Category: #flash

Catch a Tiger

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It is when I am about to leave to take our daughter to school, a little earlier this morning as she needs to be dropped off at the freshman building, and we don’t want to be caught behind the 66 bus or we will sit through two cycles at the stoplight, that Bobo, her pandemic kitten who is no longer a kitten but who has never properly used the cat box, decides to take a shit on the carpet in the foyer and as she is crouching, tail lifted like a defiant middle finger in my face, I grab the horrid little beast, holding her aloft like Simba in The Lion King, running toward the cat box in the sunroom, practically stepping on the flatulent 14 year old incontinent Boston Terrier, who has left yet another puddle of piddle in the dining room, and screaming at Bobo as she is dropping turds through the living room, I am also thinking that while I am so happy Catee’s best friend Delia was accepted to Tufts, and God knows I am because Delia is a great kid and a hard worker like Catee, but even so I have to acknowledge, damn it, as I also notice that Micky, the once feral cat we rescued two years ago, has picked, picked, picked at the new carpet in the living room, the same one Bobo has just bombed with a wet shit, I have to admit that, sweet Christ, can Catee just catch a damn break and get admitted to one of these top notch schools that she has worked her ass off to gain entry into because the last four years, and especially, especially these god awful isolating years of this pandemic, have cost us all so dearly, robbed us basically of happiness, left my poor girl crippled with anxiety, and especially now that U**, that same stupid school that accepted her last summer into its elite Senior Scholar Project, has rejected her, that I realize I am in the sunroom, holding this bloody cat we adopted to lessen our daughter’s depression and loneliness, over a goddamn empty cat box because I already have shit all over me.

I am electing to publish this CNF here instead of shopping it around literary magazines. This was written in a very Of The Moment vein for a workshop with Retreat West. I like it; I don’t love it but I think it accurately portrays the frustration, anxiety and utter craziness that families who are going through the college application process (in the U.S.) feel. The workshop challenge was to craft a one sentence story. RW is an amazing resource for writers. As always, thank you for reading!

When We Had Wings

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Millard Fillmore loved the butterflies. He was confused at first, having never seen one. I struggled to explain that they used to be common; ordinary like birds, I said. That was a mistake since he’d never seen a bird. It took me a while, but I told him all I knew about hummingbirds and roseate spoonbills, cardinals and woodpeckers, robins, eagles, and bluebirds. I waxed a little poetic on the bluebirds, I guess. Birds of happiness. Anyway, I started singing a snippet of some old song, a bluebird on my shoulder. At that point, Millard got bored and fell asleep.

That was months ago. Most of the butterflies are gone now, which is a bad sign and indicates we need to move along as well. 

As I am packing our few remaining things, I say to Millard it’s time to fly away. He eyes me warily and I admit it is a figure of speech but that also once people could fly. When water covered more of the planet than dust, when trees donned resplendent coats of many-colored leaves, when rain fell like tears and sometimes when it was cold, yes cold such a concept, and snow fell. At that time, so many years gone, we people, we were so clever, and greedy, we climbed into machines and dared to fly. 

Millard does not think much of this story. He likes the stories about companions. I have shared with him tales I was told long ago, but by whom I can’t even remember. A guardian? I would like to think I had a gran. Maybe I sat in a comforting, wide lap, listened raptly to a sonorous voice. Anyway, I like sharing the buddy stories with Millard. I tell him about Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I tell him about Pooh and Piglet. He likes Bert and Ernie the best because he thinks it’s funny that I don’t know what they are. Once I said they were bears but last time I called them critters. So yes, I don’t know how to explain to Millard what Bert and Ernie are, but I know they were close friends and I think that should be good enough. Sometimes he just misses the point. 

I have packed up everything we want to take with us. After I have made sure we are leaving the place tidy, I realize Millard is not with me. I spy his fluffy ginger striped tail on the porch railing. This is unnerving and I feel a hot anxiety bubbling within me. I want to scream but at the same time a cautious voice is heeding me to approach quietly. 

