A Short Story

Beep Beep. Fifty-Five Tickity-Tock. Beep Beep. Fifty-Six Tickity Tock.

The door clicks its tongue and out its mouth comes the old lady next door with her broom. The sunlight encroaches the window, opening my room light. Construction workers line up in a haphazard line to buy breakfast at the local deli, yelling their orders at the chef. One egg, a sausage patty, and some red onions, all sandwiched in an oversized focaccia. The smell and noise start to consume my bedroom. A wave of children chase only after the sound of the hollow air of a basketball compressing into the ground. The morning starts to get a character of its own, and I know it’s time to get breakfast and hop on the train.

O.D.
131 words.

A Short Story

“What’s that?” Eva asked, pointing to the dining table, as she saw a lady juggling plates seeming to contain chocolate cake. Some of Eva’s school friends dropped their train tracks and looked at the mother walking back & forth from the kitchen.

“Dinner’s ready!” she announced, as children began to flood in from all corners.

“I’m hungry. I want some food. I want some!” Eva repeated with more urgency. I looked at her again; she was now jumping up & down.

“Go.”

From a reflection of the window, a clock showed it was a quarter to six. A man near the curtains sighed while his wife went to help with the food. Strollers with three-year old’s lay inert. Shadows filled creases of the parents’ faces, as they talked about fat percentages in avocado.

Eva scurried over to the other children and raised her chin to look at the food. She turned back, making sure I saw her frugal expression and heard her feet scratch the ground.

“It’s all green. Can we go home, pappa?” It was beans & casseroles for a birthday party dinner. The other children seemed ecstatic about the food, with parents smiling at their creative creations.

“There’s cake! It’s celery though,” I said, stroking Eva’s hair. She dropped her head, glancing away from the crowd she just played with. Everything parents did here always seemed to blend, and everyone seemed blind to the fact that children were eating celery for dessert.

“Let’s go.” We skipped the salad.

O.D.
250 words.

A Short Story

“Hurry up! It’s time to go!” a distant voice echoes through the chamber. Somewhere within the cavernous space, I hear thundering footsteps approach the entreating entrance to the inner door. Piercing torchlights tear through my cheek. Something stirs. The darkness within the passageway suddenly feels heavier than the darkness on the ceiling. The rumbling of the floor stops, and my slumber cuts short, with visitors too curious to not lose themselves in the enchanted desert land.

I am a dead man in the Valley of Kings. Not many days ago, I lived and died. Nobody significant–I died at 19. For some, 19 is enough to be significant, so much so that I’m buried deep beyond any human reach. In this room, there is a deadness not familiar to me. Not the death that suggests life has ceased, but the total absence of it that lives as a bodiless entity, in the same way there’s no life in a stone or chair. It’s me, my unopened funeral presents, my unused ship into the afterlife, and my empty kitchen. The uneasy atmosphere dispels with the entrance of the footsteps.

A pungent waft of smoky wood perfume penetrates my nostrils. Bandages weld and fasten the cracked bones of what used to be my face together, revealing the grimace of another man. Stones assemble painfully across my face, but I cannot feel it–my humbling servants had excavated all of the organs I needed to breathe, smell, and feel the living vitality around me. Perhaps, living in an isolated tomb, I have no need for such functions. As a being lacking the human characteristics of perception, I must conclude I am a different man and being than this rotting container–I am simply the owner of this corpse. I wear a worn body and require no affirmation of existence.

“Come!” Yousef exclaims, peering at the outline of what appears to be valuables hidden under white cloth near the altar. “A big stack of gold is here!”

A majestic purple gown, gifted by the Great Spanish King of Cordoba stood adjacent. Its existing beauty is a testament to its incredible age. Yousef quickly rips away the cloth, revealing its shape, detaching the sealed ship from its stand. The intricate main mast bends in half, and the hull withers away into dust, and dissipates to the ground. Yousef, looking up at the gown in regretful contrast, folds the white cloth back over the broken replica.

“Never mind. I’ve got a screw loose,” Yousef shouts out towards the soundless eternal chamber. Without response, he moves on. The table, consisting of the broken boat to my afterlife hidden under the same white fabric dotted with hieroglyphic script. Next to it sits a clay cruet containing oils and medicine, bearing an elaborate miniature portrait of my face, but he is not interested.

Yousef is one visitor out of many: musing and wandering through my house, taking my gifts, they never touch the body that carries me. If only they did, they would see the key under my armpit to the real tomb of my father. They become cautious and hesitant, and rush to smaller things, like a cup or a plate in the kitchen. Death is the last great horizon, that’s why it must be kept hidden–under immense boulders, in perpetual darkness, and beyond life.

