Tag Archives: life
For a moment neither of us spoke. She had taken up smoking, was practiced in exhaling through her nose. It was cool, I admit. She leaned hard on her elbows, took a moment to glare at me, and jammed her cigarette violently into its ashtray. Music from a neighbor’s stereo was stirring somewhere outside.
“It’s a terrible thing, what happened,” she sighed, lighting another cigarette.
I couldn’t disagree, but I said nothing. She had painted her apartment this odd shade of light blue. Through the haze (she had been smoking all night), the walls took on a dinghy, worn look – like a discarded Tiffany’s bag.
“What did you expect,” she said abruptly, pissed that I wasn’t listening. “You left. I had to stay here. I threw out all your shit and painted over your poems. They were good, really good. But they had to go.”
My eyes burned from the smoke, and from fourteen hours of driving. I swallowed the rest of my martini.
“I write fiction now,” I said in a way that I found impressively detached. Then I walked to her desk and unearthed a Sharpie from under a pile of cords, papers, and letters (unopened) from me.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, alcohol, art, cigarette, fiction, flash fiction, heart break, life, love, martini, music, poetry, relationships, Sharpie, Short Fiction, short story, smoking, Tiffany & Co. | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
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
I found the angel dangling from the end of her halo, her limp body suspended by the prettiest cloud in the sky.
She was still alive, I noticed, as I hurriedly untied the knots in her halo.
I collected her wispy body and crinkled halo and vanished into my apartment. I didn’t know what I was going to do with the angel. I wanted to nourish her but I also wanted to eat her. So I placed her on my blue velvet couch and watched her.
She slept the way you sleep after something traumatic happens. Was her trauma her attempted suicide or all that preceded it? I could never know.
The sky darkened because it wanted its angel back. It crackled and groaned, but still she slept, her chest rising and falling slightly in response to some life still stirring inside her.
The rain came and her cloud pounded on my window. “Don’t make me go back there,” she whispered. “I hate it.”
I pressed my vial of antidepressants into her hand. She sat up and forced a smile.
Then she took her halo and smoothed it out before placing it several inches above her head, where it stayed.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, angel, antidepressant, cloud, death, depression, flash fiction, halo, heaven, life, rain, relationships, Short Fiction, short story, spring, suicide | posted in Her, Me, Short Fiction
Ever since K woke up dead, or so he was convinced, he had turned into a bit of a jerk.
That won’t do at all, he said in a huff. That’s how you choose to remember me? He snatched up his eulogy and tossed it in the garbage. I tried to feel sorry for him, because whatever mental affliction he was suffering from seemed to be rather burdensome. Then I began writing a new one.
Help me, he pleaded several weeks ago. I’m dead. I could see the fear in his eyes, and though I didn’t believe him, I was sure that he at least believed he was dead. I made a joke about zombies. But that only irritated him.
As the weeks went by he lost interest in everything that used to be meaningful. The only thing that seemed to jolt him to life–so to speak–was discussing how the life that was now, according to him, over would be remembered.
But the novelty of having a dead friend was eroding quickly.
Are you done yet, he barked? I lunged from my desk and sunk my pen into his neck.
Thank you, he said, as he died a second time.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, death, eulogy, fear, friendship, irritation, life, murder, pen, zombie | posted in Man, Me, Short Fiction
I’m sorry, she said. I can’t help it.
I rolled off of her and looked at her in a soft way, pleading silently for a logical explanation. She looked away. Don’t be mad.
K warned me to stay away. But that only encouraged me. You know how guys are: they think they’re the exception to the rule.
She was nice enough to let me try, but it was obvious that I was too alive.
She spoke calmly, knowing I needed to be told something grand: I went to a party once and my boyfriend at the time told me to meet him in the bathroom. It was completely dark in there when I pushed the door open. I couldn’t find the light switch. I groped around until my hands landed on what I thought was his erect penis. So I got on top, fucked him, and snuck out. Very erotic. I found out later that it was actually a dead man with rigor mortis in all the right places. My boyfriend broke up with me and I haven’t been interested in the living since.
After a moment, I said: I’m going to hang myself in the bathroom.
She only smiled.
Leave a comment | tags: affect, bathroom, death, life, love, party, relationships, rigor-mortis, sex | posted in Her, Man, Me, Woman
I had been hit by a train so went to Q Resort to convalesce for a week. The doctor said the damage wasn’t bad, but had urged me to take time for myself. So I made the journey to Q Resort.
I spent most of my time at Q Resort sitting out on my veranda and staring absently at the world beyond. There were mountains covered in snow. There was a stream, partially frozen. Etc. I reflected on my brush with death.
One day I found a dead cockroach in my room at Q Resort. I didn’t tell the Hispanic maid; I left the cockroach where it died because it seemed peaceful. The Hispanic maid must have found it because two days later it was gone. I was bereft, a little, but made due, and used the experience to reflect further on the nature of living and dying.
Convincing myself that all life culminates majestically in death, I jumped from the edge of my veranda one night.
Because my room at Q Resort was on the second floor, however, I ended up only with a badly sprained ankle. Unable to walk, I extended my stay at Q Resort another week.
Leave a comment | tags: accident, affect, cockroack, death, hotel, life, resort, shiga naoya, train | posted in Me, Short Fiction
