Contributor: Samuel Pugh

- -
For a boy of 8, it wasn’t unusual be scared of the dark …
Mum and Dad always left the hallway light on, the comforting sound of their TV programs creeping up the stairs, somehow softening the darkness, making it less claustrophobic. But they didn’t understand; not really. Every night was the same. He’d stare fixedly into the light, concentrating on the sickly orange glow until sleep finally overtook him.
But one night, the light went out.
Panic gave way to hysteria; the dark seemed to be wrapping around him, consuming him. With a voice laced with anxiety, he called out for his Mother. Mummy didn’t come. He pulled the duvet up, over his mouth, his nose, and called again; louder this time. No reply. There was something there, in the darkness. He could hear things talking, chattering, whispering about him. He was safe under the covers, of course, his duvet was his protection against … against them; but for how long? With a strange certainty, he knew they were moving closer. He would have to be brave, leave the duvet, and switch the light on. He leapt out of bed, and ran across to the doorway. If he could reach the light-switch, they would run away, they would leave him alone, they would disappear, they would …

And then he woke up; safe in his bad, safe in the dark. A dream …
He let out a sigh. Stupid, stupid, stupid …
And then they started to talk again, to chatter, to whisper. They were coming for him, slithering their way through the darkness, reaching out. He threw the duvet to one side, raced across the room, feeling for the light switch in a blind panic. He found it, switched it on, and …
And he woke up, tears wet upon his cheeks, his breathing manic in its rapidity. Again, he called for his mother. Screamed …
Mummy didn’t come. Mummy never came. And they were still there, crouching in the dark, talking about him, whispering about him, laughing at him. With a sickening sense of déjà vu, he dragged the duvet from his body, ran across the room, and felt for the light switch.
He found it. He switched on the light, and turned around.
And he didn’t wake up.
And that’s when he finally saw them …


- - -

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

2 Comments

Author: Samuel Pugh

Contributor: Tómas Jónsson

- -
James came from a lineage of infidelity. As he lusted after his colleague, he wondered if his feelings were a genetic trait equivalent to his predisposition for high cholesterol.
To further deny responsibility for his actions, James surmised environmental influences were as much to blame for his new desires. James knew of countless affairs among his colleagues, neighbors, and societal elites.
Unlike the politician cheating with a young lobbyist, James’ had no fear of his wife learning of his disloyalty through the tabloids. James worried that some form of electronic data would expose his subterfuge. And again, surrendering to his environment, and despite the near promise of enabling his own destruction, James could not deny his desire to create an electronic footprint. In the privacy of his office cubical he put his never realized artistic potential to use by storyboarding a video and the positions in which his accomplice would look her best.
James continued about his day expecting it and all that followed to continue unchanged until his demise. He stared at Anne’s chest as she twirled her hair. Anne’s recent weight gain had done little to detract from her figure. She carried the new weight well, mostly in her stomach, leaving her shapely ass still worthy of James’ admiration.
Anne was not attracted to James. However, since James was oblivious to this, he had already convinced himself of a future liaison. In James’ fantasy, Anne’s reputation for promiscuity led her into his bed. She would seek him out for a tawdry night in which they made love for the sake of sex. For a short time they might even mistake their sin of lust as love.
James’ delusion created another battle against the forces driving him to cheat. Why should he not be free to fall in and out of love when his wife was swinging in and out of his life?
It was this pendulum of love that tormented James. He had not fallen out of love with his wife, but she had. For the past 751 days James’ wife put her career and personal satisfaction ahead of all else. Had James been as brilliant and half as successful he would have acted the same. Her success was so great they lived a life they never imagined. Living expenses became inconsequential. As a result numbers in bank accounts were used in the interim to fill the emptiness in James’ as he ate another dinner alone in their perfectly decorated beach house. All it had cost him was the vacancy of his bed and the realization that he was a commodity to his partner. When she was no longer successful and the career that made her happy was gone, she would plug him back into the equation restoring her sense of contentment with life.
James pondered if his feelings were his own way of commoditizing love. There was fundability to sex. It could be tallied as easily as money was counted. In this calculation James attempt to deceive, never admitting that he wanted to find love, not just have orgasms. James wanted an intimacy that could replace the sense of abandonment that came from his wife and the stark emptiness of the modernity.
Time progressed. James could not decouple from his wife. He was too weak to leave her despite the unhappiness she had caused. James was resolved to suffer in silence endlessly thinking rather than move forward on either front.
Had James been less codependent he might have addressed his wife’s failures. But his love had put her in a position of perfection. He was convinced that any fault in their relationship must have been his. If he cheated, she could remain perfect and he the failure.
When his wife went on another business trip he called the ex-girlfriend. She was aware of his vulnerabilities and manipulated him to serve her needs. As a couple they had no future, but they had shared love in the past. It was a residual energy that still held enough emotion to ease both their troubled lives.
James, at the mercy of emotion, finally gave in to his fears. He broke his oath to his wife. To cope he detached and compartmentalized his feelings from his behavior. Then his erection failed. Mostly flaccid, he struggled to penetrate his former girlfriend. He rubbed her tits and licked her pussy to no avail. James did not cheat, or so he convinced himself because he had not come.
James’ wife never found out about his mistake. She would not have cared. She had been cheating on him for years and never once struggled with the decision. She knew that James would never force her to pay for the consequences of her actions.


