FFP#20 – The Fisherman

“Fish with faces, men without limbs” pulled from the sea, hidden like secrets. There’s comfort in recalling these aberrations, realizing he’s met the unknown before.

FFP#19 – Penny for Your Thoughts

I place a parade of pennies on the sidewalk. Mom picks up each one, shouting, “Penny!” It’s the only way she remembers my name anymore.

FFP#18 – This Is What They Say

They say she walks the highway at night, wearing a white dress with a high ruffled collar, barefoot. The usual. Every man who sees her pulls over, anxious to help a young woman, a beautiful woman. A woman. As soon as they ask, “Do you need some help?” “Do you need a ride?” “Hello?” she disappears. But in her place, wholly visible in the dark, illuminated by the moon or by headlights or by the aura of some other life, some other world pushing its way through the cracks and weaknesses of our vaporous walls, all that remains in her place is a rounded stack of smooth white stones. A pile of stones, a mound, a swell, a breast of rock.

Every man who sees these stones has the urge to gather them up, to hide and protect them. If they took all the stones, they know they’d be haunted forever. Who was the woman? What did she want? What do the stones mean? But if they take just one stone, they could easily carry it in their pocket, as a reminder, a story, a glimpse of the supernatural. One stone weighs practically nothing at all. One stone is equal to a few spare quarters: there if needed, but otherwise not really thought about. So some men take a single stone and the others just drive away.

They say that when the men who took the stones are near death, the woman in the white dress appears. She holds out her hand, gently, slowly, and the dying man, regardless of how weak he is or how much pain he is in, will get out of bed and frantically search his pockets for the stone. He will search and search no matter what his family or nurses or doctors tell him. No one sees the woman except the man and when he finally finds the stone, finds it and kisses it and kisses it again, he asks her to have it -– “Please, please take it!” he pleads with her –- and at long last he dies. But his is not a normal death. Very quickly, the man’s skin begins to thin and peel away (the way the skin of roasted almonds might flake off), revealing a body of gray pebbles in his place.

No one knows what to do with these pebbles. It seems silly to pour the rocks into a cushioned coffin, and it’s impossible to burn them into ash. In the end, all the pebbles end up in the same spot: scattered between and among the tombstones in the church graveyard, covering dirt and weeds, forming a clean path for visitors.

They say that early in the morning, just before dawn breaks, if you happen to walk through the graveyard, you’ll hear a thousand men singing softly. There are no words to the song, it’s just a simple tune really, but once you hear it you’ll hum along to it for days, and at night you’ll dream of the woman, you will see her walking in the dark, in a white dress, barefoot. She’ll turn, but her face will be a blur, as though her tears have smeared the contour and details of her facial features. She’ll remove her gown, exposing a nude body underneath, a living body, a human body. But soon this body begins to deteriorate. Fingers fall off, hair is shed, and as each part hits the ground it turns into rock.

Eventually, a canal of rocks is formed from her body and you become water, pouring fast and quickly into a stream. You carry each other along. You don’t know where you’re going, but you feel everyone and everything there with you. You’re no longer alone, you are the world and together you’re flowing, and you think to yourself, “It all began with one woman,” and you hum the tune, now realizing that this is the same song every bird sings, every wind whistles, every tree whispers. This is the sound of water flowing over rock.

They say we’re lucky to live in this town, to live near the highway where the woman walks. Maybe, I think, maybe if you’re a man. I drive the highway almost every night, and I’ve never seen this woman, this woman who makes this world more mysterious. I look for white stones along the road and all I find is pumice and broken glass. All I know is nothing. All I know is being alone. All I know is what they say and that what they say goes. Who are they, anyway? I’m planning my escape to the city, to another life, in the opposite direction of wherever the woman in white is headed.

FFP#17 – Sorry We’re Closed

He liked to go to stores ten minutes before closing. There was something about the way the store clerks said, “Sir, we’re closing in ten minutes,” that made him feel secure. At five ‘til, the gentle warning. Then a second warning, sometimes a third. Finally, at closing, a firm, slightly nasally, “Sir, we’re closed now, you’ll have to leave,” all the clerks standing together watching him. His favorite was the “we’ll have to call the police” warning. He liked to see just how far he could push, just how far he could get away with it. One time, a clerk — a twenty-something pimply faced kid with long hair — said, “Get the fuck out of here, you decaying freak.” The kid’s coworkers laughed. That he didn’t like and he considered waiting outside for the kid, maybe push him around a bit. Instead, he said, “No, you get the fuck out of here,” and left. He had other places to be, anyway, like that one restaurant that was open all night long with the cute waitress who never asked him to leave and brought him coffee until the sun came up. The morning rays flooded the table with a yellow brightness, leaving him feeling sleepy and mellow and a lot less lonely.