Yousef’s senses had finally accustomed to the lifeless, dry air around him. Beyond the edges of the golden sarcophagus and my eyesight, the luminous hue of his torchlight reveals funeral rites that adorn the wall, passages beyond my eyesight. Yousef’s voice emerges:

Rotting flowers leave behind all the sinned,
Freed from its trapping root,
The ship follows the blind wind,
Dowering the sea with lust and loot.

This was an unfamiliar line, the prose sounded different from the scripture on the ceiling. In fact, those are the only stories I can read, as my corpse and cracked skull faces upwards. I cannot look at anything; only to where the others direct light. My eye sockets are unoccupied cavities, but the visitors seem to be making too much noise that I can see from somewhere else, perhaps directly from my soul.

Who built this wretched ship?
Built on fragile faith and cowering courage
The ship is shattered and splintered at every golden arch.
Beautiful enough to impress a dead man,
But not enough to cross the river.
Where are its crew, its wooden oars, and its energy?
All the men wash away in dry dust.
At least its furnished
with food for the flood and flight,
beneath the expired, loitering souls.
The anchor stops at the harbor,
Trying to restore its leaking vitality.
Instead it falls, dropping into
The dark pit of unanswered and dead prayers
From the beds of beadsmen into a low damp ground,
Violently shaking in their gurgling breaths.

Hold the torch higher, I cannot see the writing. I could not say anything: this empty chamber only has room for one mouth. He was no longer looking at the writing, but rather downwards to my ornamental furniture. Why were they stealing my boat? The style finally sounds familiar, and I remember the rest of the poem:

The dark darkens still, splashing sickly tides of black waste
Into where it is already dark, voices patter away,
Not able to carry the already weakened ship,
darkening still the silent battleground.
the vessel sways without direction, rocking peacefully
there is only the sound of brass bullets and moaning winds clashing
against the frail hull.
Oh couldn’t they have built a stronger ship?
There is nothing left, there is no more here,
my little ship is gone.

“I’m going out to smoke,” Yousef announces, flicking off his flashlight. Certain his friends had abandoned him, he still declared he was going out to quell his guilt that he may be leaving someone behind. I could not tell if he was a local man attempting to rob my expired gifts, if they were, they were fools, my friends with long noses in foreign hats would soon bring me warm shawarma. Every hour felt the same to me, but every footstep sounded slightly different. These men cower too long in the dark.

A fresh corpse that is dead for one day is different from a thousand-year-old corpse. I had written this while my body was still fresh, before my gifted servants even had a chance to adorn my life with words, before I had lost attachment to the people and objects around me. Time is the cyclic procreant: it hides away the knowledge of my poem in a dark cave, and digs back into the sealed cave with new meaning. Now, I am a being without fruit, without organs to feel, without attachment.

Alas, it is time to go,
With accoutrements and gifts
And cooking pans and checker games
Fitted for the fleeting soul.
The dank frost bites, making the legs shiver,
Back to the inception of the Nile river.

Yousef, perhaps in guilt, lingers before leaving towards the chamber door. After intense sounds of scratching on what looked like smooth papyrus paper, pattering footsteps grew more piercing. Yousef peered at the holes of my unopened eyes. As if directly recognizing my presence, he dropped the note on my chest and sprinted towards the door. Before the wavering paper landed on my body, Yousef was gone. None with life want to be the only ones alone in an empty space.

Harder to decipher than my language, the characters were lightly marked with chalk, clearly a message to his other colleagues. The symbols on the grease-stained newspaper dated in 2015 read:

– Cinnamon Toast Crunch
–cigarettes
–I’m outside.

The broken silence replaces my uneasiness, and I embrace another slumber. The men run straight home, and the dark plunged deeper into the waste of blurry city lights. Perhaps the men have left to sell my teapots and cooking pans to their people.

A Short Story

If you can wear one, you can wear them all. Matt dips the nose of his beat-up pink vans into the darker pimples of the pavement–spots of freshly melted puddles of snow. Careful–don’t let the water enter the shoe–only the soles. Darting eyes. The heel of one sneaker dives into the drier and paler pavement. Its face floors the surface. Firm, the cemented shoe forges itself a fresh imprint. Good, no more eyes. He looks back at his ephemeral artwork–a daily ant trail of the daylight shadows. The city once more conquered in some worn-out basketball shoes. Repeat.

Tick-tock. Goldfish sprinkled around his desk count the number of days left. Matt often skips volunteer work in this way to stare at the ceiling. Four minutes left until 5pm. A small hill of paper-airplanes sit between the desk and the wall. No, four and a couple seconds more to be exact. One hand inserts a cookie between his teeth, the other digs into the fragile stack, feeling around for something with more definite shape. Scrunch. The T.V. Remote.

