Short story writing and creative fiction, essays and non-fiction stories.

I stand alone in a forest of people.

When a tree falls nobody hears it, for the foliage is in Connecticut, or Central Park, and I wake up in Brooklyn. I take the train to work, look at my cubical wall and the photographs from the vacation I took last summer, or my feet in the orange tennis shoes I was wearing that day against the dirty pavement of Broadway and the filth and the flat black-holed, dilapidated, chewing gum stuck to the earth seems like the universe beneath my toes and I’m about to fall, a permanent feeling pinned to my cubical wall. There is no work but the office is loud, I look around and see a coworker on a business call. Looking at his own photographs, pinned to his own cubical wall.

I go to the street at the end of the day and everybody is standing around, blowing in the wind in the colors of the season. One female with long legs and a light blue sock-hat stands a few paces onto the road, waiting, looking around, although the light reads ‘GO’. Our eyes meet as I tilt my head back to sip the coffee in my hand and I look at her from the corner of my eye as I walk by and she does so as well.

At the entrance to the underground I turn my head over my left shoulder to see her still standing as she was, with the cars passing in front of her face. I walk down the steps with my head still turned and between her thin legs, at intervals when the cars pass by, I see the sun setting on the horizon of 14th Street and the West Side Highway.

I regret, but it’s too late, and I forget.

I get on the train. I read. I walk home and wait; something will happen. I play a song on my guitar, Don’t Know Why, then The Birds and the Bees, and my cellphone disrupts the music of practice and progress. It’s a reply to a text I sent this morning, ‘I left at 11am’ she says. I ask if she has plans for the weekend. Still no response, I wait; something will happen. The winter is almost over.

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I tried to explain, but I couldn’t.

You looked at me.

A train careered through the cerebral station. The words, who until that point had been waiting patiently in line, were too close to the edge. Sucked into the air stream and crushed unceremoniously beneath the grinding, metallic wheels.

Damn.

I tried to explain, but I couldn’t.

You spoke to me.

I grasped at your words, snatching them from the balmy air, desperately trying to take them and assemble them for my own, personal use. But in the confusion they slipped through my fingers. Gone.

Shit.

I tried to explain, but I couldn’t.

You touched my hand.

Hazy, shimmering shoals of adjectives swam into my consciousness. Excitedly, I caught one and held it close. At last! But it wriggled free and shot off into the abyss.

Fuck.

I tried to explain, but I couldn’t.

You turned away.

Clarity came hurtling out of the darkness, crashing into my vocabulary with force of a Pacific tsunami. There were the words I’d been longing for, ready now, poised for action.

I love you!

Too late.

I did try to explain, but I couldn’t.

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The man took a slow drag on his cigarette. The ember winked life-red against the warm evening backdrop. He exhaled, thinking about what he had just heard, what she had just told him, breathing out in time with his thoughts. The smoke floated up towards the dim porch light.

“So you’re not coming back.” Flat voice.

The woman shook her head. He glanced down at the floor and rubbed the back of his head with a calloused hand. The small glass table was the only witness to their conversation, the deck devoid of other furniture.

He grunted softly and continued. “Well, okay.”

“Okay?” She shifted her weight from one leg to the other.

“Yes, okay.”

She turned to leave, aged boards creaking beneath her slight frame. Just outside the threshold of the room she hesitated, pale fingers caressing the doorframe.

“I can’t, I just can’t.” His gaze rose to the back of her head. She turned, still holding the frame, but couldn’t look at him. “I…” She stopped. “You understand.”

He said nothing. Her eyes flitted towards his but fell short of a reunion. She exited the porch, skirt hurrying after her, and the man turned to face the shore. He rested his elbows on the weathered wooden railing and stared. Blank eyes took in nothing.

A sudden splash in the water demanded his recognition. A sea otter, shell on its belly, rock in its hands, preparing supper. He watched the diligent animal fix itself a meal. Who would crack his oysters now?