- - -
I split my time between Iceland and Wisconsin choosing to live in a climate of perpetual winter.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Tómas Jónsson

Contributor: Marco Scibelli

- -
The ice cream truck was plastered with stickers of the treats held inside, pasted over other stickers from the years gone by. On the hood, a mock metal ice cream cone was displayed, and it always bothered the driver; it looked sharp and scary. He didn’t want it flying through the windshield in a collision and killing him. The truck cruised steadily up the slight incline, with the plains of sage forming a downstage for the beautiful, jagged mountains that punctuated the background. If this was a play, the stage crew did a nice job on the set design.
The driver was an unimpressive man of ambiguous age, but he wore his white uniform well and he kept his hat neatly pressed to always have that paper-boat look in perfect form. He gripped the wheel lightly, just enough to make sure the van didn’t veer off course and crush all this beautiful scenery. Yes, he’d driven all over God’s Green Earth selling ice cream, and he’s had his favorites, (how beautiful the Everglades seemed from a freezing cold car), and his least favorites, (as far as he could tell, New Mexico was just a void with some road construction in the middle). This plain, however, took the cake with its stunning gorgeousness.
The cheery van slowly rolled over the pristine, natural landscape, and into the sightline of a seven year old girl. She was standing on the side of the road in a purple dress–oh, rather, a lilac dress because purple can be a boy’s color and she isn’t a boy, thank you very much–with little yellow polka dots. She was all alone as the van pulled up in front of her and came to a stop. The man threw it into park and approached his window.
“Why, hello there little girl.”
“Hello, mister.” The man smiled a grin at the little girl, exposing every one of his yellow teeth, crooked and ugly.
“Would you like a ride someplace?” the man asked the little girl. In her mind she knew her dad and her mom told her never to ever accept rides from strangers, (especially old ones because they’re very lonely, or so her mom said and her dad nodded gravely).
“I had ought to not, I’ll be fine without one. Thank you though.” The girl turned her gaze from his hollow, deep brown eyes and she fixated it on the ground. Crumbled rocks, encrusted with dirt at the edges.
“How about some ice cream, then? My treat!”
With this the girl looked up again and, after contemplating for a brief moment, nodded her head yes. The man retreated into his van, only to return seconds later with a nice cone of swirly vanilla ice cream. To the little girl it looked like the snow that crowned the mountains of the plains, and she was very excited as she took it. “Thanks, mister!”
“Oh, no problem little girl. No problem at all!”
She began to lick her ice cream happily, and not wanting to frighten her, (ice cream men know everyone thinks they’re pedophiles), he climbed back into the driver’s seat and threw the transmission into drive. The music, a little circus ditty, began to play from the rusting speakers atop the van. He pulled away and the little girl waved as he went.
He got home at half past six, and he smiled a little grin, not enough to show his teeth, though. Half past six was his favorite time to get home, he would have just enough time to do an inventory before Jeopardy! came on television, no extra time for idling and dilly-dallying. He counted, he watched, he went to bed.
The next day he found himself driving through the barren cold of the Canadian highways. No one else was on the roads, just him and the coniferous; occasionally a deer would hear his bittersweet jingle from inside its forest home and peer through the trees. He drove on like this for a couple hours, and found no one, nor nothing. Maybe it was a bad idea to try and hit Québec today, he thought to himself. He knew the French didn’t like his ice cream, were the French Canadians the same way?
His musings came to a shattering stop, and he found himself with a face full of air. Or was it a face full of bag? Shoving it back into the wheel, he noticed blood all over his now shattered windshield. He shivered through his whole body, but flung open the door with a start and peered out onto the road. He had hit a moose (at least if that’s what a moose looks like when a two ton ice cream truck hits it), and it was dead. Through what once was the moose’s neck was now the prop ice cream cone that once adorned his truck; where the ice cream cone once adorned his truck there was nothing but an eye. He hoped it was a moose’s.
At that moment a little boy, who had been watching from the side of the road, spoke up and startled the driver. “Hey, can I get an ice cream?” If it wasn’t in French the driver probably would have been appalled at the question, but something about the strangeness of tongue put the man in a daze. He gave the boy an ice cream.
That night he got home at nine. It had taken him a long time to find a shop to put his ice cream truck in, and it was pretty badly broken. He sat on his couch and turned on the television, but all that was on was Wheel of Fortune. He stared blankly at the television screen, ran his tongue over his teeth, and shivered again.
If this were another story or man, he’d probably kill himself. But this is this story and this man, and some day in a couple of weeks he would get his truck back and go back to the same old grind, and hope no one’s afraid of him that day or thinks he’s a pedophile. Yes, up until today he had never hurt a fly. No, he won’t kill himself. He’ll keep trying to live.
You! Tell me what’s sadder.


