Micro-Fiction Roundup VIII: Dealing With The Aftermath
Published: July 06, 2009
Did you have a good fourth? Yeah? Do a little celebrating did you? Mm-hmm?
If you’ve ever hosted a party, you know how daunting the task of party clean up can be. Vomit. Urine. Empties. Bodies. Blood. Amniotic fluid. Used comdoms decorating your flora. Sticky substances decorating your fauna.
Ah. Good times.
Our theme this week need not be about a literal party. It could be about any kind of aftermath where you’ve had to pick up the pieces.
For an example, here is last week’s winner, Mediahohoho’s Another Go Slow
Another “go slow” on the pot-holed streets of Lagos. If I wanted to see her on the day I left town–the day Lufthansa could finally fly me out of this sinkhole on the edge of the jungle–I had to ride with her. Ibrahim, his bemused air of embarrassed indifference emanating shame on my behalf, stared straight ahead as I hopped out of the car near a traffic light, as I hugged her brittle shoulders, as she dove back into the backseat. I walked to the gym where I’d spent every morning since she told me she wanted a divorce.
Difficult fallout to deal with indeed.
Rules!:
101 words or less; if you chose to title your piece the title will not be counted towards your 101 words; there’s no limit on submissions.
This week’s deadline will be Friday night at Midnight. Mediahohoho, having won the last contest, will be the one deciding the winners, so send your bribes that way. Mediahohoho? Once you’ve selected the winner and any amount of runners up you wish either draft your own post and submit it, or send me a PM through the glorious and magical PMing machine with the winners, or send me an email at samuraipandapoetry (at) yahoo (dot) com.
Since I will be sans internet for the next week, and I’m posting this from the past, here’s my entry:
Happy Belated Birthday
Bottles, cans, broken glass, shattered windows. An abandoned goat grazing on the front lawn. I, plastic trash bag in hand, start considering the other way out, another use for the draw string ties.
A body draped over the sofa stirs. The young man is wearing aviator glasses, his eyes hidden. He’s looking my direction. A moment passes. He speaks. “Wake and bake. You holdin’?”
I nod my head and throw my thumb towards the door. The young man stands and stumbles toward the door. “Tell your daughter happy birthday,” he says, dragging a sweet sixteen banner caught on his shoe.
Image via Elektroschutz in 132 Bildern
Vocabulary for Dummies
She says he’s too young to understand, that it won’t mean anything–and it’s true, some of it won’t. Most of the words will get lost in a mind that is already cluttered with thoughts of Ernie’s cookies and Dora’s adventures. Most of the words are still unpronounceable for a tongue that’s still trying to wrap around colors, barn animals, and items from the fridge. Mostly, I know she has a point. But I also know that when he asks, “Where’s Mommy going?”, I will be the one forced to search for the proper vocabulary.
Oh, hello. Things were crazy for a while, but I’m back! Here’s my submission:
The Aftermath
For two years, my father nursed the best wife he ever had, a woman he never had the chance to marry. She was diagnosed weeks after they met. So there wasn’t much hope to begin with. When I visited, they were like twins- thin and gaunt, both feathery with happiness. After she died, her family followed local tradition and kept her body, preserved in its casket, at home for three days. My father had his chance to say goodbye, to whisper quietly to her remains. Three months later, he met someone new. He called to tell me, and I sobbed, silently.
So glad I don’t have to choose the theme; it’s going to be tough to judge, I can tell already. In terms of bribes, all I’ll require from Chillbear is an admission that Jimmy Carter was the best President ever. Just kidding. No bribes required. Good luck, all. Since we’re all dealing with the aftermath of the worst political party ever, I’m expecting a lot of good entries.
Life Begins After a 40
She laid the towels on top of the bed. She had begged him to leave and he finally did, but his smell lingered in the dirty linens. She lay down and tried to sleep off the drunkenness, but she could not. Her eyelids were heavy, but her mind ached and raced at once. She got up, dressed, and shuffled out of the airless apartment. She grasped a coffee she would never drink as she waited for the train, feeling shaky, lost and unsure of where she was going. It would turn out to be the best morning of her life.
