Tag Archives: capitalism
This wasn’t how things were supposed to be.
She was the whore – fallen, despicable.
Yet here she sat, poised on the edge of the bed like an angel, ever the image of one neither fallen nor despicable.
“Are we doing this or not?” Her disdain filled the room. She wrapped her arms around her knees, sighed, looked toward the carpet.
I said nothing, leaned harder against the door.
She was the whore, repository of failure. But the intensity in her eyes compromised her expendability. Had I known then, when I let her into my luxury car, that she was not, in fact, human waste, I would have driven elsewhere, looked elsewhere for whatever it was I was looking for.
I didn’t want to fuck her because of carnal desire. I wanted to fuck her to debase her, to make myself feel better. I was the upright citizen; she was the whore.
I had ruined lives, trashed futures, lost everything.
She was supposed to absorb, affirm my failures, allow me to start anew.
But her body radiated goodness, filled the motel room with oppressive optimism.
“You’ll still have to pay me,” she said, oblivious to the worth I saw in her.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, capitalism, fiction, flash fiction, humanity, money, motel, prostitution, sex, sexuality, Short Fiction, whore | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
“Would anyone like a vanilla latte,” said the woman to a mass of early-evening cafe customers who were only partially listening. “They made two by mistake.”
“I’ll take it.” I met her gaze.
She smiled. “Have a nice day.” She handed me a white paper cup, brushing my fingers as she did so. Then she walked off, her towering boyfriend matching her stride.
I hate vanilla lattes. But having just purchased a new luxury car, my finances weighed heavily on my mind.
I took a seat in a dark corner of the cafe and pressed the paper cup to my lips. Her name was written on the side of the cup. In that instant, I felt an intimate, indeed too intimate, connection to this generous stranger.
I sat for hours with my vanilla latte, refused to drink it. Even after the last customers trickled out the door, I remained in my wooden chair cradling my latte like an injured animal and staring at the empty space across my table.
“Excuse me.”
Her languid voice roused me. I smiled.
“I’m glad you’re still here.”
I smiled again. “I’m glad you came back.”
She settled into the vacant chair across from me.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, capitalism, coffe, fiction, flash fiction, latte, love, relationships, romance, Short Fiction, short story, stranger, women | posted in Her, Me, Woman
K sold the ring his fiancee had given him. Some guy in the parking lot of a sandwich shop gave him $400, claiming that it was identical to the one he lost, a gift from his own fiancee.
K spent the first $100 at a strip club, folding his stack of dollars into paper airplanes and cascading them into the air, like a little squadron of warplanes, toward the pretty but malnourished stripper.
K spent the remaining $300 on a fat prostitute. He had no desire to sleep with the fat prostitute. Instead, he wanted to ride her, like she was a horse.
K used to be a skilled equestrian and won many awards. K fell in love with a pretty lady, also an equestrian, skilled. They were to marry, but things fell apart; K never rode again. K moved away and decorated his meager apartment with his awards. The urge to ride was strong, but he refused to return to horses.
K demanded the fat prostitute remove her clothes. Then he climbed atop her. He rode her vociferously, until they both collapsed into a heap of flesh.
K slept heavily. When he woke, the prostitute was gone, and so were his awards.
Leave a comment | tags: addiction, affect, awards, body, capitalism, fat, fiction, flash fiction, horses, love, marriage, money, relationships, romance, sex, Short Fiction, short story, women | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction, Woman
She sent herself to me, in a box wrapped with celebratory wrapping paper. By the time she arrived on my doorstep, a day late, the wrapping paper was badly tattered and you could see that the box she stuffed herself into was a shoe box that had contained men’s shoes, size 8.
She had a bow in her hair that was, in spite of the rough journey, relatively still in tact. Probably at one point positioned just so atop her head – like a halo – the bow barely clung to her forelocks.
She smiled at me when I opened the box and something unintelligible leaked from her badly distressed lips.
“That’s from stress you know,” I said, falling immediately back into my long neglected role.
“Fuck off,” she whispered playfully. Her makeup was smeared against the insides of the box and missing from her face almost entirely.
I picked her up from the box and kissed her, bristling against her dry lips.
Then I frowned, peered into the empty box. “Where’s the rest of you?”
It was her turn to frown. “It’s not important.”
I tucked her under my arm and marched inside. “I wish you would have told me you were coming,” I said. “I would have tidied up.”
“Happy birthday,” she said, changing the subject. She uncoiled her tongue to offer me a shiny tungsten ring. It was the one I wanted.
“How long are you staying?”
“Until I bleed to death.”
Then she sunk her teeth into her tongue.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, body, capitalism, death, fiction, flash fiction, love, marriage, pain, relationships, romance, shoes, Short Fiction, short story | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
At the end of the famed Savile Row there’s a small men’s clothier called K’s. Although it claims to specialize in men’s bespoke clothing (as every men’s clothier on the famed Savile Row does), those in the know know K’s true specialization to be things made of silk. They know, too, of the proprietor’s prominent role in the black-market silkworm trade. But they don’t care. People much more important than you visit K’s from far away places.
K used to have an apprentice: a former leftist intellectual who turned his back on a career in “the academy” because of a profound distaste for its increasing corporatization and residual and unwarranted snobbiness. And because he was totally into fashion. Rumors suggest that K’s apprentice fell in love with a woman who worked someplace nearby, a former cocaine addict who was not very pretty but nevertheless attractive for indiscernible reasons.