- - -
Marco Scibelli's just some guy who tries to write sometimes.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Marco Scibelli

Contributor: Donal Mahoney

- -
Remember, a blind man can see things a sighted man can't. So let me tell you about her and then you can tell me whether I'm right.

The first time a man meets her, his eyes flicker and dart. Desire, an appropriate reaction.

The first time a woman meets her, her eyes pop out and coil on her forehead. Envy, another appropriate reaction.

Today, who can blame either? Today, who believes the canard about the true, the good, the beautiful, in theory or in a woman? I never believed it till the day that I met her.

And you won't believe it either unless you do what I did---frisk her for flaws that will allow you to live as you are, as you were, as I was when I met her. As for me, I'm no longer the same. Perhaps you can help me. My cane and my dog are no help in a matter like this.

The day that I met her, I was sitting on pillows propped against the wall of a building not far from Walmart. I had my cane and my cup properly positioned on the sidewalk. I was ready for business. And then I heard her heels type out on the pavement the story of my life. I could hear in those heels a woman who knew me although we had never met.

I had my baseball cap upside down on the sidewalk between my outstretched legs. It was full of my wares---pencils, spearmint gum and Tootsie Pops, free, for the children.

When her heels stopped in front of my spot, I sensed this lady, whoever she was, had bent over my cap and was checking my wares. Her hair was a waterfall licking at my knees. I was inebriated by her scent.

She selected two pencils and didn't ask price so I knew I had a real customer. And then with a wave of her hand she let paper money float through the air into my cup.

Believe me, a blind man can see with his mind the butterfly of paper money float to his cup. Any denomination, large or small, is a Monarch afloat on a zephyr.

Customers, you see, usually drop change. A blind man can tell you what coins a customer has dropped by the clink in his cup. So when I heard her Monarch take to the air, I forgot about my teeth and smiled up at her.

