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Funny Pink Animals
March 24, 2007 in 299 Words, Fiction, Flash Fiction, novels, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Animal, Beast, Beauty, Comedy, Cry, Eye Contact, Fantasy, Human, Laugh, Love, Mercy, Romance, Satire, Sex | by davidbdale | 8 comments
Let’s all have a laugh at humanity, while we still have a sense of humor about us. It’s getting dark out there, my friends, where we make what we call our livings, but here in the room, where our private movies are staged and we are stars, it’s blindingly brightly lighted by design, mirrored and multiply-reflected, white on pink on stark white sheets and shadows flee before us. Still. We’re funny. Could we be naked and not be funny? Seen in our entirety, with back-story and motives, we’re charming and slightly ridiculous. Our mismatched genes, those cross-wired brains, these farcical downward story arcs make us sympathetic supporting characters if not small heroes, certainly not villains, but from an individual angle, directly overhead from a distance of, say, here to the mirror on the ceiling, we look exactly like the funny animals we are, pink and poignant, poking one another. In the mirror to the side of the bed, I catch a glimpse of a creature that has no business in my fantasy. He’s not at all how I pictured myself just now with my eyes closed playing for romance and yet, he’s doing exactly what I think I’m doing to this gorgeous reflection of you, and yes, you look indisputably fantastic, identical and fine, here and in the mirror, so who’s that stand-in with my haircut, doing such an unconvincing impression of me? Tomorrow we take down all this diminishing glass. We’ll do what we’ve always done. My eyes will be your only mirror, yours mine. We’ll look at each other and find ourselves. And just before we start to laugh, we’ll catch a glimmer of how we’re loved and get a sense of why. Then when we laugh, we’ll laugh until we cry like no animal we know.
Copyright © March 24, 2007 David Hodges
Snow Comes Early
March 11, 2007 in 299 Words, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Cry, Family, Wife | by davidbdale | 15 comments
I hear it all from the basement where I’ve been sent to get more seltzer. Voices like crumpled linen tumble down the laundry chute to where I stand, all ears, eyes on nothing. This is my sister-in-law’s house, emptier now that my brother-in-law has died, far from where he started, in this city where snow falls early on a white Thanksgiving. This will be one of those holidays. Three women upstairs talking, only one of them still with a husband, one of them married to me: my wife, her sister, their mother. What I hear is mostly rhythm and pitch, but the music of their speaking carries meaning enough to know who loves who, and how much. Mom wants to help; I hear that clearly, but she has terms. She’s looking for an ally to help her defend her own uncertain future, to not be dragged down by misfortune. What she says next does more to drive two sisters together than either of them closer to her. Some of this I don’t hear at all; most of it I know before they start talking. My wife has fled the upstairs scene and come to the only place in the house she thought nobody would be. She looks stricken. She looks pursued. From where we stand together we can hear two voices rising and crashing, one pleading, one flat. She wonders what I know. I don’t know where to start. A moment later we show up on radar, and now Mom’s in the basement with us, vivid, still debating. I married a woman who turns into a girl who leaves home over and over again at moments like these and takes back her life the best she can. She’s in the back yard now, without a coat, staring at snow.
Copyright © March 12, 2007
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