Diner Girls: ff

Diner Girls

There was a Rahm, and a Leapt, or possibly a Lept. Boys with street bite and rubbish taste in pants. Full scratch, all of them; wiggling puppies, anyway, no matter their needle-sharp teeth. Push them down and run away; circling back on the track. Cigarette smoke from three years—

ago

Sculptures chewed into existence: this is the heart. Her smell is cheeseburgers, hot fries, buzzing diner lights at two a.m. I can close my eyes and place my palms on smooth counters, feeling for the grit of lost sugar. Eleven cups, two old men—

ago

All those boys, snapping at my heels. She impresses on first listen. Commands them to get lost, and so they do, Peter Panning into the cosmos. This pain is like no other; it's black and gamboling around my head. It's lonely and golden. It's drunk on her scent, swathed in big discoveries, pounding conversations into smoke. I barely recall the Aderall we took, her favorite unnecessary drug. Some things dissolve on the tongue, but this was a week

ago

and her feet are still propped in my lap. Rubbing them for her after long shifts makes her love me, makes us stop talking long enough to enjoy the smell of cold burgers on greasy yellow buns, sitting there, waiting for us to devour them. This was a second ago

and now

Swallows: microfic

Once upon a time, I wrote something for 101 Fiction. And then I went over by fifty-three thousand words. Just kidding. It was only a couple dozen. I liked it, though, and so here it is:


Swallows

A swallow beat its wings to cool the suffering Christ on the cross, and here, only two thousand years later, is that same swallow: winging its sharp-flighted way into Africa come October.

I left the City huddled in a wool coat and scarf, discarding them at the gate in Mombasa. I leave behind autumn in the park, and coffee shops, and charging stations. The official exchange rate: a piece of your soul. I leave my camera, too.

If it remembers me, the bird does not show it. I throw up my hands. The sun consumes my patrician nose, crisps my lips, and still the swallow ignores me. Here it is spring, and I fall to my knees, a phoenix waiting for rebirth. Before the ants have eaten me, perhaps, the bird will show me the same compassion it gave Christ. Until then, I am ever the betrayer, condemned like it to roam this earth, singular among its fellows.


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101 Fiction is open for submissions to the next issue; the themes are 'winter' and 'undead.' Please write something.