"Don't think I will give this to my son," the bank clerk said, propping the rifle against his boot. The son smiled and the reporter thought he knew why. The night was ripe with adrenaline. Blood spilled like good milk. They say that for hours the men chanted “keep him alive,” hoping, as some soldiers do, that blow by blow lives can be rebuilt, lies undone. But the boy was too used to loud sounds and closed doors. He imagined the new sounds, the fresh milk. The horizon was orange with a new kind of fire. They kept themselves alive.
one hundred story #28: workshop
It’s a relationship of subordination, one poet says to another. She—the speaker – expresses guilt, see, and he—the listener—demands something. Money, maybe, sex. No, says another student, what we have here is a special form of tenderness. What throws me, says the teacher, is the penguin—what’s he doing here? What do you mean, he? Asks another. The writer, the guilty one, stays quiet, her icebox hidden. They are blind to her visible parts but still they spear her to the page. She considers prostration in all its poetic forms, though her wings stay close to her chest.
one hundred story #27: perspective
We're in her bed and we're both crying, she because her fingers hurt when she plays the piano, me because I've already lost one grandmother and am afraid to lose another, and she's so small there in the bed, no makeup on, window wide open like her arms. And then: a fart, a tremendous jolt of energy that shakes us up, giggling, gets us remembering that we're both still here, lying in her bed watching the full moon grow smaller in the sky. I am still at it, alternately crying and laughing, until long after I have descended the stairs.
one hundred word story #26: bilingue
Érase una vez you understood it all, lo que decían. There was a time cuando you could eavesdrop facilmente, when riding the bus era una lección en listening. You remember el sonido of the monkeys calling roll until late at night, the smell of café con leche simmering por la estufa. You stall when you can’t think of the right word in your native tongue. You question what makes it “native.” Y sometimes the words arise in dreams, your subconscious recordando lo que you forgot. It’s a certain manera de ser. Repeat after me: que practiques. Que no te olvides.
one hundred word story #25: breathe
You can't help considering her shoes. The careful way the flowers are arranged on the counter. The recipe card pinned to the stove, those telltale loping cursive letters. And then there's that smell. What is it, cinnamon and cookie dough and starch? You walk in the house and it follows you down the hall, past the needlepoint, beyond the framed photographs of your parents and hers. You used to think it was unshakable, but you worry now, what if it, too, fades? Can you replicate it, memorize it? Did she leave a recipe? Fill your lungs. It is there somewhere.
one hundred word story #24: first day
You know it's the first day because eighteen-year-olds are driving on the bike paths and cops are escorting girls in skirts back to campus. You know it’s the first week because you can hear them chanting from your third-story office window. You get the sense that the kind of learning that’s going on isn’t the kind of learning that is written in books. You are supposed to teach them but it’s hard when you remember how important it all felt, befriending roommates and getting lost in buildings. Too many firsts. Enjoy them, you say, because you’ll only get them once.
one hundred word story #24: Survivor
Here's what you should know, she says. We like you, we really do, but you're just not pretty enough, you know? She spins me in a little circle. You've got that free spirit thing going on, which is great, but rein it in a bit. Maybe dye your hair. Wear thicker eyeliner, invest in stilettos. Change your major. Dump your boyfriend and kiss a girl while other boys watch. In my peripheral vision I can see the other girls nodding. The camera zooms in and she steps away for my confessional. Go on, says the producer. Give us our reality.
one hundred word story #22: missed connections
She sat on her hands while she waited. It was impossible, the waiting. Men and women walked by, cable cars clanked, cyclists ducked through traffic. Somewhere amongst the Chinese food, the bus transfers and the countless pigeons, he was coming. She hoped he looked like his picture, hoped he liked rollerblading and science fiction. Her watch was loud with ticking. A man skidded before her on his rollerblades, looked her full in the face. “Finally,” she said.
At the dinner table several months later, she brings up the ad she answered.
“What ad?” he asks.
She decides not to answer.
For Sacramento art fans
Three of my 100-word short stories (originally written for and posted on this blog) are included in the Revel Sacramento Gay and Lesbian Center's Second Saturday art show this month. The art opening is this Saturday, August 13, at the SGLC gallery at 1927 L Street, at the corner of L and 20th.
I will be busy best-womaning at my brother's wedding, but I am excited to know that the stories ("The Cliff," "Permissions" and "Pet Store") will be printed as posters and displayed at the gallery all month. My classmate and friend David Semonchik is also exhibiting two pieces of flash fiction, and there are two other featured artists as well.
Spread the word!
one hundred word story #21: This one's true
This is the story of a smiley man and a surfer woman. He has a coconut that needs opening; she has a recipe for Hawaiian haupia. He goes Indonesia to chase waves but soon chases her back to California, back to Hawaii, then forward to Nicaragua, Spain, Italy, China, Tibet, Nepal. He becomes a teacher. She puts herself through graduate school. They both watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He becomes a brown belt in Hawaiian jujitsu; she a black belt in Los Angeles yoga. When they decide to marry, the smiles grow wider, the waves gnarlier, the coconuts sweeter. Ohana.
with love for my one and only brother, and his lovely wife-to-be
one hundred word story #20
Doris the duck is butt-up in Reed Lake again. Margaret swims circles around her. “Damnit, D,” Margaret says, “this better be the last time you lose your motherfucking keys. I’m tired of you crashing in my nest. I’m so angry I could poop!” Doris doesn’t hear because she is underwater. But Doris didn’t lose her keys. Keys are not required to build nests—effort is. Doris doesn’t want to build nests when she could be underwater, where it’s crisp, dark, quiet. So quiet that she doesn’t hear Margaret’s final sigh, but sees her dreams drop like a small, dark mass.
One hundred word story #19
Danny never really tried at anything. He'd open his palms to the sky and let experiences rain down on him, wander through the streets following the whims of his stomach, take buses til the end of the line. One day on his travels he caught the tail of a paper airplane. “Follow me,” it read, and listed an address. It was further than he thought – beyond the city’s square, past the bus depot. Finally the numbers stopped. Danny waited. He got hungry. Buses passed. He closed his eyes, opened his palms. Nothing. He unfurled the airplane. “Gullible sonofabitch,” it read.