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Carry the Zero
December 11, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, novels, Poetry, reading, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Age, Daughter, Forget, Loss, Memory | by davidbdale | 5 comments
Whatever age they tell me I am, they’re wrong. Today they concocted a number that ended in eight. Eight! I know it’s Sunday because they’ve wheeled me to the atrium, with all this glass, to crisp like a taco under a heat lamp. With my heart! Inhale, gentle soul, hold that breath, count without numbers, release, repeat without counting. Merge with the familiar furniture of here, let the clock stop at now, resist resisting, make peace with existence, put next on hold. Maybe today I’ll be released to my real life. A door slams. Here come the young ones shining, pink, and squeaky in their visitor outfits, with fresh air freckles and fragrant hair. A young girl is breaking my heart by withholding a hug, so I know that much about love, but I can’t say how I learned it. An image clogs the drain of my memory, but it doesn’t relate to these photos my visitor shows me of someone she calls by my name. The tickertape parade photo suggests he killed others to defend something noble. He’s not me; I’m me; but this girl who knows me yearns for me to recognize him, so I do. I know my story without a scrapbook. One I was a businessman because I think in terms of loss and how it might profit me. Two I was raised with church because my swear words are all blasphemous. Three I had a family to feel as orphaned as I do. This nice girl wants to take me home with her, but she insists my dignity’s involved. Shouldn’t I be in charge of that? I’ll make no more compromises for that imposter in those photos. If she takes me in, I’ll make a glorious mess. I shall have the indignity I’ve earned.
Copyright © December 10, 2006
Stand and Burn
October 26, 2006 in 299 Words, Books, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Literature, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Breath, Cry, Fire, Forget, Laugh, Memory, Mother, Panic | by davidbdale | 5 comments
My mother draws her breath like a bad cartoon. No doctor can tell us what’s wrong with her, so we don’t let them bother her. She was always busy living, proliferating. Now she’s making a career of her one death. Dad doesn’t exist. Dad never existed. She had us without him. The realtor’s office is a waking nightmare. We’re buying her last house, which means selling one. What if? she says, then loses the thread forever. Her breathing is erratic and shallow, noisy, ineffectual, disturbingly occasional. Her tissues are in panic, but in her eyes a generous urgent willingness to laugh off what is after all the very funny comic horror of her confusion if only I will signal her please signal her that I too find it funny. This is richer than fear. My hair is on fire and only she notices but no one will listen and maybe after all it’s just a style. The realtor says my mother won’t earn interest on her escrow and I say Of course, and she has to trust her son whose hair is on fire but who doesn’t seem to notice. The realtor will not meet her eye. He aims his casual agency at me. His days begin and end in conflagrations. Commissions are the warmth radiating from buyers with their heads ablaze. He shows me where to have her sign and hands me a flaming pen. Mother forgets. The world she believes to be changing so quickly is really only breathing, bellows in, ashes out. I show her again where to sign. She searches my face for a clue. She’ll cry before she signs, I know, but dammit, this time she’ll sign. If I can hold my breath and take the heat, she’ll sign. Together we stand and burn.
Copyright ©1997
Very Short Novels 
This is a close relative of a Very Short Novel titled Short for Family from 20 years ago. The revisions…