Category: fiction

Three weeks! 21 days in a row! I can’t believe I made it this far!

This one is from an old dream I wrote down in a journal.

I am a child… I am helping Father in the garage, and I reach for an electric saw above me on the work bench… I feel a tug at my right wrist, but no pain… the hand falls off in a short arc, tumbling to the ground…. Father does not speak, but Mother comes out and shakes her finger at me, “Terrence Othello Arthur, now look what you did!…I stood there looking down at it….

I woke with a start. The darklight that passed for day made eerie shadows amongst the trees. I reflexively reached for my right hand with my left, to reassure myself it was still there. It was numb, the circulation cut off from its position as I had slept. I sat up and twined my fingers together, then lifted both arms over my head and stretched back, shouting out a great yawn to clear my thoughts of that horrible dream. Its images remained, however.

I bind up my wrist to stop the blood flow, and I put the hand in the freezer to preserve it… I act as if I had not lost a hand at all… Mother seems amused at this; Father does not say a word to me, but when he and Mother go out of the room, I hear them arguing over it… I sit in my room, light streaming through gaps in the curtain, illuminating dust specks, and turn the cold dead hand over and over, trying to force it to stay in place against my wrist….

I shivered. This new-found power to travel between worlds by will alone still frightened me. When I had unusually vivid dreams, such as this one, I feared that I would awake to a world I had created in my sleep. It had never happened. But the power was new to me and I did not know it’s limits. Perhaps I would ask my traveling companion if it was possible. My right hand flexed and shook, working the blood back into it.

I sit to the right of Mother on the bench seat, barely able to see over the top of the dashboard… She had spoken to me in soothing tones, “Terrence, come along now, I’ve got errands to run”… I cradle my cold dead hand in my lap, longingly tracing its outlines… She had promised me a treat, later… I shout when I saw the doctor’s office, and put up a fuss; I beg and plead and demand for her not to take me to the doctor, that I am fine, that nothing has happened. I strap the hand to my arm like a bayonet on a gun, and pull my coat sleeve down over it… Tears in her eyes, she acquiesces to my ultimatum, and drives the car out of the parking lot, and back to home we go….

We had searched for the girl for hours, I and the boy. The sun had stayed in the same position high in the sky, spoiling my sense of time. We searched up and down the beach, and along the jungle’s edge. But the boy warned me not to go into the jungle. He wouldn’t explain why. All he would do is implore me to search for the girl, that we could not give up. He wouldn’t explain that, either.

Later, several of the other men and women of the group had joined us. I had us form a line, each in sight of at least two others, and we combed up and down the beach and into the jungle. I had read of searching techniques the military used, but I had no experience of it, so I blamed my failure on my lack of knowledge.

My companion played in the sea with several of the beauties of the group the entire time. When night fell, he and they retired to sleep amongst the rocks near the edge of the jungle, making beds of the large leaves from the almost-palm trees.

When night had fallen, it had done so by simply getting dark – or rather, darker. The light had drained from around me, and the sun above had faded to be replaced by multicolored stars gauzy strands across the sky. By that point, I had been awake for 12 hours or more. At least by my watch.

The boy found a simple meal of nuts and fruits, which I hungrily devoured. He and I ate; the rest did not. Had they eaten before? I could not recall. My mind was too dimmed by the frantic activity of the search. Later, the boy had curled up beside me and was swiftly asleep. I had yawned once, then leaned back against the warm sand, then had drifted off to sleep.

And now, as I sat awakened by my strange dream, I watched their peaceful faces as they slumbered. Gentle folk, fun-loving, living in a bizarre paradise… with a devil among them.

I brooded in the dark, remembering the warm reds and orange colors of a room with a fireplace as the only light. The area we were searching in was too dark, too large, and too strange for me to find this girl. And what did my young friend mean when he had said she had the smell of fear? As if it was fear that would kill her. He had spoken like it was a tangible thing, not a metaphor. These people did not seem the type to employ complicated metaphors, at any rate. The others did not think it odd that she had run away. Yes, they had searched for her, but they had done so because I had asked, not because they were concerned for her. All except the boy.

My companion slept also, tired out by physical activity of a more selfish nature. I glared at him; he had his head rested on the (green) belly of one girl, his hands resting on the (green) breast of another; their arms encircled him, their legs intertwined with his.

I stood. Directly overhead, there was a hole in the night sky where the sun had been during the day. It was almost as if the darkness poured from there, the way the light had come from it earlier. I could see it through a break in the jungle canopy. I began to walk down to the sea, unable to sleep. I angled towards a small rocky area, filled with tide pools and strange ocean creatures trapped there.