Millard, I practically whisper. He is vexed. I can tell from the twitching of his tail and the angry spitting noises he is making. 

Millard, I manage it a little louder now. We no longer have wings, please, Millard. Please come back down.

When I am certain he will jump, when he has hinged up upon his back feet, I lunge. I have not moved with this kind of alacrity in months. I have not been chased or afeared for so long, but my muscle has memory and my body hurls me toward Millard whom I grasp tightly round his midsection as we both hit the floor of the porch.

And then a thing so miraculous, I cannot believe my own eyes. At first, I think we are watching a dust devil; the air seems yellow. Then the thrum of hundreds of wings. Goldfinches! I say, Millard, I never mentioned goldfinches! 

How can this be, I think. There is a veritable cloud of goldfinches hovering, swarming, surfing the breeze. They alight in the anemic branches of an old linden tree. They perch upon the ratty tatters of an elderberry bush. Their birdsong swells upon the break of the hazy dawn.

I sit on the porch with Millard in my lap. I think the warbling of the birds is moving through me before I realize that Millard is purring. There is a warmth, spreading over me, the way I imagined I would have felt in a gran’s lap. I remember, if blue birds bring happiness, goldfinches bring luck. Millard nuzzles my chin. Yes, I tell him; we will stay.

I chose Shen Chen Hsieh’s stunning artwork on the cover of Moon City Review for this piece because I am eternally grateful to be included in this journal with so many talented writers.

Make Peace With My Bones

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            The last leaves of late autumn cling to skeletal trees. They rustle in a bitter wind and I know it is you.

This time of year, the merriment of the holidays cannot stave off the end-of- days darkness. It is you, rattling your chains, keeping me from sleep.

I could sense you last night, as I lay in your bed with someone else. I had the ceiling painted haint blue but still I smell tobacco and bourbon in a house where neither of these can be found in the daylight. Burnt matches in the sink. Ice cubes rattle in a glass in a room no one is in.

I have thrown away your clothes, your shoes, your wedding ring. I did not give any of these to charity. What charity would it be to me to find your shoes on another man’s feet walking down the street? Still, I see you. That coat in front of me at the Post Office. That mustache on the barista. That thumbprint of a bruise on my neck.

Your letters, I have burnt. I do not need to see your pledges of love, your apologies, your threats; they ring enough in my battered head.

All these things, I purged from the little house we once shared. It does not matter. Like a leviathan unmoored from some sepulchral trench, you summon the pieces of you I forgot or couldn’t find, the fingernail clippings, the hairs in the razor in the medicine cabinet, the blood beneath the floorboards. All these on the harshest December night meet and mingle, rising and converging upon me.

When my love awakens tomorrow morning, in your bed, I will be as cold as this season’s first snow.

A version of this flash first appeared in Second Chance Lit April 2022.

When She Talks About The Broken Window

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In truth, it is not about a broken window. She’ll never fix it. If you ask her about it, she will tell you about Bobby.

If you ask her about it, which I don’t suggest you do, she might start off with a laugh. She might shake her head, maybe hug her midriff. She’ll say it was an accident. If she’s even a little honest with herself, which she probably will not be, she may blush when she tells you he was just horsing around. Don’t interrupt her. She’ll let you know he was a star basketball player. She’ll tell you, without a hint of humility, how he was homecoming king, had a 4.2 GPA, was kind to stray animals and awkward girls. You may think you are not hearing the story of the window; keep quiet, keep quiet. 

You’ll hear about how many college acceptances Bobby received -12 – and how he turned down Notre Dame – Notre Dame for God’s sake – to go in state on a full ride. Bobby boy, Bobby brother. You might think that now is the moment you should gently ask again, but what about the window? Don’t.

She will probably turn her back to you, might even excuse herself. Look past all the framed photos of a shining star, a boy forever golden at 21, and you will see that broken window in the garage. You’ll think to yourself that she never did tell you that story, but you’d be wrong.

A version of this flash can be found at http://www.glitteryliterary.com. The following is from their site:

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