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

She loved to watch him. She loved to get lost in the very few, but deep, aging lines in his forehead, imagining the struggles he has had in his life, and recognizing how beautifully they had shaped a boy into this man that stood before her. She loved hearing his voice, like a French opera to an American audience; they didn’t speak the language, but had hopes for the day when they might understand the meaning of those so elegantly grouped together words, in a tone that confirms its mastery of the language. A tone that humors you as you try to keep up, in a non-degrading way. His lips would quiver in a very secretive manner when he made a joke and none of us could process it fast enough to share the childish giggle with him.

When she got lost in her head, walking through all of the possible encounters with him she had yet the invitation to enjoy, he would often catch her off guard with a question she had no answer to. Besides what could she possibly have in her feeble conformed mind that would be of any entertainment to him? That’s what she feared, she knew none of her daydreaming would get her any closer to being able to have a one-on-one conversation with him. She knew that he was far to busy living his life to spare the time to impact hers in a more personal, direct way. She did not wish to be the woman he came home to, that she imagined would nag him for problems so miniscule. Nor did she want to take him away from that woman. She simply wanted to talk with him, get to know him, let him know her.

He was beautifully broken, yet so held together. He was ugly in the most attractive way. Physically he was not much to look at, his body held his thinning salt and pepper covered head about six feet and 2 inches off of the ground, in the middle there was a slight beer belly that suggested he didn’t do much on weekends. His bottom half was most always hugged by jeans, and his torso with a simple T-shirt. His face was normal, nothing misproportioned, nothing too stunning, except his eyes. His eyes were the most infatuating subject she had come across. The windows to his mind, and much like his mind, they were confident. They had the effect of a light to a moth, a light that once inside you shines so brightly it’s hard not to feel the warmth.

Every word that came so ghost-like out of his mouth was treated like the word of God by her. And that’s precisely what he was to her, a God of sorts, an answer her questioning the importance of knowledge. He was her very own faith, taking shape. And it was the shape of a fifty-three year old man standing at the front of a half-filled classroom pouring his genius into tiny heads. They looked in a metaphoric way, like rags already soaked in sticky fluid, trying to soak up the rest of a spill. They tried, and tried, week after week, to wring out all of the old knowledge so that they would have room for his much more significant teachings. And that’s where she is left every Tuesday afternoon, a ratty cloth soaking up his spill on the pale grey linoleum tiles of the college campus floor.

Note: This is a reworking of a piece that originally appeared on Backhand Stories in February

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It was one of those days in the middle of spring that come along to humble you and remind you that Mother Nature is the ultimate ego; spitting and crying at once, soaking you and freezing you and making you walk with your shoulders up around your ears and the coat you’ve all but forgotten about pulled tightly across your back. One of those bitter half-green half-grey days where ice piled up and fell over chunks of wild onions and yellow wildflowers.

There was snow falling inside the frozen rain but it was so outnumbered I couldn’t help but feel sorry for it.

The poor weather looked like the invisible riot that takes place between good and bad, and today, the angels were being pummeled and thrown between the group of demons while they each took their turn taking blows against them. It was a day that was completely void of the ability to decide, crippled, and this indecisive energy seemed to seep into the minds of the people that inhabited the hours like a cruel and illegal social experiment meant to show us exactly how controlled we really are. There were people who assumed authority against the storm, completely prepared, rain boots and umbrellas poised like riot gear worn by the cops and squads, as well as some zombie like creatures, who still rely on their parents to give them a daily rundown, including lunch money and a weather report.

As for me, I was something in the middle of creature and riot cop. No umbrella protected me as I broke through the tantrum, but I did pull my coat tightly around me, and that was good enough.

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As I pulled into the parking lot, I cast a frustrated glance at the backseat. If my father had given me due warning, I would never have agreed to bring his dogs to the funeral, but surprise had caught me off guard. Now they were patiently gnawing on my armrests as I scanned the row ahead of me for a parking spot. Letting no good deed go unpunished, the parking lot gods had already filled all the spots in the section closet to the funeral home.

I stopped the car and sighed, then slowly lifted my hands off the steering wheel, reveling in the way my skin stuck to the hot leather. It was one of my few pleasures about summertime heat, the slow, almost painful separation that only happens after two objects have been forced together for a long while. I would always get the smallest bit scared in the final moments before the leather lost its grip on the last patch of skin. It was as if I was never sure if they would part; but they always did, and the soft snap of two surfaces being torn so smoothly from one another was the most satisfying aspect of the whole affair.
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It was love at first sight. He was ambling alongside the road with a McDonald’s French fry box in his mouth, and something about those big sorrowful eyes, copper brown and pleading, tugged at my heart, and the steering wheel, forcing me to pull over and offer him a ride.

The scene was straight from a chic flick movie. I called out. He turned. He dropped the box and ran to me, his tongue outstretched, his tail wagging, rushing into my arms and delivering a big, slobbery kiss right on the lips. I was his heroine, his savior, and he gladly jumped into the truck and sat beside me as though we were destined to be together.

The stretch of road south of my home is flat and desolate, with acres of sandy fields running along White River. The area is a common dump site for the unwanted, and judging by the visible outline of his ribcage and sunken eyes, my new pet had seen better days. Raised around coon dogs, I knew the gangly creature to be a blue tick hound, probably about four or five months old. Bluish-black in color, with white spots, or ticking, spread over his body, he is an animated replica of one of my youngest son’s splotchy artworks hanging on the refrigerator. One ear and eye are completely black, giving him a half pirate, half Little Rascals comical appearance that makes him even more pitiful and endearing.
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Repetition was what kept Laurie Danforth sane. She did the same things every day at the same time and in the same place. In the mornings, she dragged herself from a druggy sleep into the shower, where she let the very hot water stream over her naked lonely body. Later, she left for the city, her blonde hair swept into a forceful chignon and her heels high, but not vertiginous.

At the office Laurie spoke to the exact number of people necessary to fulfil her position’s requirements. This was less than two on any given day. As a book editor, her head was buried in manuscripts most of the time. Laurie rarely thought past the present day, as to look into the future would upset the very fine equilibrium she had alighted upon.

When her husband had died from complications of a heart operation, at the age of thirty eight, Laurie was baffled by the event and decided not to go on. Nonetheless, she drove that body of hers on every day, because her parents were alive and his parents were alive, and everyone expected it of her. Everyone kept telling her at the funeral that she mustn’t let go, mustn’t give up after the awful ransacking of her heart. Her aunt, her friends, her brother and the neighbours all told her;

‘It would kill your mom and dad if anything happened to you.’

‘It will kill Bob’s parents if you give up.’

‘It will kill. It will kill…’

Envisioning the almost certain bloodbath guaranteed if she killed herself or just faded away from grief, Laurie pushed herself through every grinding moment of every adamant day.

At night, sitting with the cat and a stiff drink, she became an actuary; calculating the life span of all the people who needed to die before she too, could slip her moorings.

Marian Kilcoyne is an Irish writer published and forthcoming at Grey Sparrow Journal, The Smoking Poet, Camroc Press Review, Metazen, Frostwriting and Flashquake.

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