As I approached, I heard sobbing, and a wet flopping sound. I continued towards the sound, unafraid of anything I might find on this lonely beach. I crossed the tidal pool area and reached the far edge; there was a drop off below me of several feet. Laying in the sand was a sea-creature, the size of a medium car, its striped skin rubbery and smooth, fins sticking out and flapping against the wet sand. It had obviously beached itself. Its mouth was wide and round, and wide open. Half-emerged from its mouth was the girl. She was still, and I thought for a moment she was dead, but then she cried out and turned over onto her back, flinging her arms against the sand. Her face was contorted in fear, her eyes pouring out a high tide of tears, nearly drowning her simple beauty.

I jumped down alongside her, and brushed her hair from her face. “Quiet now… it’s all right. You’re safe. We’ve been looking for you….” She was conscious but she did not move. The creature rocked from side to side. I thought it might break her legs, still in the creatures mouth, in its movements. It looked at me, and snorted, but it was too strange for me to interpret that. Finally I grabbed ahold of her underneath each arm, and pulled her free. I blushed when my hand brushed her breast.

When she was out of the thing, I set her down. She sobbed once more and flung herself onto her stomach, covering her face with her arms. Her hair, wet and full of sand, stuck to her (green) back.

I touched her back, then stroked it. I ran the tips of my fingers softly along her neck. She felt cold. “Come on now, let’s get up… are you all right?” It seemed an odd thing to ask at the moment, and I laughed. A short bitter bark.

“Why did you save me?” She turned her head towards me. I smiled, and tried to think of a jaunty answer. She did not look at me, but stared down the beach, a million miles away. I stroked her cheek with the back of my hand. Softly, she closed her eyes and pushed up against my hand. Tears still flowed from under her closed lids.

On a sudden impulse I leaned down and kissed her. She did not move at first. I cradled her head in both hands and gently led her into a sitting position. I kissed her again. The ocean crashed on the rocks and beach.

After a moment, she kissed me back.

Sitting on the big overstuffed couch, reading the Sunday comics… I reach back and tap the cold meat of my hand (no, no longer my hand, but simply a hand, the dead hand) to remind myself it was still there… I dislodge it and it falls behind the couch, to land with a thump… I panic and pull the couch away from the wall; the hand lies palm up amongst the dust-bunnies… I pick it up and it seems flaccid and lukewarm… I wash it in the kitchen sink, but the flesh falls away, revealing the bones underneath… I cry, long and loud, and Mother comes in the room and watches me, without reaching for me, an indulgent look on her face… I cry for the loss of my hand.

When I awoke for the second time that day, her body lay beside me. But she was quite dead.

Another story started via a prompt from Random First Line Generator.

As soon as he walked in, he felt the tension dissipate; his shoulders slumped, his jaw unclenched, his fists for punching became hands for holding. He relaxed. Home free, Oliver thought. Home.

Despite the light outside, with the curtains down the apartment was dark. He walked down the entry hallway, pausing to put his keys in the bowl on the table by the door, and to hang up his coat on the wooden rack mounted on the wall. Simple actions he had been unable to do for months now.

The living room, even in the dark, gave a feeling of comfort. Not spotless, but not a complete mess. A couple of scraps of paper and a pile of magazines on the coffee table – oh, and a mug containing a trace of curdled cream and coffee. A sweater tossed over the back of a chair. Some crumpled receipts in the corner of the couch. A lived-in look.

As he walked through the familiar room, his shoe crunched on something as he felt a breeze from the window: a glint of glass shards on the carpet, the sound of sudden traffic outside penetrating the quiet.

The window had been broken in his absence. His tension returned.

“Welcome home, Ollie,” she said from the hallway.

“Klara.”

“Why are you wandering around in the dark?”

Burst of light. He threw his hands up to his eyes, turned sideways to present a smaller profile, crouched.

“So dramatic. I take it you weren’t expecting company?” Klara hadn’t moved, her hand still on the wall switch.

“What do you want?”

“Just a friendly visit.”

He waved at the window. “Then why break in?”

She jangled a little keychain of tools. “I didn’t break the window. Believe it or not.”

Oliver sighed, straightened up, sat down on the couch. “No. I know you too well, I guess.”

“Good.” She stepped up and sat, in front of him, on the coffee table. “You’ve been gone too long. We’ve lost track of you. But we knew you’d come back here eventually.” She looked around. “Too many memories can be a weakness.”

He glanced at a side table, a picture in a frame: him and another man, younger than him, laughing, in dark tailored suits. On the wall behind Klara, another framed picture: he and Klara and the younger man, in a booth, drinks in front of them, the other man’s eyes red from the camera’s flash, probably.

“If you say so,” he said. “Is this where you try to convince me to come back?”

“No.” To his reaction, she continued. “Again, believe it or not.” She reached into a pocket and pulled out a simple white envelope. Printed in neat elegant handwriting, the words

Please, Ollie

Oliver’s forehead beaded with sudden sweat. He did not move.