–Triple trips to Florida. Why do people have the same pair of shoes for the same occasion?
–Yeah I found it. 12 hours. What about gas?

–Cashapp? No, Venmo.

He keeps a goldfish and a cookie in his mouth, and the muscles supporting his neck relax. His head hurls back freely, retreating into the comforts of his chair. Lifting the cookie only using his lower lip, he contorts his face and sniffs the outer layer. Matt never eats food properly; he treats it like his dog sniffs its own dog.

Kindness!

His tongue wraps around the goldfish, feeling the small bumps of salt. He bites his lip. His eyes don’t know where to–Focus, the goldfish is in front of you. They’ve been pulled too far out. Pain rushes to his cheeks. Without time to ease the pain nor any senses to affirm it, he feels its immediate taste–the Goldfish’s orange tang in his mouth and the salty aftertaste. Blood or Goldfish or cookie? Pain has no future but itself, pain is nothing but uncertainty, pain is–Sometimes pain pulls you away from your own weight, from the self-chosen pain. All that remains are its echoes–helping you find the real notes to play.

Back to life.

Under the covers, another ray of light enters the room from the right. Had I left the doors open? Shuffling around the entrance and perhaps placing their shoes in the shoe rack, they heed their march into my futon territory. Like an immobile stream wishing to wander, I spread my arms and close my eyes faking absence. After they decide to intrude foreign territory, another voice materializes from the left side of my room. Where were they now?

Josephine’s cherry Jordan’s stand out when they hit the dank, granule pavement. She hates the immutability of its thumping and beating flow through the streets. Sometimes beautiful, often sad. One day’s perpetual sequence of steps forgotten in spontaneity. Sad. Her automated body functions keep her from watching Kendal and Olivia and Emma and Sophia and Eva pass by. Sad. No cracks, a perfect circle: a bubble.

The designer and colored creases on her shoes had fallen off. She considered warranty, but Uncle Joey would tell her to buzzer off. The shoe is nothing: time and motion always eats away all the detail. She wants the orange juice. Her eyebrows lift off the edge of Joey’s art pedestal–why was he still here? Joey reaches for a damp paintbrush left on the floor. Guess he was skipping his four-o’clock doctor’s appointment. Slurp.

Their footsteps stop in front of my computer, and all light vanishes. Through my cotton blanket and the curtains, the darkness illuminates the last light, the moon, with greater luster. Surprised, I hadn’t even recognized the moon was alive. They call my name again, this time with a more distinct feminine tone, this time quickly and more loudly. Who is this voice so quiet and violent in her ear? Who could it be?

Look at Thomas–he’s dancing with the wind!

Still no vodka. 15% off only today. Face roller for your feet.

More laughter. His face slumps from its peak.

Middle school boys care more about their sneakers soles than their souls. Clank. Highschool boys care about trucks. Clunka. The time between each stride takes away sound and creates space for thought. Clunkaclack. The jingle between the sound and the absence of it blends into a melodic drum that feeds into her head. A tune to forget. Clunkaclack tap. Everything separates together and the absent melody stops. Then she starts dancing.

Take it easy, Hannah, it's okay.

The crows won’t come to get you, it's okay, Maria won’t hurt you.

Trevor on T.V. laughs. David on T.V. laughs even though he just did a minute ago. I don’t need goldfish anymore.

No one person can walk the same line at the same place. Matt likes walking in puddles because it shows his physical line where only he walks at that specific moment. Other people could trace his footsteps in exactly the same way, but not at the same time, or they would be the same person. Could they be? Inked footsteps have vigor and life, where the motion meets the shadow.

Why do we look up when there’s so much on the ground? You can spread your perception of the world outside your own comfort zone, and open your eyes to the incredible world that surrounds the bubble that you’ve grown to be content in. But time continues. Quickly shuffling through the barrier, bumping into others, time continues. It pulls you in, until you can’t come out. It huddles you to its peak, and then it suddenly dies. Crowning disaster in a pair with shoes.

Among the voices on the other side of the door, he detailed–then strayed–between the whimpers of sound his great-aunts make when they cry of sadness. And the silence of the recalcitrant men holding up their emotions. His father came back, then his grandmother. He felt the urge to reassure them that he was like everybody else, feeling grief like everybody else, but he felt nothing, there was no emotion. He shrugs it off. The atmosphere in the room grasped him so much, it almost felt like a form of pity. Isolation in emotion, isolation in the atmosphere. Still, tomorrow is Sunday, meaning there is school, he thought. He gently released himself from these differences and turned on the light. The darkness in the room merged with the sharp iPad light and I gently relieved the differences of the outside world. Time advances and the voices fade. There’s no way to reject it, no way to ever deny them.