He finished his cigarette, flicked it over the rail. The butt glowed warm on the sand and he studied at it as he drew another from his breast pocket. He realized that he needed to pee, but instead closed his eyes. He visualized the house, his house, walked through every room noting every detail and committing it to memory. He opened his eyes and sighed. Sticking the cigarette between his lips and pausing briefly to light, he then hopped over the rail onto the sand. His left foot landed on the first smoldering butt and he picked it up in surprise. It burned him a little as he held it on his hand. Discarding the useless filter, he kicked sand over it and began to walk to the water while unbuttoning his shirt. He removed his blue jeans and underwear and piled them with his shirt about ten feet from the water’s edge. His second cigarette dropped to the sand. The man waded naked into the surf and let the water push him. He felt one with the swelling and receding of the waves. He looked around for the otter, but couldn’t find it.

Dripping, carrying his clothes away from his body to keep them dry, he walked back up the beach to the house. He placed his clothing over the railing and pulled himself over the rail in a surprisingly nimble fashion for a man with his frame. He left his clothes on the porch and went into the house. He spent the rest of his night destroying all of her things.

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there’s something so focused about the sound of a piano key.
structured, but melodic. accurate

yet soothing, somehow.

“well, what kind of things make you feel better, Alice?” she looks up for a moment, pondering this honestly.
“semi colons and the word simultaneously.”

aliteration.

“Aliteration, Alice?”

absolutely.

it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad as it did a month ago.
“what?”
everything.

the ache has died down considerably. i only remember you a couple hundred times a day, instead of a few thousand. and blinking isn’t nearly as difficult as it was last week. i can take that moment now, sometimes, to breathe instead of rescanning that image of you two for any. possible. clue.

of untruth.

but yes, the pianos.
they help, too.

turning this whole breakdown into some sort of lyric.
just another scene in a script, three to four pages back, highlighted and then crossed out. edited.
finalized

tangibly forgotten with pens and very particular distractions. a conveniently placed coffee mug over the name of a character.
suddenly you are no longer the reason i have to stand still for a moment in the middle of my day, and choke back a sob no one else seems to even see; no.
no, instead our entire relationship becomes somehow just another story i seem to sell right back to you.

names, changed.

and better written.

Lindsey’s last piece for Backhand Stories was “or snake charming”.

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Stephen (A Typical Night)
You can dance at the Stonewall. Not like at the Candlelight. Or Keller’s. Or Mona’s. There’s the Snakepit but the name says it all. I dance at the Stonewall. Liquor watered down. Boys dressed up. Tequilla Mockingbird, onstage looking regal. Sweet William at the door looking out. And me on the dance floor. Denim-clad, keys to the left. Dancing around like some jewelry box ballerina. Diamonds at her feet.

Tequilla Mockingbird (A Typical Raid)
The lights come on so they don’t catch you kissing. Sweet William gives the signal and everything stops. Too late to change so you go along. Heels clicking. I never cry. It messes up my mascara. I sing. It really pisses them off. Better than being pissed on, Lily Law. Betty Badge, pistol in hand. The lights come on and they take you. Singing, heels clicking. Fags don’t fight back.

Tommy (The Motivation…Maybe)
There’s no music tonight. Judy’s dead. There’s no cruising, there’s the void. There’s no laughter, there’s the empty chair. Judy’s dead. No one wants to dance anyway. Keys put in pockets, not out where you can see. And know. Judy’s dead. We went to see her laid to rest. And then we looked. And then we saw. And understood. So many of us. Judy’s dead but we are here.

Maxine (That Night: The Uprising)
The Stonewall boys were in their element. Wrists were limp, hair was primped. Have you seen Maxine? From the car to the door to the car again, anything could happen. Limp wrists forgotten, beer cans and bottles heaved; rain of coins on the cops. From nowhere came an uprooted parking meter. A blaze of flame in the window, a fire hose; cavort in the spray. Have you seen Maxine?

Allen (The Next Night)
Allen, who never missed a revolution, went with me. This downtown dive he’d never seen before. Allen, who was father of us all, stood in astonishment. A bold beginning. Allen, who held Whitman in his pocket, told the world to fuck off that night. He stood beside those men; their wounded looks lost now. He chanted, “OM.” Allen, who cried real tears, knew a moment when he saw one.

Jake (Assimilation Doesn’t Mean Acceptance: 2007)
Love is possibility and pain. Love is marriage and happy-ever-after. So they tell me. But it didn’t happen that way. Love was a black-haired boy. Two condoms, one mint we shared with a kiss. The dog barking downstairs. Love was a craving for ice cream I gratified at two in the morning. Love was before he left for Paris. And sent pictures of Paris Pride. The Stonewall ever present.

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