I usually don't smile on weekdays. I used to smile on weekends till that Hummer ran over my mother. She lived for a while but she was never the same.

On Saturdays she used to bring meals wrapped in tinfoil and labeled in Braille to tuck in my freezer. She wanted me to know which meals were where but I was never able to read her Braille so I ate whatever the microwave served.

This new lady in heels, however, has dissolved my bereavement and taken me captive. She has me smiling on weekdays. I've been stoned on her musk since the day that I met her and I'm becoming ever more wobbly. Everywhere I go her scent surrounds me. I'm an addict now and I need my cane and my dog just to get around the apartment.

So, please, tell everyone now in the parade passing by to listen to her as I did. In time they may hear, as I can hear now, a year later, the cherubim sing as she blooms with our child like a sunflower in summer while I wonder, I try.


- - -
Donal Mahoney has had work published in a variety of publications in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Some of his work can be found at http://eyeonlifemag.com/the-poetry-locksmith/donal-mahoney-poet.html

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Donal Mahoney

Contributor: Kristina England

- -
Samantha pushed at the lid again.

“Let me out, Jason. Let me out.”

Jason looked at the box and sighed.

Last time he let her out, she went to the next man’s garden and ate all of his berries.

Jason looked out the window at the horizon - a collision of lavender, pink, and gray. He glanced at his breakfast, uneaten on the table.

“Okay, but do you promise to behave?”

Samantha sat down in the box, pulled her knees up to her chin, and said nothing.

Jason lowered his head.

“Then I can’t let you out.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“I can give you some fruit.”

“I don’t want your fruit.”

He bit his lip, looked at the sun exploding outward, his mouth salty with daybreak.

Jason walked over to the box, pulled out a key, and opened it.

Samantha smiled and climbed out.

“When you’re done eating, don’t come back,” he said.

“Don’t worry. I won’t,” Samantha said, grabbing his cold slice of toast on her way out.


- - -
Kristina England resides in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her writing is published or forthcoming in Gargoyle, One Forty Fiction, Short, Fast, and Deadly, and other magazines.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: Kristina England

Contributor: April Winters

- -
Judy has pink hair, tattoos, and multiple piercings. She’s always been the family embarrassment, and they’ve never appreciated her uniqueness. There was a time when she tried to conform to their way of thinking, but it gave her migraines.

Her sister, Lisa, said Judy had better learn to be a famous rock star because no one would hire her looking the way she did. Thanks to Judy’s gift for baking mouth-watering desserts, Lisa was wrong. The owner of Bob’s Bakery hired Judy the second he tasted her double-fudge torte.

In your face, Sis!

*

Two weeks ago Judy got fired.

Her boss didn’t find the humor in the cupcakes she’d decorated as masturbating monkeys. “Oh my God,” he screamed. “Don’t you know these are for a kid’s birthday party? Now what am I going to do?”

Judy looked perplexed. “It’s nothing they wouldn’t see at the zoo, anyway.”

“Look,” Bob said, “I let you skate the last time you pulled a stunt like this. I almost crapped my pants when I saw that unicorn-shaped cake with the condom stretched over its horn. But this … this is…” He looked like a crazy person, eyes wild, face contorted. Then he said, “Enough is enough. Get out! And take your phallic cake pans with you.”

Judy heard through the grapevine that when Lisa found out, she said, “Surprise, surprise.”

*

Last week Judy received an invitation to Lisa’s bridal shower, due solely to their mother’s insistence.

Yesterday Judy baked a cake in the shape of a nude male torso. Her phallic cake pans came in handy. With their help, she endowed the dessert with a giant penis – just to piss her sister off. When Lisa saw it displayed on the food table, the color drained from her face. She spoke in tongues. The guests heard the commotion and broke into fits of giggles when they saw what the fuss was about. Even Judy knew the only reason she didn’t have Lisa’s hands squeezed around her neck was because the women thought the cake was “awesome” and “devilishly decadent.” They followed the compliments up with orders for their own cakes, all requiring even larger genitalia.