“He wanted you to have this.” Pause. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

“Do I have to?” But he reached for it.

She said, softly. “I’m so sorry. He was my friend, too.” She stood. “Do you want to be alone?”

“Always. Seems I can’t, though.” Oliver held the envelope in both hands, laid across his lap, the words facing him. He turned it over; a seal of melted wax, an archaic symbol pressed into it. The paper felt heavy, the color a soft cream. He looked up at Klara, who now stood on the far side of the room at the entry hallway. She was still but she was facing him, arms clasped in front of her.

“We all have these. I gave mine to him. I’ve always wondered who had yours? Tell me. Please? I get the feeling this is the last time I’ll ever see you, especially after I open this.”

Where before she had been smooth and serene, now the facade cracked slightly. She shifted on her feet. Her hands became fists. Her shoulders tightened and rose just slightly. “It.” she began. A pause. “It would do you no good to know that. These aren’t meant to be discussed. They don’t want us to.”

“Their wishes didn’t always bind us, though.” He pried a finger under the envelopes’ flap, and began tearing. “I don’t give a fuck if you stay or not. He’s gone. I’m still here. You’re still here. It means nothing, because the world is still here, too.”

Klara slipped onto the couch, on the far end from Oliver, one leg folded underneath her, in one smooth motion. Her eyes focused directly on the envelope now in his hands. The light in the living room that had seemed punishing, now seemed to surround them with a warmth. In a sudden motion he ripped through the top of the envelope and pulled out the sheets within.

Unfolded, the page showed, in the same handwriting as on the envelope, the simple words:

I am still alive. PLAN EPSILON

Oliver coolly glanced up over the top of the page and looked directly at her. He allowed a tiny glint of a tear drop to fill his eye and then spill out and down his cheek. He said, “He always loved you. If I’d been there, I know his last thoughts would have been of you.”

“They were.”

The shot was deafening in the small apartment but even at such close range it missed him. Klara rolled to her right, over the coffee table, and sprang for the bedroom hallway. Oliver had rolled that way, too, however, and then with a leap, he managed to grab her leg and pull her down. They wrestled violently, punching and kicking, until finally she had the upper hand, pinning him easily.

“If you go for the gun again, I’m going to get free,” he said. “It’s a standoff.”

She smirked. “That bastard. How did he know?”

“You mean you didn’t read the letter beforehand?” Oliver showed genuine surprise.

“No. Of course not. They don’t want us to.” Cocked her head. “Wait. What did it say?”

From the bedroom came Chad’s voice. “I’ll never tell.” He stepped out into the room, limping, battered but still standing.

She laughed. “Fuck me for following orders. God dammit. Fine. You two win.” She stood up.

Facing each other, no obvious weapons in sight, but clearly on alert, they stood.

“What happens now?” Chad said.

They all laughed. The tension once again faded from the room.

Tonight’s story is brought to you by the Random First Line Generator.

There was nothing left of the money, except for a hundred dollars in twenties, tens and ones, in the wallet in Alesia’s purse. It had been a great run. A year of living like the 0.01%; no worries, being able to travel anywhere, do anything, buy (or rent) anything or anyone.

Unburdened by the cares of those who have to earn their money as they need it, she had found it easy to connect to others, and just as easy to disconnect. Across the globe, the people she’d befriended, seduced, been seduced by. A tryst with the concierge in a posh New York hotel on her first night as an elite, ending when she flew away from him to Bermuda on a whim. A fling in Morroco with two students in a hostel. A long two week chaste romance in Sydney with a thin girl, only to break her heart when the girl had wanted her to meet her parents. Being swept off her feet during a parade in Oslo by a bearded bear of a man older than her father, who accused her of many hurtful things and drove her away after only a few days.

There were more, but, strangely, Alesia couldn’t remember their names. They were cities and emotions to her, fleeting memories of the year past. Like the cars she had driven, or the private planes she had flown in from… somewhere, to somewhere else. She had really lived it, every moment, but now she had nothing but memories, and barely enough money to pay for another couple of nights in this cheap motel.

She was in Las Vegas, where it had all began, but not in nearly the same circumstances. She looked around at the tiny room, that smelled of cigarette smoke despite being a non-smoking room, and heard the roar of jet airliners from McCarran International Airport even over the rattling air conditioner unit. She sat on the bed above the covers, and wondered what seedy things had been done in this room.

She tried to remember how she had gotten the card, the shiny ebony card with no markings that nonetheless had been her all access pass to the entire world. Did someone give it to her, a year ago, when she had been staying in a nicer (but not elite) room at the black pyramid on the Strip? Had she woken up with it that morning? Did someone leave it on a table when she wandered down to the buffet, hungover and happy, for her to find? Did she win it in some game of chance or bar bet?