Read these stories. You’re welcome.

The Two Malls by John Jodzio

Liviana by Carlie Holmboe

Picturesque by Michelle Reale

FFP#16 – Holed Up

I haven’t left my house in six months. Some of you might call that agoraphobia, but I call it “Fuck you, world.” I quit my job, cashed out my savings and 401k, and never go anywhere. I order lots of stuff online. Do you realize that almost anything in the world can be delivered? To your front door? And that you can even ask the UPS guy to bring those items inside? I never even have to step out onto the porch. So, anyway, I mostly spend my days shopping online and watching a lot of TV. I’ve decided that morning talk shows suck. The afternoon ones are a teensy bit better. Some days I love Oprah. Some days I hate her, but I think my hate is just rooted in jealousy. Anyway, I’m sure that’s what she would say. “Lara,” she’d also tell me. “You have the power to create your destiny. Negative feelings will only dampen your spirit.” And she’s right, of course. I imagined my destiny to be in this house, enjoying myself, by myself — and I did it! Every day after my morning shower, I dance naked in front of my mirror and enjoy myself. Whatever music is playing on the radio, I dance to it. Naked. Naaaaaked! Last week, I wrote Oprah a letter: Dear Oprah — I’ve learned to embrace my spirit. I learned that if you look at yourself often enough in the nude, then it’s not such a disappointment, not such a heart-stopping shock. If you look at yourself often enough, you wonder how in the world anyone couldn’t love you. Anyway, I think you should do a show naked. I attached a small photograph of me lying on the couch, only wearing a pair of lace gloves I found in a box in the attic. I thought the lace gloves added a touch of femininity. I haven’t heard back yet but that’s okay. I’m living my truth. My only regret is that I never got naked in front of my husband, and now that he’s gone I wish that I had never worn any clothes while he was around. Anyway, I’ve never even had a husband LOL

FFP#15 – Confession of a Bounty Hunter

A series of small explosions erupt around me as I enter the warehouse, setting off an internal organic earthquake, one that shakes my body from the inside out, causing my muscles to contract and my Pelvic Floor Device, an enhancement that creates an invisible, electrical shield over my skin, to activate itself. No matter how hard I try to relax, I just can’t get the PFD to retract.

I should stop, I tell myself. Something’s wrong and I can’t fix it. But a little technical difficulty has never stopped me before. So I run toward the elevator and leap into the shaft, grabbing the steel ropes that extend the length of the empty passageway. Sparks ignite as I climb.

When I reach the second floor, I jump into the room and find myself kneeling before the slender silhouette of my sister. Around her, a cloud of dust and smoke slowly settles. To her right, crates are stacked ceiling-high. To her left, the room stands bare. A window that’s been boarded-up with a plank of splintered wood lets in a weak stream of light. My sister is in full protective gear: miniature capsulated bombs hang from the wide belt that hugs her waist, a black helmet hides her face, tight gloves shield her hands.

“Teresa,” I say, standing up carefully. I haven’t seen her in years and her name feels strange in my mouth. “Teresa.”

She doesn’t flinch.

For some reason, and from some dusty corner of my mind, I remember how beautifully she played the piano when she was younger.

“Teresa,” I say again. “I want to help.”

“Thanks, Sis,” she says. “But I don’t need your kind of help.”

She comes at me then, knocking us both to the ground, her knee digging into my side. But I’m older, more experienced, and with one easy move, I flip her onto her back. Straddling her torso now, holding her down by her wrists, I try to get her to talk, to listen — but she just wants to fight. We should go at it right then and there, get out all of our aggressions, past and present, release the hurt that handicapped our childhoods and fueled our failed adulthoods. She wants to fight, wants to prove to me, to the world, to herself that she’s strong and proud and better than me. But I’m just as stubborn as she is and there’s no way I’m going to let her win.

“You want to fight, baby sister?” I say.

She struggles against my grip, and in the scuffle I pull off one of her gloves. Her bare hand — those fingers haven’t changed much, as long and bony as ever, the nails cut short and buffed to a shine.

“You call that fighting?” she says and laughs. “What? Are you going to pull my hair next, bitch?”