Thrilled and grinning like a fool, Judy glanced at her sister. That’s when she saw Lisa’s clenched fists, the glare on her face and the throbbing vein in her forehead.

Judy wasn’t sure what thrilled her the most.


- - -
April Winters hopes to help people forget their troubles through humor, even if it’s only for a little while. Her other works can be read at The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature, Short-Story. Me, The Short Humour Site, and here at Linguistic Erosion.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

2 Comments

Author: April Winters

Contributor: John Laneri

- -
Tyler Jackson first visited my office several years back complaining of headaches. Since then, I've treated him for various problems, none of which were serious. Generally, his complaints have been stress related, which I gathered went along with his work as the Chief of Customs in the Houston area.

One afternoon several months ago, after examining a rash on his arm, he asked, “Hey doc, would you be interested in doing examinations for the customs service?”

Tyler was a big man with a confident attitude and a lean fit body.

“What kind of exams? I asked curiously.

Scratching at the rash, he went on to indicate that the customs service periodically used physicians to perform physical examinations on arriving passengers. He specifically indicated that he would want me to examine people who were suspected of harboring undeclared items or substances within body cavities.

“Why me?” I asked. “I thought you had your own staff and facilities.

“We do, but they're strictly eight to five – union rules. Sometimes we need outside people, especially at night. The service pays extra good money, so it's worth you time. I thought of you because your office is close to the airport.”

The arrangement did seem reasonable, so I agreed. A few extra dollars here and there were always comforting.

Several weeks later, at two am in the morning, the phone rang. It was Tyler.

“Hey doc... Sorry to wake you but we have a couple of suspects that just arrived on a red-eye from Paris. We need your expertise.”

Intrigued, I quickly dressed and headed to the office.

Once there, I came face to face with Tyler as well as two other agents, one male the other female, both of whom were busy escorting a man and a woman along with their sleepy-eyed, three year old daughter into my waiting room.

Both suspects were cuffed. I noticed that the husband appeared calm, even a bit frightened, but the wife, an aggressive woman with a loud voice, needed to be dragged on her heels as she shouted profanities and threats toward each of us.

By then, I was glad that consulting for the customs service avoided routine office hours. The woman could have easily cleared out a waiting room full of patients.

Tyler moved beside me and pointed toward the couple. “These two are suspected of harboring a couple of five carat diamonds acquired in Paris. We've thoroughly searched their clothing and bags and ended up with nothing. Our source close to the scene indicated that a sale went down a few hours before the flight departed, so we're fairly certain they still have the stones.”

“I take it the sale was black market.”

“Correct... sales of this nature usually involve stolen goods. We've been watching them for some time and received word earlier tonight they were coming in.”

With that said, I directed everyone to the examination area then indicated to Tyler, “I'll start on the husband with an emphasis on orifices. If nothing is found, I'll get abdominal x-rays. I take it your female agent is here to chaperon the wife.”

“And, watch the girl too, even though she's been sleeping throughout most of the ordeal.”

I started with the husband. He was mid-forties, overweight and hypertensive. While he acted put out, the examination went smoothly. His wife on the other hand, an angry woman in her late thirties, began screaming and kicking the moment we walked her into the exam room. Fortunately, the female agent was able to control her thrashing long enough for me to complete a thorough, but exasperating examination which included a barefoot directed to the side of my head.

From my perspective though, the examinations and x-rays were negative.

While the woman was dressing, I joined up with Tyler who by then was scratching at another rash on his arm. “As best I can determine, both suspects are clean. Sorry... I know you wanted more. But, I can't find anything to justify your suspicions. And, by the way,” I added, as I pointed to his arm. “Your rash is most likely stress related.”

“I suspected the same,” he replied evenly. “But, that couple bothers me.”

“You think they're guilty.”

“Absolutely... but setbacks frequently point us in other directions.”

Turning to him, I asked, “What do you mean?”

He glanced at me and smiled. “Now, we know who has the diamonds.”