Some say K was jealous of the couple. They also say that he fed them to his silkworms and that he subsequently offered an exclusive collection of extra fine silk handkerchiefs called “LoveLost.” An edgy enough name for a collection of handkerchiefs, but they weren’t worth what they cost.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, capitalism, fashion, handkerchief, intellectual, love, Savile Row, silk, silkworm | posted in Man, Short Fiction
“You got your renewal in the mail,” she called in a flat voice from the foyer. She was uncomfortable. She handed me the envelope. Renewal time already, I asked myself, it seems like I just renewed.
I wasn’t going to open it; maybe after dinner. But until I did, I knew things would be tense. I opened it. She frowned.
Dear K:
Thank you for your continued patronage. (. . .)
You have six months remaining on your current contract. We therefore ask that you start thinking about renewing your girlfriend. As always, we have a variety of payment plans and togetherness options to suit your needs. Please feel free to renew online by logging in. . .
I went to my computer. I wanted to keep her, at least a little longer. I mean, she wasn’t getting fat, she liked my jokes, and she wore high heels around the house. But I had been using my credit card a lot lately–most recently for a pair of Valentino stilettos that matched the tile in the kitchen–indeed too much.
As feared, my credit card was declined.
“Cheapskate,” she growled as she marched out the door, the echo of Valentino stilettos piercing the night air.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, capitalism, credit card, love, money, relationships, shoes, stiletto, Valentino | posted in Her, Me
The clerk leaned across his counter and whispered: “Did you know that if you send the US Treasury a $2 bill, they’ll send you back $2.15?” He went on to whisper related information, but I stopped paying attention.
……….
When I was a kid my father stockpiled $2 bills in the basement of our house, sure that one day $2 bills would be the only viable currency. After he disappeared, I took his cache of $2 bills and folded things out of them.
I folded boyhood things: submarines, rocket ships, best friends. After boyhood, I folded my father’s $2 bills into weapons and electric guitars. Most recently I folded a woman and fell in love with her.
I promised to provide for my origami woman. She dismissed my masculine posturing, however, and asked only that I never unfold her, echoing a promise I had already made to myself.
………
I unfolded her that night, the clerk’s whispers of “profit” ringing in my ears. But not before taking her out to an extravagant dinner–like, candlelight and oysters flown in from faraway. It was out of my price range, but, envisioning the money I would get for my origami woman, I wasn’t too concerned.
I ordered us another round of martinis.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, candlelight, capitalism, family, martini, money, origami, oysters, relationships, shopping | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction, Woman
I didn’t have much money–in fact, but a lowly cog in the T education system, I still don’t. So after my parents were cremated I kept their ashes at my local temple; temples allow you to “temporarily” stash remains there if you can’t afford a decent(ish) burial plot. See, when death happens, it is customary to offer proper closure. Which seems to require an expensive whole in the ground.
I didn’t really need closure–it’s such a subjective concept, besides. But, you know, closure is what’ done. So whatever; I stashed my parents in the corner of my aforementioned local temple until I had enough money for closure.
But my particular profession promises no riches–in contrast to, say, selling drugs or sex–so I had to find other means.
I called K.
“Kill these people.” He named three people. “I’ll give you X dollars and you’ll be able to put your parents to rest.”
So I did. And I was handsomely compensated, thus. But on my way to get my parents I passed in front of a particular department store that sells things I like.
Three hours later I phoned K again. He seemed to understand. Then he named two more names.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, buddhism, burial, capitalism, class, death, money, temple | posted in Me, Short Fiction
The clerk scrawled something on my receipt before stuffing it in its pretty envelope and handing it to me: her phone number. Call me. She made the shape of that with her mouth before guiding me to the door in that way that clerks do at snobby retail joints.
……….
Hello? You could tell she wasn’t used to talking on the phone.
Hi. This is K. From earlier today. You gave me your number.
I let her lead the conversation since this was her doing. She asked who the scarf was for. I told her. She asked how long we had been together. I told her that too. She asked if I loved her. I told her yes very much.
Then she told me about the flood. The poor are liquifying, she said. We don’t have much time.
She told me about the tallest building in the city. All the exclusive retailers are moving to the top floor so our most special clientele can continue shopping. The poor won’t rise that high. She was confident. We appreciate your business and look forward to your continued patronage. She hung up.
How thoughtful, I thought. But I don’t know how to swim.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, capitalism, class, flood, luxury, poor, relationships, shopping | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
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
American Express wants everybody to know if you’re rich or poor. Depending on your income it will offer you credit cards in a variety of colors. At the top is American Express Purple maybe. At the bottom is a transparent–like your socioeconomic worth–card, which they call Blue.
The clerk, a foreigner, was oblivious to the implications of K’s transparent card. He had gotten to know her over the past long time as he frequented her fancy store to A) have the things he wanted and have them now and B) impress this clerk (who looked kinda like Anna Torv, upon whom K had a mild crush not because she’s attractive (because she isn’t) but because she is interesting looking) with his false purchasing power.
This would look amazing on you. She offered K some fashionable monstrosity that in its very monstrousness made it somehow less monster-like. Unable to say no to women, K put it on. Let me zip it up for you she said and dropped to her knees.
K saw the prostitutiveness in the gesture and grew curious: What if I were to buy something really expensive he opined. But he soon frowned. Impossible. His American Express was transparent.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, american express, Anna Torv, capitalism, credit card, debt, money, shopping, transparency | posted in Her, Him, Short Fiction
