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INDEED . . . NOW WHAT?
Taking a deep breath, K momentarily reflected on his airline tenure. K recalled looking ever so handsome and dapper in his immaculately tailored uniform, and cap, with all eyes (primarily that of equally gorgeous and narcissistic women), glued to his every whim. K loved the constant admiration!
But why was K reminiscing about the airlines at the moment such as this? Lest he forgets, K was experiencing autoscopy and was in a desperate state!
Gathering himself, K observed his beautiful artistically tattooed, symmetric, and chiseled naked body lying limp and lifeless on the luxurious massage table (minus the masseuse.) with great pride and a twinge of sadness.
Body and K had been through so much together. Was it over now?
“Don’t worry, dear body.” thought K. I’m simply going to practice what I learned during airline training.
K had learned to remain calm and assess the situation.
YES, that’s it!
For now, K would REMAIN CALM AND ASSESS THE SITUATION!
1 Comment | tags: affect | posted in Uncategorized
Known for being pragmatic, calm, cool, and collected, K was jolted to the depths of his soul with a fear he’d never experienced!
K screamed, “Oh my God!” in a desperate tone that surprised even himself. “What’s happening?!” . . .he didn’t know.
Ever so briefly and with a sheepish smile, K surmised that whatever was happening must be in part to the craziness of the previous night’s wild escapade, if not directly, contributing to what was happening to him now.
Regardless, now was not the time for mindless internal distractions!
Something WAS happening.
Suddenly, K noticed that he was in complete silence while his surroundings were spinning, spinning, spinning. Then, shaking his head franticly, K demanded, “STOP the SPINNING!”
Now it dawned on K. . . he seemed to be observing himself from an autoscopic perspective.
Damn it, now what?
1 Comment | tags: affect, body, flash fiction, short story | posted in Uncategorized
Still not used to her new glasses, she reached behind the lenses and rubbed an eye. “Why did you make me get these?” she asked. “I can see fine.”
She kept the windows open even in the winter, and a sharp frozen breeze blew in. I retrieved her favorite cashmere throw and draped it over her shoulders. “Thanks,” she said with surprising sweetness. She extended her hand as I walked back to the kitchen, grazing my arm. It was the first time in three weeks she had touched me.
I asked her how many eggs she wanted and she said two.
Her touch, though faint, stayed on my skin. As chilly as it was inside, I felt myself growing warm and the kitchen seemed stuffy. An eerie quiet settled in and I could hear her measured breath.
“Are you okay, K?” she asked from the kitchen table where she was reading a fashion magazine.
Without warning, I toppled to the floor. I heard her scream with an unfamiliar urgency as she rushed to my side. Her hair was messy and the lenses of her new glasses were fogged up. I closed my eyes, stung by the life in her breath.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, cold, death, December, eggs, fashion, fiction, flash fiction, glasses, love, magazine, reading, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, winter, women | posted in Me, Uncategorized
“Sorry,” she said, lunging at her eye which was lodged between the floor and the heel of my left shoe. “I can’t get it to stay in.”
The casualness with which she spoke of her abnormality offended me. She glanced at me with her one good eye, looked away in feigned innocence.
I retrieved her eye, offered it to her from my open palm. I figured she rolled her eye in my direction on purpose. She figured, I figured, that since I’m a retard she could become my retard friend, sister in arms.
“How did that happen,”she asked. Everybody else pretended not to notice. But she spoke with the confidence of a retarded Other, identified some sort of twisted commonality between us.
I looked her up and down, decided I would try to fuck her. I answered. “You did this.” I traced the hole in my chest, pointed to where my heart used to be.
She stared at me with her one good eye, the other eye now in her hand. “No I didn’t.”
I responded with a sigh: “Then who did?”
She shrugged, answered, “You did,” offered me the knife I gave her for her birthday, stained red now.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, birthday, eye, fiction, flash fiction, handicap, knife, love, murder, relationship, relationships, retard, Short Fiction, short story | posted in Her, Me, Uncategorized
I make a cocktail every night, stir it with the long helixed spoon she gave me the night she killed herself.
It was a birthday present, I think, the spoon. Or maybe her suicide. She jumped from our veranda at 8 pm central time. So at 8 pm central time I always make a cocktail, toast her, toast the life we used to have.
I cue up Interpol first, good Interpol, not their recent shit, and irritate my upstairs neighbor. Then I mix my cocktail – often vodka because she loved vodka, but sometimes something jingoistic because she hated jingoism.
Then I sit in the dark and drink. I cry, too, in the dark, let the good memories carry me away for a while. I think about how we used to listen to Interpol in the dark, went so far as to get matching Interpol lyrics tattooed on our bodies some snowy night some November.