Thrown by his remark, I pointed to the child. “Do you want me to examine her too? She looks fairly sedated.”

He started for the door, saying “We're through for tonight. We need a court order to pursue her. Parental consent would be helpful, but it's a technicality they've clearly refused for obvious reasons.


- - -
John is a native born Texan living near Houston. His writing focuses on short stories and flash. Publications to his credit have appeared in several scientific journals as well as a number of internet sites and short story periodicals.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: John Laneri

Contributor: William Panara

- -
It was sunny the day they imploded my grandfather. He was 93 years old, wrinkled like a walnut shell, and had gotten the letter saying it was time. My whole family went to see it happen. We had our cameras so we could record the event. I still watch the video every now and then, in slow motion, dragging out those few seconds like a singer holding a note.

The day before, the doctors had gone in and fitted him. Liquid explosives were placed around his pelvis, up the bridge of his spine. He showed us the stitches and said he couldn’t feel the nitroglycerin inside him, the same way a person can’t feel their kidneys or pancreas. My dad was proud and hugged him. Most people get their letter in their 80s, and he’d been able to last until 93. He’d gotten useless later than the others, retained some semblance of value in spite of his age. But like everyone else, he eventually became a burden, outdated and in the way.

My little sister played with flowers and danced in the grass. The sun shined off my grandfather’s bald head, and he went into the field where they told him to go, arms stiff at his sides. A crowd had come to see, pointing their cameras, aimed in anticipation. There was a countdown and then someone hit the button. We heard a loud bang and Grandpa’s body immediately crumbled inward, legs buckling and torso coming loose. The detonation, as if his organs had exploded, his anatomical construction in the puberty of demolition. Smoke came out of his body like he was a cannon that had been fired. He was still smiling when his head popped off and fell straight down between his feet.

I looked at my father, saw the lines in his skin. He was clapping, just like everyone else, so I clapped too.


- - -
William Panara owns six shirts and wears them in a steady rotation. His fiction has appeared in several places, including Pulp Metal Magazine and The Prose Poem Project. He lives in Beijing, China, and writes the humor blog Topiclessbar.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

0 Comments

Author: William Panara

Contributor: Rohini Gupta

- -
The voice is a child’s voice, high and shrill, asking a question. She shifts restlessly in her dream, knowing she has dreamed this many times before but unable to hear the question.

In the morning she always wakes up confused and frustrated. She knows it is important. The urgency is growing. She must answer and she must do it soon. But how? She is so distracted that she spills milk and scatters grains of sugar.

Her husband does not notice. They are not talking these days. They barely look at each other. They live in separate worlds.

She is resigned to the silence, it is simpler than the loud arguments and that brutal word, divorce, bandied between them like a tennis ball, first in her mouth, then in his, then back again. But there is an invisible line that both are afraid to cross, and the argument ends as usual, in stony silence. They brush pass each other in the small rooms, and sleep back to back.

When the weight of the silence is too great they make love at night, but in the morning, they pretend they are alone. Sometimes she weeps silently wondering what went wrong. She cannot find a reason. She has no idea where the feeling has gone.

For a whole year life was perfect. Full of laughter and flowers, long walks hand in hand by the seashore, sharing a paper cup of street food, spicy on the tongue, and laughing at nothing, like two giggling teenagers. Dinners in small affordable restaurants, and a movie late at night, sitting close.

They set up house, a modest two rooms, but they furnished them together, every rug, bookcase and coffee table. He was always home early and she was home before him and always at the window waiting. A marriage made in heaven, her friends said enviously.

Now she has stopped taking their calls.

Now her dreams are full of anger and unheard questions.

--

When she goes into the bedroom her husband is sitting on the bed, in his underwear, looking at her. “Hasn’t this gone on long enough? We have nothing in common anymore. Shall we end it?”

The chill of that hits her. His eyes are cold and he means it. She is not ready yet to end it, so she does not reply. She lies down with her back to him.

“We never talk without arguing,” he says, “What is the point of this?”

