plastic chair. The next morning I left on a bumpy six-hour flight and arrived totally wasted. But my time was well spent—reading, meditating, writing.
I’m lying. I went crazy, berserk. I ranted, cursed, threatened to sue, and made life miserable for everyone within earshot. Only in my dreams am I enlightened or the least bit patient with commercial flying. You wrote poems that spoke to us. Your thoughts seemed to burst, ignite on the page, inspiring others like all the colors that flow inside a massive painting or the depth of a line in an endless song. Teaching was a passion. You taught young minds another language, opening up secret doors to far away places and cultures.
You were the soft light, twinkling, twinkling until everything around you faded for his hands were on your neck until you couldn’t breathe.Your husband buried you off a beaten path near a small pond so the birds might come, and the wildflowers would grow. Later, winter set in. The air was cold, icy, and those crows, all of God’s creatures, screeched in the flat, grey sky as the winds howled through the tall pines. Still, when spring arrived, wild pink sprouted, marigold, and the coneflowers, all of it, did bloom for YOU. My mother always said to “Keep yer grubby little hands out of me cookie jar!” I thought she was just trying to keep all of the cookies to herself, I was wrong. I was about 11 when I discovered this for myself. Like all small children, I wanted cookies. I waited in silence ‘til my mother looked away, snuck into the kitchen and put my hand into the jar… and then I screamed. It turns out it wasn't a jar at all, t’was a mimic! The moral of the story? Listen to your mother and maybe you’ll keep your fingers.
When I came out of Walmart, Ron Morgan was waiting for me.
"I'm gonna whip your butt this time, Farley!" I tried to go around him, but he stepped in front of me and threw a wild punch. I ducked and hit him with all my strength in the stomach. He doubled up on the ground and lay moaning. "Next time," he said, trying to get up. I walked past him to my car. "Anytime," I said, hoping he'd learned his lesson. Then I went back and offered him my hand, but he just glared at me, as though victorious. Lunch at a small roadside restaurant just outside the city. Our waiter who looks strikingly like the Eurocentric Jesus pictured in the Baltimore Catechism back when I was a believer, approaches our table with a basket of bread and a stoneware pitcher.
He places the bread on the table and then asks: “Water, Gentlemen?” “Please,” my companion says, licking parched lips as the waiter pours the inviting clear liquid into his glass. “And you, sir?” “Make mine wine,” I quip. He tilts the pitcher over my glass and miraculously fills it nearly to the brim with the deep garnet liquid. Latte foam catches on the stranger’s mustache as his skeptical eyes watch her fingers race across the keyboard.
“You working? Ain’t that child labor?” he winks. The flaking skin around his eyes crinkles. She would like to ignore him, but that’s not how the world works when you’re an 18-year-old kid trying to write at Starbucks between shifts. “It’s an autobiography,” she sighs as she watches the foam melt like clean snow falling on the road slush that spatters out behind a snowplow. Focus. She needs to write one more page before picking up the baby from her mama. Diane sighed. Her job had been stressful recently, and she was having issues in her relationship. Altogether, life was overwhelming.
She gazed outside at the gray sky, with the threat of snow coming. Just what she needed ... lousy weather on top of her current situation. But then the sky cleared up, and the sun shined brightly through the clouds. Diane smiled at this ray of hope. Amazing what a little sunshine can do to brighten one’s day and makes things seem more tolerable. Newly motivated, Diane returned to her to-do list. She could, and would, do this. Onward as always. The vaccine roll-out did not go as well as planned. There were not nearly enough vaccines to go around and everyone was becoming desperate. Millions of people began crashing websites, mobbing vaccination centers and scrolling endlessly to find an open spot.
When the Center for Disease Control announced that smokers would get high priority for the vaccine, people became furious. How could the government prioritize smokers over folks who worked hard to maintain their health? When registration opened up for the new vaccination center in town, all forty-thousand residents registered themselves as smokers. There was a pack in every pocket. Dah and family stepped from the portal onto golden sand. Discarding winter skins, they stretched slender limbs, raised fine features on narrow faces to the glowing ball of hot gas. ‘Here we are again,’ Dah barked. Mah and the children were dipping and diving in the sea, snapping at curious flying creatures. Dah looked around. Nothing had changed. ‘Come.’ His family trotted up the beach. Started digging. For a few sunsets their annual holiday home would be a sandy cave. Sea and air would nourish, strengthen their bodies, preparing them for the hardships at home. A world entering endless winter.
A wannabe galactic songwriter with a distinctive clunky rhythm gets a cosmic version of a Queen song down:
Flash, a-ah. Saviour of the Universe. What, Flash Gordon Lawrie (as in Lorry), approaches? He reads stories individually, his brows furrow quizzically. Flash a-ah, he’s a miracle. Newsflash: Flash Gordon promotes three contests, a memorial tribute, and pounds of cash. Flash, a-ah. He opens fire on multiple personae, and pandemic stress. Flash, we love you, but we only have seven days to save the earth. He’ll save every one of us. Flash Gordon’s lips betray a smile as FFF brings interstellar peace. Everything has changed. Now is more changing, even challenging.