Why couldn’t she remember?

It’s good that she had known enough to get some cash as the year wound to a close, but what was she going to do now? She’d left behind her life in an instant. The friend of a friend who had been getting married, 12 months ago, is probably living his life; her friends back home had probably given up looking for her, must think she’s dead. What little family she had barely cared she existed before. Alesia had had so few strings already, it had been easy to run away from it all.

And so, so worth it. Every moment had been supercharged, excited to a higher state of being.

She got up, put on her shoes, made sure she had her passport and purse. The ridiculously expensive gold iPhone appeared to be dead; it didn’t hold a charge as of midnight last night, wouldn’t power on. It felt inert in her hands. She tossed it on the bed. Maybe it would be of use to someone.

Her luggage, all bespoke and handcrafted by artisans, had been gone when she’d woken up today. All she had left was the passport, and the clothes she was wearing, the purse, and a small stack of money tucked into the purse.

Outside, the desert air blasted her even in the middle of the night. Looking over the wrought iron railing she could see, of course, of course, that the Mercedes SUV she had driven for the last several days was not in the spot she’d left it. Gone. All gone.

Alesia walked across the parking lot, and into the night. She would have to find a way to call someone, anyone, reconnect. What would she tell them, though?

Eight hours later, Victoria pushed her cart up to the door Alesia had abandoned. Not seeing a “Do Not Disturb” sign, she knocked, loudly.

“Housekeeping!”

A pause. Another knock. Another shout.

She entered the room and began her cleaning in the bathroom, moving efficiently towards the front of the room, as she had done dozens of times before.

When she stripped the covers off the bed, something small and lightweight, and a deep ebony, flew off, bounced off the mirror, and landed on the small desk, startling her. Victoria walked over to it. It looked like a credit card, but had some weight to it, and had no markings at all.

She poked at it, and when she touched it, she knew. She knew things could be different, starting right now.

The taxi dropped him off but didn’t stick around.

After Blaine provided his bona fides to the man in the booth, he had to fill out the paperwork, balancing the clipboard on his knee as he sat in a folding chair under gray skies, on a dreary Tuesday evening. Once he had that filled out, he signed a release form, and the man got out of his booth, putting up a “BE BACK IN 10 MINUTES” sign, and led Blaine across the gravel to the chain-link fenced area full of cars of all types. The man swiped a white plastic card on a battered black box; a red light turned green and a sharp click indicated the fence was unlocked.

“Thanks, man. This must be a boring job, huh?” Blaine tried some small talk. He felt overdressed in his navy suit and tie. His dress shoes crunched especially loud on the gravel.

“You might not know this,” the man said, “but I’m an officer of the law.” The man was wearing a polo shirt, jeans, and running shoes, but when he lifted the hem of his untucked shirt, he showed a badge hanging from his belt.

“Oh. Oh, I didn’t. I mean, I know this is a police impound lot, but.” Blaine stammered.

“Technically you should be calling me Officer.” The man stepped through the gate. Not looking back, he said, “I had to go to Police Academy, too. Had to pass DPSST Certfication and everything.”

“Geeze, I’m sorry, man, I mean, Officer. It’s been a long day, long week, even. Had my car stolen, had to take the bus for, like, three days… I don’t know what DPTS or whatever is. I didn’t mean any disrespect. I mean, ha, ha, you’re not carrying a gun or anything…”

The man stopped and turned around. “They took my gun away when I killed that kid.”

Blaine’s mouth moved but no sound came out.

“Sorry. Little joke.” The officer turned around, began walking again. “This is probably the most boring police job in the city. Here’s your car.”

The silver Chevrolet parked there was in bad shape. Covered in dirt and mud, with a crack in the windshield, and scratches and dents in the hood. One hubcap was missing that Blaine could see, and the driver’s side window was shattered entirely. He walked around, and found that the trunk had been forcibly opened and then tied shut with several white plastic zip ties.

“Oh, my… This is how they found it?” Blaine saw that the seats were filthy and he hoped it was just mud. There were fast food wrappers on nearly every surface inside, including in the driver’s seat, where they had been apparently compacted into a mosaic of waxed and foil-lined paper of various shades of red, white, and gold.

“Yup.” The man walked away.

“Wait, wait, this is it? I just get in and drive away? What about my car?”

“We’re done. That’s your car. Your insurance will probably cover everything. You’ve got insurance, right?”

“Of course I do, but. OK. Right. It’s… it’s safe to drive now, right?”

“As far as I know. I’ll hold the gate for you.”

Blaine opened the driver’s door, which creaked alarmingly, and caused little bits of safety glass to tumble out. He grabbed handfuls of the trash on the seat and pulled it out, ready to drop it to the ground, made eye contact with the man, whose name he still did not know, and then tossed the trash into the backseat. There was a sweet but musty odor in the car; he dutifully ignored it. The engine started, but he immediately noticed it was nearly out of gas.

