Tag Archives: death
“She was my heroin,” I said gazing into the pond. “I was addicted,” I continued the metaphor, as I continued gazing into the pond. A few ducks nodded in tandem. Most swam away, bored, no doubt, with the same story told by every guy who sits alone on a bench by a pond.
One duck spoke. “Tell me more,” it said, and by the by, we got to know each other. I invited the duck over for dinner. It accepted my invitation, probably out of sympathy.
……
I told K about my unexpected friendship. “What should I serve for dinner,” I asked him.
“Duck,” K replied feigning seriousness. We laughed in that way you laugh about things like cannibalism.
I served pasta instead. The duck was a gracious guest. We ate mostly in silence, each unsure how to proceed. “You know,” the duck finally said, “I thought you invited me over so you could eat me.”
We laughed in the way K and I laughed earlier. “I’m a vegetarian,” I explained. Then I attacked and killed it.
……
I called her for the first time in a long time. “I made you duck,” I whispered to the voice on the other end.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, appetite, cuisine, death, dinner, drugs, duck, food, heroin, murder, pond, relationships, vegetarian, water | posted in Her, Me
K was convinced that she was the one hurting him during the night, that she was the one leaving knives in his body while he slept.
“She’s going to kill me,” he said to a friend once, refusing to elaborate.
She didn’t kill him. But one day she woke to find K dead, his head thoroughly severed from his body and covered in lipstick. She sighed. You men, you have no self control.
K had gone to the Isle of Women again.
He never told her of his dreamscape philandering. But he didn’t need to. Every night he went to the Isle of Women and every night from within her own dreamworld she watched him go.
The police told her he died by his own hand. Which would make since: those marks on his body he attributed to her were also self inflicted. One night she woke to find him pummeling his own face, shouting remorseful things about “the nature of men.” She never brought it up.
So she believed the police. She also kinda believed he killed himself out of guilt. But she also kinda believed he killed himself so he could stay on the Isle of Women forever.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, dream, love, men, relationships, sleep, suicide, women | posted in Her, Him, Man, Woman
We drink wine as the world ends around us.
“And to all the destruction in men,” she says, raising her glass. “And to all the corruption in my head,” I rejoin, touching my glass to hers.
Another explosion. Another scream in the distance. It’s only a matter of time before those screams ostensibly become ours, which is why tonight we drink the good wine, the wine she is supposed to be saving for a special occasion–a promotion, accolade.
As rock falls from the sky I think back to when I first met her.
———-
She had been smoking on her veranda and talking to the night sky. She had been doing it every night for months. Every night I would watch her from the darkness of my own veranda, imagining a conversation with a dead lover or maybe a confrontation with God.
“What are you doing,” I asked once, emerging from the darkness.
“I’m talking to Orion.” She remained focused on the stars. “I’m trying to convince him to take off his belt.”
She started sweet talking him when she was a teenager, she said. And men can only resist for so long.
———-
“I guess you were right,” I say.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, apocalypse, death, God, meteor, Orion, relationships, romance, sky, smoke, space, stars, wine | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
K enjoyed the night shift because it was quiet. You’d think suicidals (as they called them) would be most active at night when you’re alone with your thoughts. You’d be wrong, though. The serious suicidals do it during the day when everyone else is busy.
K enjoyed the nightshift because at 11:45 PM every night a woman would call. The first time she called, she was patched through at random. “Hello, my name is K.” etc.
Every night thereafter, she would ask for K, telling whoever might answer her call that she felt most comfortable talking to K and, do you really want to risk not letting her talk to him?
K anticipated her call even if he was otherwise preoccupied. Her life being at stake and all, he looked forward to talking her down from the ledge every night.
One night, she didn’t call. K should have presumed the worst. Instead, he presumed that she was mad at him or that she didn’t “need” him in that way anymore. He tracked down her phone number and called her, not finding anything ironic.
She answered after one ring, an unfamiliar cheer in her voice. K hung up immediately, his worst fears confirmed.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, emotions, fear, intimacy, phone, suicide | posted in Man, 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 florist was clear: you needed the petals from 450 roses. Just perfect, she thought, for she had always planned on asking for K’s hand approximately 450 days after their first date–thus one rose to commemorate each day spent together. Ever the progressive sort, she forbade K to ask her to marry him: When I’m ready, I’ll ask you, she said 300 days ago.
150 days later, she did just that. At a restaurant way out of her price range. It was romantic, if financially ill-advised. They swiftly made plans to marry and she dutifully began plucking the petals from 450 roses. See, she had this grand idea of spreading the petals over the floor of the catherdral where they would claim ownership of each other; a floral walkway from entrance to alter.
She coaxed her vision to fruition, successfully scattering the petals of 450 roses like the ashes of 450 dead things the morning of their wedding. Then she customarily hid herself away until the appropriate time.
But that time never came because K slipped on her rose petal path and broke his neck in an overdetermined fall.
The florist had said something about that possibility. But she pretended not to hear.
Leave a comment | tags: church, cremation, death, florist, marriage, petals, roses, wedding | posted in Man, Short Fiction, Woman
Fatness doesn’t photograph well. That’s what I told her when she asked to be my muse. She shied from my gaze after that, hiding herself under blankets and layers of clothes. I walked in on her when she was in the bathroom doing something naked in front of the mirror. She screamed at me. That was in the summer.
She fucked somebody while I was away, somebody who liked fat women. I didn’t care. I fucked a skinny woman while I was away. She cared. She screamed at me. That was in the fall.
In the winter she approached me, wanting to be my muse again. Take your clothes off. I hadn’t bothered to look at her in months; her body–barely a body at all now–both horrified and aroused me. Let me get my camera. She fucked somebody again, recently. I cared this time. I hadn’t fucked anybody since the last time I did that, but that wasn’t why I cared.
In the spring she died of starvation. I took one last photo before having her buried.
3 Comments | tags: affect, body image, cheating, death, deception, fat, photo, photography, relationships, romance, seasons, skinny, starvation, thinness | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