The virus is mutated, the spreading is wider and the victims are increased; the tears won’t stop. The activities are supervised, stores are closed earlier, the curfew is affirmed due to the aggressiveness of the now-multi-faces-virus. I, you, he, she, they, we, as human beings, are the survivors, aren’t we? If we can read this until the final full stop, we are. I inhaled and exhaled the thankfulness, peace of mind, and hope. I listened to my heartbeat, my conscious, and my dreams. I prayed to God and trusted Him… everything. ‘You’ve inspired lots of my recent Friday Flash Fiction stories,’ she told him. ‘They’ve all been published on the site and I’ve had lots of positive comments.’
He preened, grinned smugly and squared his shoulders. ‘What is it about me that inspires you?’ he asked. ‘My words? Actions? My good looks? Or is it my sex appeal?’ ‘I think it’s the whole package, the whole you. There’s hardly a day when you don’t do something to inspire a new story.’ ‘Wow! So what sort of stories have you been writing? Romance? Erotica?’ She shook her head. ‘No. Murder.’ ‘Billy went off to war today. He looked splendid in his naval uniform…’
‘German bombers flew overhead. You could hear the bombs being released and the sound as they fell…’ ‘Billy’s ship torpedoed last night. Some survivors but no news yet…’ ‘Billy made it, though badly burned but he’s coming home. Maisy’s hubby wasn’t so lucky…’ ‘When’s it going to end? Five years this war’s been going on. At least Billy’s scars are healing...’ Going stir-crazy during lockdown, I read extracts from my grandmother’s diaries. We’ve no bombs, no war, only a year in, and the end’s in sight. Perspective. There they were, her rose colored glasses, in a box of mementos from a long ago past. The Summer of Love, 1968, granny glasses were all the rage, and Elyse naturally took part in that fad. She was wearing them when she first set eyes upon Jon...he looked fantastic then and he's even better looking now.
The seasons came and went melding into a multitude of decades. Those glasses were a relic representing a passing of time and a testimony of their infinite love. For Jon and Elyse, what was will always be, with or without rose colored glasses. It was a casual invitation but Lisa felt like making a special effort. She put on her outfit: grey dress pants, lavender cashmere sweater, pearl earrings.
"Not too shabby," she complimented herself. Her children were impressed. Six other moms came with their children to the gab fest with finger foods. Lisa smugly surveyed the other moms: yoga pants, baggy tops, hair roots showing. Suddenly a friend's son tugged on Lisa's arm. "Come." Intrigued, she followed him. Soon she had worked her magic. The boy grinned enthusiastically at her and exclaimed, "I knew you could unblock the toilet." Editor's warning: readers of a nervous disposition should look away now. The mice were furious. They raised banners, and sounded trumpets. Captain Brian Squeak applied his whisker wax.
Brandishing forks and blazing matches they swarmed the village. Brave Musculus, arguably the ugliest mouse, in front, fancy mice to the rear, preening tails and sporting doilies for hats. “Go from mouse to mouse! Regain our rightful property!” Catherine the Grater, commanded, eyes ablaze. They climbed every brick, branch and baby. Then, as dawn broke, success! Under a Brie Larson teatowel; the whole wheel of cheese. Sister Agatha Fluff had never seen anything so perfect in its circumference. Overwhelmed, she whispered, “Cheesus.” He had given it to her on a day full of promises, but Penny had lost it. She wasn't sure when.
Once before she thought it had gone, but a search had found it glimmering in a dark place.Tarnished and dull, she had brought it back to life with some care and attention. Not this time. Penny, still carrying a touch searched with passion, but there was not even a glimmer, no answering spark. She took the gold band and placed it on the counter. She had lost his love, it was time to lose the ring. There I was at my nice Irish-Catholic wedding, laughing one minute and crying the next. Then I remembered that in Afghanistan, a bride must look neither happy nor sad: happy would hurt her mother; sad would hurt her mother-in-law. My mother was busy trying not to cry, but my sister Noreen, my Maid (hah!) of Honour (hah!), was grinning away. She was still smiling when she came over and laughed right in my face. Said I was a damned fool. By Christmas, the bridegroom had run off with Noreen, and I still didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.
Pa was sitting on a stump atop Jensen Hill. "What's wrong?"
"I wasn't lonely when I was a young man, but when I married your ma I knew the loneliest 40 years of my life. Since she passed, I ain't been lonely at all. Do you think God will send me to Hell?" My pa had carried hellish guilt most of his life. I touched him on the shoulder. "We're all different, Pa. All you did was be who you really are." I turned and left Pa to his thoughts. Later, he gave me a half-smile at the supper table. Dalinda shuffles on four stumpy legs from her lair to the water’s edge. Batlike wings attach to a muscular body that is a kaleidoscope of magnificent colors. Slitted yellow eyes peer out at the world between long black eyelashes. An elegant tail covered in scales sweeps the ground as she walks. Suddenly a guttural cry escapes her throat. Her pupils dilate as he enters her peripheral vision. When she grins, several teeth poke out the sides of her mouth. It is love at first sight. As the saying goes, ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder.’
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"Classic"
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