“Of course,” he said. On his way out, he asked the man for the nearest gas station, the man just shrugged.

“We got gas here but I can’t let you use it. It belongs to the department.” The man waved Blaine on.

The gas station attendant gave Blaine some serious side-eye, prompting Blaine to stammer out “It was stolen. They gave it back to me like this. Can you imagine?” which softened the gas station attendant’s skepticism.

“That’s some shitty good luck,” she said, as Blaine handed her his debit card.

“Right?”

With the window broken and the windshield cracked, he didn’t want to risk running it through a car wash, so he drove it straight home, parking in the driveway. Changing into shorts and a t-shirt, with the October light fading to nighttime but the temperature still in the 70s, he brought some garbage bags out to collect all the trash.

In the passenger footwell he found some used needles.

The only gloves he could find were his wife’s gardening gloves, which barely fit, so he found some zipper lock plastic bags to handle the needles with. He drained a bottle of beer, after scrubbing his hands until they were red under hot soapy water, and put the baggie of needles in the bottle, and then tossed the bottle into the trash bag.

He was taping a plastic bag over the driver’s side window when his wife walked up, having taken the bus to work herself.

“Looks good. I’m so glad we got it in the two tone: brown and silver,” she said.

“Jesus, would you look at it? And the cops think this is OK? I’d almost rather not have gotten it back at all! You wouldn’t believe what I found in there! When they stole it they must have had some kind of party. It’s tainted, Yvonne. This car will never be the same.”

“You’re stressed out. It’s been a tough week. Have you called our insurance guy yet?”

“No. I have not called the insurance guy yet. I’m still adjusting to this.” He sighed. “It’s late. I’ll call them in the morning.”

“What the Hell did they do to the trunk?”

“It’s zip tied shut, apparently. They drilled holes in it.” Blaine opened the garage door and when he emerged he had a pair of diagonal cutters. Snip, snip, snip.

“Are you sure you should do that? How are you going to keep it closed?” Yvonne asked.

The trunk lid popped open. More trash filled the trunk, almost overflowing.

“It’s almost like they were hiding something,” Blaine said. He began stuffing the trash into his garbage bag. Suddenly he stopped.

“What?”

“There’s something in here. Something solid.” He frantically scooped the remaining trash out onto the driveway, and uncovered a soft, plastic wrapped yellowish brick about the size of a milk crate.

“That’s heroin. It’s got to be. What the Hell is a giant brick of heroin doing in the trunk? Didn’t you get it back from the police?”

Minutes later, with the car safely in the garage, Blaine sat on a stool in his kitchen, on the phone to the police non-emergency line.

“Hi. So, my car was stolen, and it was recovered, and I picked it up, but, well, the thieves have left some things in the car. Yes. Well, funny thing. Mostly trash, and some bio hazard needles and things, and… I don’t really know how to say this, because it kinda feels incriminating, but… Yes. I’ll hold.”

Yvonne handed him a beer and she drank from one herself. “This is insane. Maybe you should call a lawyer first? Do we have a lawyer?”

“We have a lawyer. Wait. I have a lawyer. From my first marriage. But that’s a different special – Yes, I’m still here. I’m trying to report that there’s something in my car. My stolen car. No, no, no, I’ve got it back. Yes, the police, your department. Listen, this is super complicated but it doesn’t really have to be. I just have a question. What should I do with something that the thieves who stole my car left in – Yes. I’ll hold.”

Yvonne leaned against the center island. “Blaine. Are you on hold?”

“Yes, goddammit, I’m on hold. What?”

She smiled, her brown eyes lighting up under her brunette curls. “What do you think that brick is worth?”

“Jesus, Yvonne!” Blaine whispered to her, covering his entire phone with both hands. “I’m on the phone to the police right now!”

“I’m just saying. It’s got to be worth a lot. It’s, what, 10 pounds. 20 pounds?”

He waved his finger at her and listened to the phone again, turning away from her, hunching over. “Yes, I’m here. Look, this is simple. This may be a crime but I’m not confessing. Whoever stole my car left a substantial amount of drugs in the car. I don’t want it. Can I return it to the police department? Is there some kind of, of, drug impound, like there was a car impound? Surely this happens from time to – Yes. I’ll hold.” Blaine was softly but firmly pounding his fist on the counter, expressing his frustration, but his voice was affectless and calm.

Meanwhile, Yvonne had been typing things on her own phone. She looked up. “There’s a lot of variation in the results, and the latest information I can get is from 6 years ago, but heroin is, was at that time, I mean, at least $80-100 a gram. How many grams in a pound, Blaine? A lot, right?” She was whispering, too, but she was talking quickly, while still typing out searches on her phone with her thumbs.