She closes her eyes and he sighs, but does not speak again.

Sleep does not come. She thinks of the emptiness of her life. How could it become so terrible? She feels hollow, as if all the passion has been scooped out of her and she does not know how to fill up the great void at her heart. She tosses and then she falls asleep.

At once the child’s voice is there, calling.

She is not paying attention to the child. She is lost in the darkness of her dreams. She sees herself sitting on cold, bare tiles, weeping. She holds her head to keep out the harsh words, but she hears them over and over, louder each time. The door slams, hard, and keeps slamming. The sound resounds and fills her whole dream. A plate falls, white and blue, smashing on the floor, and she smashes with it, flying into a thousand scattered pieces. Bits of her hit the walls and smash on the floors and keep breaking smaller and smaller and smaller.

"No,” she murmurs, only wanting it to stop, "Please no, no, no."

The child’s voice sounds sad, “Shall I go away, then? Shall I go?”

Suddenly she hears the words and everything comes to an abrupt, crashing stop.

“Please listen to me,” the child is saying, “Please.”

“I hear you,” she says in wonder.

The child’s voice is very soft but very clear. “Do you want me?” the child is asking wistfully, “Shall I come?”

She hears the question and it shoots through her like a physical pain.

She can see the child now - a thin girl, in a white dress, looking at her with large, dark, beautiful eyes. There are tears in those eyes to match the tears drying on her cheeks.

“Do you want me?” the girl is asking and every word rings through her like a bell, echoing in the hollows within.

She puts out a hand to touch the child’s soft smooth hair, but there is nothing there.

“Please don’t go,” she whispers, “Please, we will work things out, I don’t know how, but we will. Somehow we will make it work. I want you. I really want you. You must come. I want you.”

The sound of her own voice wakes her. She is whispering the words softly.

The dream fades. She can no longer see the girl but she feels light at heart. The question has been heard and answered. It will no longer haunt her dreams.

The room is dark and quiet. Her husband is fast asleep on the other side of the bed. She can hear his soft snoring. She wants to put her arms around him and whisper to him. No, she will not. They have waited so long. He will not believe it. It’s only wishful thinking, he will say.

Yes, it is.

She gets up, barefoot, and walks into the silent sitting room. She does not put on the lights. The glow of the street lamps from the wide windows is enough to see. She opens the window and leans out, putting her face into the cool, sea wind. Above the city, the night is extravagant with stars.

She already knows what tomorrow's pregnancy test will say. He will believe it then.

"I want you," she whispers to the stars, "We really want you."

And, for the first time in months, she smiles.


- - -
Rohini Gupta has been a writer for a long time and has published books, non-fiction and poetry. She is now writing short fiction and working on longer fiction.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

3 Comments

Author: Rohini Gupta

Contributor: Cheryl Anne Gardner

- -
It had finally hit the triple digits, and the beach looked like a garlic pizza with roasted humans on top. While I was snoozing in the sun, I had this bizarre dream of a glass lemon hanging in the air above my head as a waiter dressed in black tie towered over me reciting a menu in French. When I opened my eyes, an oily bohunk in a slinky banana hammock was standing over me. He was so greasy, he could have slipped, nipples first, into another dimension. He had a fistful of sand, which he proceeded to fling into my face. I spit some exorcism in pig-Latin at him, and he smiled, then asked me if I wanted to go dancing. I told him to "fuck off," so he left only to return five minutes later with a pina-colada that had an umbrella in it so huge that it eclipsed the sun.

I really did want to go dancing, but my feet had always been too big for high heels. I can clunk, I can funk, I can jump strapless off the shoulders of a naked barista ... but I can't glide in them enough to dance.


- - -
Cheryl Anne Gardner prefers novellas and flash fiction to writing bios because she always seems to forget what point of view she is in. When she isn’t writing, she likes to chase marbles on a glass floor, eat lint, play with sharp objects, and make taxidermy dioramas with dead flies.

Read more »

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

1 comment

Author: Cheryl Anne Gardner