We sat next to each other, grimaced in unison as our bodies accepted their tattoos. We healed our tattoos together, put expensive lotion on our tattoos, defended our tattoos from cynics who questioned our devotion.
To Interpol?
To each other?
It’s hard to say.
I make another drink.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, cocktail, death, drink, fiction, flash fiction, Interpol, life, love, mixology, music, neighbor, present, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, spoon, suicide, tattoo, tattoos | posted in Uncategorized
“Anything at any price,” read the inside of the card, which featured a cat sleeping in a martini glass.
The attending package – displaying no return address – contained a cylindrical fish tank, complex instructions, and laudatory remarks:
Congratulations! Your new jellyfish will arrive tomorrow. Make sure your tank is calibrated to the appropriate temperature. Jellyfish are temperamental creatures, so handle your new friend with care!
I assembled the tank, placed it on my dining room table. I filled it with water and spent my evening hours envisioning various scenarios occurring within its narrow walls. In my mind, I saw her treading water, face creased with deceit, anger, and hatred. I saw her puff her cheeks up before descending toward the bottom of the tank for no reason in particular. I saw her begin to convulse and spasm, unable to ascend to the surface. I saw myself jump into the tank to retrieve her from the bottom.
The creature arrived the next day. It was dead already. I placed it in the tank and watched its tentacles gently keep it afloat. Then, thinking I could revive it, I jumped into the tank and pressed my lips to the top of its hood.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, fiction, flash fiction, jelly fish, love, martini, pain, relationships, romance, Short Fiction, short story, suicide, tank, water, women | posted in Her, Me, Uncategorized
We hadn’t seen each other since college. Our friendship ended abruptly because we were in love with the same woman. He wanted to fight over her. I politely declined and wished him well.
I wasn’t surprised when he told me of their breakup. Everybody knew that this particular woman had been adamant about remaining a virgin until marriage.
“You lucked out, K,” he said with a mouthful of vodka. “She never caved.”
The way he described their sexless courtship – hours of cuddling and making out – was rather charming.
His eyes lit up. “I saw her last week. She called and told me that she’s married now. Then she invited me over. Before we broke up, she promised to have sex with me once she was married – even if she wasn’t married to me. I guess she was serious.”
“Did you?”
“Of course.”
“And her husband?”
“She told me that you’re her husband and that you’ll probably kill me. She said you’ll have a sharp knife with you.”
I put the knife on the table and shrugged. “I’m not going to kill you with this.” I nodded toward his empty martini glass and watched his throat tighten. “Thanks for the drink.”
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, bar, body, death, flash fiction, love, marriage, martini, murder, relationships, romance, sex, Short Fiction, short story, virgin, virginity, vodka | posted in Her, Him, Me, Short Fiction, Uncategorized
K started smoking, apparently, though given the way he coughed and convulsed after each drag, his starting was not, also apparently, that long ago.
“Put her crab rangoon on my bill,” he told the waiter, stubbing out his cigarette just the way he practiced at home. The girl should have sat somewhere else while she waited for her takeout. But it was too late for all that.
“Thanks,” she said, awkwardly.
“Do you smoke,” he asked, flashing his pack of cigarettes like a P.I. flashing his badge.
“I don’t.” She was going to be mean. But he did, after all, buy her crab rangoon. “You don’t really see too many people who smoke,” she offered, feeling bad about the crab rangoon.
He was going to tell her that when he smokes, the fumes become people he used to care about, and that, in smoking, he was trying to re-establish bonds long severed. The first time he took a drag, the air around him took on the form of that girl he liked in 5th grade who died in a car accident.
He had sadness in his eyes.
“Wanna take me home?” she asked, feeling bad, still, about the crab rangoon.
Leave a comment | tags: accident, affect, bar, car, Chinese food, crab rangoon, death, eyes, relationships, sadness, sex, smoke, smoking | posted in Uncategorized
This is a/the brief story of K’s brief love affair with an expensive watch.
K bought a watch once that was way too expensive. But he just had to have it.
He took very good care of it. But one day he was careless and scratched it. Maybe he hit it on something or something. K was upset for a long time over that scratch. But scratches are like this: the first one is always awful but they get easier with time. They become a record of occurrences–a temporal journey or some such.
So eventually he would scratch the shit out of it doing something impractical and end up caring all the more for his watch. And when it would break down, he would rush to get it fixed (it’s expensive to fix an expensive watch). Because that’s love.
But one day his watch betrayed him. When he wasn’t looking it vanished. (Yes, just like that.) He was sad and didn’t understand.
So he shrugged his shoulders and went to the mall to buy a new one. That’s when he realized that his watch must have also stolen his wallet.
How would he ever tell time again?
1 Comment | tags: affect, capitalism, consumerism, scratch, thief, time piece, watch | posted in Uncategorized