“I’m here, officer, I’m here – Oh, sorry, ma’am, I just assumed. I met the guy at the impound lot and he was kinda pissy about it. I mean, I’m sorry, I’m proud of our police and all they do, but can I just find out where I can take this package I found in my trunk? Uh huh. Yes. OK. Really? Really? I… I guess. OK, then. Thank you. You, too.” He tapped Disconnect.

“If that’s 20 pounds, then we could be looking at almost a million dollars of heroin, Blaine. And it just fell in our lap.” She walked around the island, took his chin in her hand, and looked him dead in the eye. “And you just told the police that we have it. Why the fuck did you do that, Blaine?”

Blaine’s face was pale, but his voice was soft. “It doesn’t matter. They don’t want it. She said it was too big of a hassle. They don’t want it, Yvonne. I think I was just talking to some receptionist or something, because she, she brushed me off. That was a brush off. She didn’t want to bother a superior, and she never got my name or anything, and she told me to just destroy it myself.

“They don’t want it. It’s ours. Our problem, as she said.” Blaine sighed. “Can… can we just dump it somewhere? Would that be illegal?”

They sat and looked at each other for a long moment.

“Well,” Blaine said, “we are going to need some money to get the car fixed up…”

“A warm mid-summer night in the Emerald City and we’re off to see the wizard,” Raul said.

“I’ve never understood why Seattle got that nickname and not Portland,” Terrence said. “Or which one was the Rose City first: Portland or Pasadena.”

“City nicknames are clearly unregulated,” Raul agreed.

The two men were approaching a square, cinder block building in Seattle, within view of the Space Needle, under sodium amber streetlights. The building, or at least the wall facing the sidewalk on which they stood, was painted with a large green crocodile but otherwise doorless and windowless.

Milling, listless people roamed only generally in the direction of around the far corner. Some of the crowd were smoking, some were holding a drink, some were talking to each other, a few doing all those. It wasn’t a tight-knit crowd Raul and Terrence approached. They were bored, apathetic, cool. They didn’t shout or speak forcefully, their hand gestures were lazy and slow. And they were mostly young, though not all.

Raul, on the other hand, was energetic and smiling, moving quickly enough that his friend had to push to keep up. “Is this the right night? I can’t believe these folks are here to see the same band we are,” he said.

“It’s probably a bigger deal for you because we drove 4 hours to get here,” Terrence said. “And this is the last night they’re playing, in, like, ever.”

“Don’t remind me! I’m just glad I get to see them one last time before they end it all.”

Terrence laughed. “They’re not committing suicide. When did you see them last?”

“Can’t believe you’d ask me that,” Raul said.

“…Oh. Was it…?”

“With… yeah.”

They’d arrived near the door, where a nebulous line of people hovered, some facing the doorman, others talking amongst themselves. Raul craned his neck then looked at his friend, helplessly.

“Excuse me, is this the line to get in?” Terrence asked some random woman.

She blew smoke from one side of her mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Do you know if the main act has gone on yet?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. There was music before.”

Raul rolled his eyes.

The men handed their tickets, printed at home a week ago, to the bouncer, who scanned it and waved them inside. Raul rushed past into a hallway that sharply bent right, right past a man sitting on a tall barstool next to a podium, holding out a rubber stamp, shouting. Terrence, right behind him, tried to get his friend’s attention in the noisy venue interior, but the pre-show music drowned him out.

The stage was back in the corner to their left, the bar against the far wall to their right. The whole room was maybe 40 or 50 feet square, bathed in dim red light. There were two or three booths and tables along the closest wall, but other than that no tables at all; the floor in front of the stage was open and filled with more, milling, mumbling people, the crowd thickening in the direction of the bar.

Raul gasped. His body tensed. The ambient noise seemed to fade away.

20 feet away, among the throng near the bar, but facing half towards the stage: red hair, a few inches shorter than him, the woman had a distinct profile, hooded sultry eyes, a specific demeanor, a tense but expectant attitude.

“They need to stamp your hand!” Terrence bellowed directly into Raul’s ear, breaking his trance.

“What the fuck?”

“Don’t get us kicked out!” Terrence grabbed the other man’s shoulders and pointed him back towards the man on the stool.

“Fine, fine, OK.”

It was Terrence’s turn to scan the crowd, although his attention was on the farthest corner and the sound equipment, and the stage. When Raul returned to him, he said, “This seems like a bad room for acoustics.”

People were on the stage, moving things into position. The crowd noise muted slightly, an anticipation suddenly taking hold. “What do you want to drink?”

“Terrence. I saw someone, just now. I…”

“Drink, motherfucker. Do you want one?” Terrence pointed towards the bar. “I’m buying.”