73 Seconds
The cook jets inside from her smoke break, fleet-footed on panic fuel. Her howling kills the chatter.
You know. Everyone does, despite not seeing it. This is Florida. You know.
The lunchroom flutters. Shivers. Lumps are swallowed. Breaths imprisoned. You slide with others into the tonic January lapis. You look up and take in ghastly entrails. Twin smoke snakes strike at you. You think about your ex-girlfriend. You summon images of your parents before the unyoking. The venom numbs you.
You are halfway home before you turn your lights on. You do not like being controlled. Not like this.
Micromanager
Phosphorescent waves grumble. Salt lick mist invades your sadness. Stanley introduces himself. They say you cannot befriend micro-organisms. Plankton will steal your checkbook. Nematodes will fuck your wife. But Stanley is different. A peerless noctilucale. He listens to your problems. He doesn’t question your Zooey Deschanel stalking. He touches your hand with his ingestive tentacle when you bemoan the death of dry-humping.
As you leave, Stanley clutches your thumb. A noseeum lands in your nostril. You dig reflexively. A tiny scream. A jade spark, then nothing.
You miss Stanley. You hold his light in your soul for 14.2 minutes.
Silent Prayer
“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you stop.”
“What do you mean, didn’t see me? I was right in front of you.”
You get out, inspect the bumper and find broken plastic, twisted metal, pieces of glass from the back window; reach into the car seat and say a silent prayer that the seat is empty today. The seat should have been occupied, but you went to the dry cleaners before picking up the kiddo instead of after.
You say another silent prayer as you walk to the front of the car to get the insurance information out of the glove compartment.
Remember Remember the Fifth of November, 2008
A stabbing pain in my head and a room out of focus. I make the mistake of moving head in the wrong direction and a band of light assaults my eyes. The room is painted with urine and vomit and despair. The remains of a banner are hanging from the wall near the ceiling. I make out the letters “McC.” Apparently someone had burnt it from the other end.
I shut my eyes and with a stabbing pain the number “365” slices through the darkness. I hear a familiar, heavily accented voice saying, “Obama won by a landslide. It’s strategery time.”
96 Morton Street
The constant drone of sirens shield you from her screams across the roof. She is inconsolable as you snap picture after picture of her, racking focus back and forth from her face to the catastrophe unfolding behind her. You think of divorce and kings and queens and dust. Satan gives you a consoling wink as he torpedoes the friends and fellows of commerce. There is no church in the village that can console her.
Pearly Gates
I lay retching, wretched, an inside-out condom in the shape of a boy, one sock off, the other holey, my big toe poking out like a thumb or the nub of an erection; I could feel a dog licking it with single-minded intensity. I opened one eye and saw you, haloed by fluorescents, head cocked quizzically to one side.
“So this is Heaven?”
“Yes. How do you feel?”
“Like an angel.”
“Well, your face is pretty dirty. Here’s some Red Bull.”
“Red Bull?”
“Haven’t you heard? It gives you wings.”
“You’re a saint.”
“No I’m not. But my peter might be.”
The Aftermath
Burning, blinding pain robs my head of much function. I remember having fun, laughing and dancing with that cute guy. What happened next is fuzzy…
I roll over and I see he is beside me naked. I push the soft blankets downward and discover I am as well. Why don’t I remember this? Did I really drink that much?
I reach to awaken him. I place my hand on his bare chest and give it a nudge in time to see the gold band on my left hand. I then notice the papers on the bedside table. Married??? I don’t even know his name.
Breakfast
My tongue goes where I don’t want it to. Won’t you stop me? I think no one ever told you that you snore and someday, you’ll know how lonely that makes you. For now though, you rest, satiated, exhausted from your fun at the expense of my remaining dignity, and your sunrise emissions are rattling my hot pink straw. But these over easy yolks have to make it to the back of my throat somehow, chum, because protein is energy, and I need all I can get to figure out why the fuck this hole’s in the roof of my mouth.