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Booklikemarks
November 12, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Abandon, Art, Book, Loss, Love, Separation | by davidbdale | 3 comments
Thin strips of card stock, a pharmacy receipt, a suicide king: bookmarks all. Metaphors for my placeholder finger, they separate the pages I have read from those I may never read. Half-solved puzzles mystify me even as I mark my place in stories that no longer interest me. A photograph of my lost love reminds me that I was once lovable; a summons from an officer of the court commands me to give testimony for what I’ve done or thought or been. They substitute for my hand between the pages where I’ve stuck them, separating my Crime from the Punishment I hope to delay forever by reading no further. The reviews aren’t good. Because of what I haven’t seen, my Emma Bovary’s toying with her Leon still; she hasn’t met, may never meet and betray me with her Rodolphe. Raskolnikov at the pawnbroker’s shop stands forever, axe above his head, declaring his moral superiority. And finally, until you compel me to bear witness in yours, mine is The Tale of One City. The day we were to marry, you responded to something loud—a starter’s pistol? a biological alarm clock?—and sprinted down that aisle, vaulted the flower girl, grabbed a ring and a meaningless kiss and flung the bouquet like a baton over your shoulder on your way toward making a life for yourself. Since then I’ve been sidelined here, abandoning project after project, Doctor Jekyll and whatever comes after, I quit them before they can hurt me. But now, you say, you need commitment and bold action from a man who stops at open doors. Listening to it ring, I stand here hand on phone, not trusting that you need me or for how many pages and terrified that it might be time to start another chapter.
Copyright © 1999
Lightning on Tour
October 17, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Art, Date, Flirt, Romance | by davidbdale | 2 comments
This is an easy one. What’s better: the date you plan and dress for, for which you make and confirm and reconfirm dinner reservations; the meal at the restaurant you’ve never been to and aren’t sure you’ll like, or he’ll like, but which you’ve been assured by women who don’t know him but who know men like him is the right choice for the guy you’ve staked out; the show you think your date would choose, based on what little you’ve been able to glean from the few small facts at your command plus considerable conjecture? Or the accidental thrill of a chance encounter with a friendly face through a revolving door at the airport one moment before your plane takes off toward a place you know only too well. For the guy it’s the encounter; for the girl it’s the plan.
What’s better? The masterpiece on tour, impeccably curated and catalogued for art-historical significance, deconstructed, virtually invisible, available only by appointment? Or a bold curve drawn in the dirt with the point of a shovel by a landscaper with a certain facility. The 6-piece playground kit, its corners sanded, planted in the park in its box of chips, its thick irresistible primary colors engineered by play scientists? Or a tree that’s fallen into the pond, whose trunk makes a bridge, whose roots still smell of lightning strike and anthills. For the kids it’s the treefall; for their dads it’s the treefall, too; the moms are still thinking about that date.
Maybe we could take in a museum, they think, and not look at paintings, just the frames. Or the window frames. Or out the windows. How is that different from staying home together and staring out the window? For one thing, he won’t encounter anyone else at home.
Copyright ©1997
Very Short Novels 