I rip off her mask and we both fall silent. Just like that. There she is. That familiar face. That face so much like mine, yet nothing at all like mine. A new scar decorates her left cheek, thin and winding, a silvery blemish that only makes her more beautiful.

“Get off me!” she yells, finding her voice again, which is almost child-like in its demand.

“Teresa,” I say.

“That’s not my name anymore,” she growls. “We’re nothing anymore.”

She rolls me over, pushing her knees into my chest. Her gloved hand grips my neck, her claws dig into my jaw, pinch at my throat. I try to pry her fingers apart but I can’t.

My eyes water as I fight to breathe. She clenches her free hand — her bare hand — into a tight fist and slams it into my face. But when her flesh touches mine, I feel nothing. Her body shivers violently, flopping away from me like a fish drowning in air.

Electrocuted. The electrical armor that covers and protects my skin, the PFD I’d chosen to equip myself with, the PFD she couldn’t afford, had horribly malfunctioned.

Her mouth contorts, her eyes bulge. I push her convulsing body off mine. Her naked fingers twitch in an uneven rhythm, the tips blackened. A flare falls from her belt and rolls near her head, bursting into flames, setting her hair on fire.

She doesn’t scream, doesn’t make a sound as her tongue pulsates in her mouth. I slap at her hair with my hands, trying to put out the fire, ignoring the searing pain as my fingers and palms burn. “Don’t die,” I hear myself saying. “Please God, don’t let her die.” But it’s too late for my feeble prayers.

#

Long ago, Teresa and I led normal lives and we loved each other as sisters do. But somehow along the way we lost each other. We were no longer sisters, but soldiers, good soldiers, each fighting for a different cause. When peace came, too little, too late, how could we even look at each other? How could we be family again? We were still lost. Left on our own, just trying to survive the best way we knew how, we chose professions that eventually made us gods and forbade us mercy.

It was her job to kill me, my job to hunt her down. We just found each other at the wrong time.

This is what I think about at night. I don’t close my eyes, I can’t. I’d only see her face. Instead, I listen to the rest of the world sleeping and fucking and living.

Would anything have changed if she knew my love was unconditional? Would it have made a difference in her broken mind to know that in an abandoned storehouse in another land, I had kept the shoddy upright piano of our youth?

#

I skip the burial and escape to that faraway place, to the country that harbors one of the last remnants of us. In appearance, the piano hasn’t changed a bit after all these years. I touch a few of the keys, play a song that our father had taught us, try to remember the words but can’t. The piano has been in storage for years and the keys stick, the notes out of tune and sad. The pedals wheeze for relief.

I know what I have to do. I smash the piano to bits. I splinter the wooden panels, let the stained, ivory keys fall to the ground with heavy and toneless clinks. I bury the hammers and strings in the blackest, most worm-infested dirt. I burn the rest of it, but it burns slowly and I’m impatient for its full destruction.

I want to destroy every last remnant of our past. I want to annihilate this guilt and grief before they consume me. I want to do everything I can to forget her.

One day, I will no longer seek absolution. One day, I’ll be able to say, “Yes, I killed my sister. Now there’s nothing left for me to lose.”

“Stain”

On Sunday, my flash fiction piece “Stain” went live at A cappella Zoo. I’m going to count this as my “story of the week.”

She came to life with a port-wine stain on her right cheek. The mark of the devil, said her grandmother. The kiss of God, said her grandfather.

Click here to read the rest

FFP#14 – Yeah

It’s early morning, you’re in the fourth grade, trying to sleep, when you hear a car horn playing the first few measures of “La Cucaracha.” You jump out of bed, don’t even change out of your pajamas, just slip on your sandals and run outside. Here he comes rolling down the street in an oversized, tan Cadillac, slow enough so that you and the rest of your friends can run alongside the car, slapping at the waxed exterior like waves lapping up against the hull of a boat. Sunglasses on, a crisp bandana hiding his pockmarked forehead, he leans heavy on the horn. You wish he’d let you climb into the car, let you honk that horn a few times and impress the world, but he never stops. He drives down the block and keeps on going. He’s like Jesus or something, you think. He’s the king of cool. The king of summer, letting you know the heat is coming, the short nights and full days of baseball and swimming and tree climbing are on their way. Yeah, not one single kid in town needs a calendar to tell them summer is here when the fucking King of Summer himself is back in town.

I wish I wrote that.

The Adventures of Chopped-Off Head Girl by Edith Zimmerman

Just Add Water by Kathryn Kupla