“Beer me. I’ll be there, closer to the stage.”

Raul moved through the crowd, ill at ease and shaken. He tried not to look at every face, every woman’s face, he passed by.

The band they’d all been waiting to see bounced up onto the stage. Raul was surprised at how tall the lead singer was, how curly his hair was for a white guy, how confident he looked. The rest of the band seemed composed and controlled, practiced, smooth.

“Looks like we got here just in time! Anymore traffic and we’d have missed the opening song!” Terrence once again made his friend jump by shouting into Raul’s ear. Handed him a bottle. “Sorry, that’s all they had. Cheers! We made it!”

“Did we?” But Raul’s voice didn’t carry farther than his own head, as the lead singer suddenly shouted greetings and thanks over the speakers, and the crowd, all at once, was energized in unison. The band laid into the frenetic opening riffs of a deep cut from their second album and the people bounced and shimmied in time.

The first several songs were hard and fast, the lyrics were clever and convoluted, the tone ironic and sincere at the same time. The band were on their A game, and they controlled the crowd with panache. The energy in the room filled the fans up with the power of song.

Alone in the crowd, Raul kept looking around, half present, half wondering. Was she here? Did he imagine her? They’d been on and off again for so long, and had been out of touch for months now, after the final breakup, the one that left the deepest scars.

As the band moved from song to song, they reached a point where they wanted to slow things down. They pulled out a song a bit more contemplative, less driving and more brooding, and as before, the crowd reacted, swaying instead of bouncing or dancing, their upturned faces now lit by the brighter white light picking out the tall, curly haired lead singer, who crooned into the microphone.

And in the light spilling off the band, casting a silver one-sided glow on those watching, near the stage, Raul saw her, again.

She was facing the stage, arms wrapped around her as if in a hug, but somehow seeming separate from the crowd, as Raul felt. She was swaying. She was in quarter profile, oddly, instead of facing directly toward the band, considering she was almost directly in line from Raul to the lead singer.

She had a soft smile on her face, a dream-like cast to her eyes.

Raul stepped forward.

The crowd suddenly resisted his advance, closing like a curtain between her and him.

And just like that, the song was over.

“Hang tight, boys and girls! Just give us a minute to get a drink. We shall return for another set!” The singer shouted, drenched in effort. The spot light shut off; the room went dim red again, then suddenly the house lights went up. The spell broken, the crowd became restless again.

“Wow, that was incredible! Such a great set!” Terrence was laughing, powered up by the music. “You OK?”

“Seeing them was our first date,” Raul said.

“Dude, we’ve been friends forever but I’m not putting out tonight,” Terrence laughed.

“No. No! I mean…” He scanned the crowd. Had he imagined her? “Nevermind.” He clinked his bottle with his friends’, chugged the remaining drink. “Let’s get another beer.”

It was 10 blocks from his girlfriend’s house to the bus stop, and he didn’t want her to have to walk all that way, at night, after he’d gotten on the bus to his own neighborhood, so he and she walked downstairs, quietly, and he put on his coat, and said goodnight.

But of course he didn’t want to go, and so he lingered, and they kissed and whispered at the door, hoping that her mom didn’t hear, or, if she did, that she didn’t care enough to wake up and interrupt or embarrass them. And so the minutes passed; his easy, plenty-of-time walk quickly became a more difficult, walking-fast-I-should-be-OK walk, and she had enough presence of mind to push him out the door before it turned into a must-run-the-entire-way run, or, even worse, a have-to-walk-all-the-way-home walk.

Her house was one side of a duplex, set oddly angled on a patch of grass at the end of the road; beyond it was only a railroad track, and then a yachting club, and finally the river. But he was going the other direction, past houses both small and large, affordable and overpriced, under low hanging tree branches and past giant hedgerows.

There was a black and gray cat he nearly always saw when he walked to and from the bus stop to her house, and tonight was no exception. The cat gave him an almost bored look, and got up off his haunches to slowly walk towards him, but he whispered, “I’m in a hurry tonight, cat, some other time,” and he kept up his fast pace.

He wasn’t in the best of shape, the boy, and he started to feel a cramp in his calves, but he kept going. Once per block, he’d pull out his phone and pull up the bus app to see how much time he had. He didn’t have much but he should make it.

Four blocks from her, he nearly tripped on a piece of sidewalk that had been uprooted by a growing tree, hidden in the dark under that same tree’s canopy. His eyes hadn’t had time to adapt. He tumbled. When he got up, his palm had a dark sticky smear on it, black in the dim night, and it stung. He wiped it on his jeans and kept going.

In the very next block, his phone chirped, and it was loud. Carefully pulling it out with his injured hand, he read

luv U – A

He chuckled because she didn’t have to sign it. But she did, and he adored that. He tapped out

Love you, too. Not there yet. – B

and felt a smugness at his software-assisted punctuation and capitalization.

