I've been pushing myself the past few weeks to write something new every day, no matter how short it ends up being. What I've ended up with is a small collection of super short stories. I thought I would share some of them with you. It might be a much needed break during finals week.
Thaw
I would say that I knew him but it was more accurate to say that I knew of him. You never really knew people like that in this circle. Only the people he shared the house with spoke at full volume. For everyone else, it was muted "how's it going"'s and indecisive head nodding. It wasn't a holier-than-thou attitude but it was hard to refute that here in a forsaken church-turned punk house, with Christmas lights blinking, that there wasn't some air of spirit. The horse figurines were his own touch and it added a certain earthliness to his demeanor. How funny it is to never speak yet know someone's words as they're repeated back to you in time.
We left early after I offered a mostly untouched beer to someone I didn't know I was on a first name basis with. It tasted more like metal than it usually did anyways, as if the girls decked out in glow sticks at the bar could offer each can for the low low price of $1.00 because they knew it only got worse from there.
Dinner was leftover lasagna from Thanksgiving and tap water sipped from coffee cups at the kitchen table and after stripping down several layers of neutral gray clothing, the uniform I had adopted for that Fall, in exchange for flannel pajama pants, I could feel my bones settling into normality again like ice cubes melting alone under a humming refrigerator.
Next To Godliness
At a certain point she realized that if she was going to give up at the end of each day, she might as well make it efficient. She would pick the center of the room and strip down in routine. Ring, necklace, sweater, t shirt, jeans, socks, bra. She would pull on an old flannel of questionable origins and a pair of work out pants that had probably never seen consistent exercise since high school gym class. These days it was limited to the long walks she took to try and stop thinking so much. Tonight saw the last of the sleep aids. One of many lasts as of late- the last dollar bill on cheap beer instead of two thirds of a load of laundry, the last of the allergy medication, the last ounce of energy to get any assignment in on time. She just wanted to sleep. And sleep she would.
Rabbit Rabbit
My eighth grade home room teacher leaned over her desk, stacks of ungraded papers piled around her. She called the paper bin the waste basket because trash was a women of questionable morals. She looked at me.
"You know, it's supposed to be good luck if the first words you speak of each new month are 'rabbit rabbit'."
I woke up at five and at ten thirty, I whispered 'rabbit rabbit' under my breath in a crowded subway car. It wasn't cheating. It was snowing and I was saving my breath.
56 to Washington
The Desser building had been turned into a Wash Express and then it seems, promptly abandoned. Maybe there wasn't such a need for speedy car washes in this town as everyone originally thought or maybe it's placement between two inconspicuous bars had killed it from the start. Those two objectives were just not on the same to-do list.
Guts
I think my back is breaking.
And maybe here, in this old bed with the gray sheets that have all of those threads coming loose, my guts will spill out along with cobwebs and silvery stars.
I'll probably get some on your favorite sweater and I'm sorry if I do. I'll try to reassemble my spine, vertebrae by vertebrae and find my slippers under the bed so I can crawl to the washing machine and dunk your sweater and a pair of wool socks in mountain fresh scent and lukewarm water because you don't put wool in hot water I think. After it's over, the stars may just be star dust but you'll never be able to shake it all off. Three years from now, you'll find some stuck to your eyelashes as you wash your face before going to sleep. And you'll scrub a little harder.
Scene in a Bar
The two of them sat at a high top table, overshadowed by a pillar that was decidedly more structural than decorative. It was too cold to sit near near a window by now, they had told the hostess. She shrugged. There weren't any window seats open anyways.
It was a local beer for him and a ginger ale for her. They could make jokes about her underaged drinking but it was another thing to demonstrate it. Besides, with her hair pulled back like it was, she looked just like her junior year drama club headshot.
"So are you still seeing that boy?"
His small talk wasn't so small anymore. These days he always skipped the weather. It had rained for two weeks straight anyways.
"No."
"Why did you break up?"
"You don't really have to break up if you're not dating someone."
"Oh I see."
They paused. Their water glasses were refilled. They both took sips at the same time. It must have been genetics or something.
"You know how Mom likes hearing that she's right?"
"Yes."
"Well I do too but sometimes, it's just as exciting to be wrong. I don't want anyone being hoodwinked into thinking I'm something more than I am."
"It's supposed to be a milder winter this year."
"I heard that too."
Pantone
They released the color of the year at the beginning of December. I saw the headline in the afternoon. The sky was gray yet again. That was not the color though. How was a color determined? How could any panel of color-picking judges know for certain that the other 27 days of December would not change their minds? How could it be that the color that they finally decided on would be so close to his name? Fuck. And how did they know that it was so damn accurate that he would color this year for me and that everything that kept me up at night would be that same shade of dark blood red.
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