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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
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
Very Short Novels 