7 blocks and he had to cross a busier street, but it was late, and there were no cars, and he ran. He began to scan ahead the remaining blocks to watch for the bus driving by, or hear the distinctive roar and squeak of the coach. Sometimes the bus would be early, and the driver would go into the convenience store next to the stop. The shop let the drivers use their bathroom, and he’d seen a driver once who had picked up some beer, in a plain brown paper bag, and tucked it behind her seat.

He hoped the bus was early tonight.

He ran flat out the last two blocks, his sneakers slapping against the concrete, his arms jangly and awkwardly pumping, his coat flying behind him. But when he got to the stop and looked down the street, he couldn’t see the bus. He looked the other direction, in case he’d missed it and it had gone past, but it wasn’t there, either.

A car drove past on the other side of the street, its tires hissing on the damp asphalt.

The light around him went suddenly dark; the convenience store had gone dark, startling him.

This stop had no seat or bench. He sat on the curb.

His phone chirped again.

On bus? – A

He tapped back,

No. I’m at the stop. No bus. Hope I di

and he was startled again by the sudden halogen glow and roar of the giant coach rumbling past. He stood up, waving his phone’s screen in the air, his only light, and yelled. Out of breath, hand still stinging, he ran after the bus, making as much noise as a quiet chubby boy can make when running, a hoarse cry for help.

Red brake lights. The rattle of the bus stopping. The hydraulic hiss of the door opening.

He stepped up, unable to speak, out of oxygen, fumbling for his fare.

“Didn’t see you in the dark. With your dark clothes. Almost didn’t stop,” she said, the driver who’d bought the beer before, an older blonde woman with a stoic smile but kind eyes.

“Thank you.”

She waved off his attempt to pay. “Call us even.”

He took a seat right by the door, and rode home.

Inspired by reality but this is entirely fictional, as far as I can tell. Another short one, I hope.

He opened the video store for the last time on a Thursday afternoon.

Not a Friday, not a Sunday, not a Monday. It was because he had announced that the store would be closing at the end of the month, because that’s how the bills came in, and the last day of the month was a Thursday.

In retrospect it seemed off-kilter to him, but once he’d announced it, and posted the giant “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE” and notified the landlord and talked to the phone company and the internet company and the electric company, it seemed like such work to change it to a Friday or stay open through that weekend that he decided not to.

He had a wife at home, taking care of their child, and he had spent the final month feeling torn in two. He’d had the video store since he was a bachelor, and it felt like his first love. The shelves packed with hand-selected titles, DVDs of movies that were hard to find elsewhere, jammed in with a lot of more common stuff. Most customers had wanted the new releases, but every once in a while, he’d get a customer looking for something obscure, and he had taken a lot of pride in being able to show that he got it.

But then, running the store after the first year, when he’d finally built up a reputation and a regular clientele, his new confidence had attracted the woman who was now his wife, and their courtship had been the catalyst to him finally hiring a second employee, and then another one when they’d wanted to plan and carry off a nice wedding.

His personal life had blended with his professional life in the sweetest way possible.

But as time had gone on, his sales had dropped. Customers were avoiding mentioning the N word around him. Netflix. Netflix had first threatened him by offering simple home delivery of DVDs, from a much larger selection, and then had dipped into streaming over the internet. Customers didn’t have to leave home for those obscure titles. He’d gotten some diehards to stay around. But he couldn’t keep the lights on on a handful of customers once or twice a month.

So it had come to this. The final month, and the final day, and now the final hours. He’d seen a few customers come in to return their last, guilty rentals. Some had even been able to look him in the eye, stay and chat. He tried to be positive and welcoming. He still lived in the neighborhood, he still saw his customers when he went to the grocery store or got coffee or went out to dinner. Even after he closed this store he wanted to be friends, or at least friendly, with these folk.

With two hours left until his closing time, the store as empty as it had been on his first night, he put in a movie to pass the time: The Empire Strikes Back. It was the Special Edition, with windows at Cloud City, but it was still a great film, the one George Lucas had altered the least of the original trilogy. It distracted him from the empty aisles, but as the ending wound to its conclusion, he realized too late that it was not a conclusion at all, but a cliffhanger, and that made him sad.

When midnight rolled around, he had already counted up the till and gotten his final deposit ready. $6.00 total income. Three rentals. At least it wasn’t the slowest night this week.

He tucked the cash bag under his arm, made sure he shut down the computer, and turned out the lights. In the dark, he walked to the front door, and moved the basket so that it would be under the return slot when he closed the door.

Then he walked home. It was a warm, late summer night. He almost wished it was raining.

The next morning the baby woke him up. He offered to check the diaper and feed her. He let his wife keep sleeping.