Short Stories

went up the stairs and pounced on the rug. Something moved. Something moved, but he had it, wriggling in his grasp. “I’ve got you! I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

was cold and and tired, but she was coming to meet him. She stepped off the ship, she walked down the stairs, she walked to him. “Was that a short story?” she asked. “The longest ever,” he responded. “The longest ever.”

bounded off the stairs and landed on the platform. Mike was coming, and she would meet him. Mike stepped off the train and ran into her arms. They kissed, they hugged, they wept, and ran home. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” he whispered. “I love you too.” “I love you too.”

strolled, down the light streets under the bright sunlight he passed. Stacey hid under cover of a tree, shady and voluptuous. “Have you got it?” he asked. “I’ve got it,” she responded.

-I don’t believe you.
-Then don’t.
-Believe, don’t believe, I believe.

She showed him. He died. He died and went to heaven.

Bright lights and blue sky, white clouds, golden rays streaming through, straining through, solid beams of heaven. Solid beams of beautific truth.

made his way along the cliffside, gingerly, remembering what happened last time.

The brown waitress he loved so much dusted the tables with loving care, polished the silverware, and sighed lightly. She was relaxed. He was alive, and the streets were full.

fluttered around its cave, aimlessly, waiting for the sunrise. When the sun came up, it would be dead, but with night, life. John looked around the cave for some light, but could find nothing better than his dim flame. “I wonder what may come of this”, he thought, peering through the darkness at a small rock projecting from the floor, as he knocked a piece of flint against the stone hopefully. Sparks shot out into the dark as the flame lit up his face eagerly, faintly orange his sharp overhanging features. “Blond no more, orange I am,” he spoke, and as the stone opened with a crack, revealing a pitch-black crevice, he slipped in, and descended.

went up the stairs, brown stained in the dim yellow light. He found himself in the empty, dilapidated apartment caked in filth, daylight straining to penetrate the dirty windows. He was turning in the center of the room surveying it for a sign of life, but found none. “Now” he said, “We can begin. We can do what we came for.” Blood streamed out of his wounds, pouring onto the floor and covering it in bubbling red. An inch of blood, filling the room and climbing up the walls, concealing the ceiling, churning and frothing with vitality. “We can begin.”

1

Mr. O. went his strange, meandering way down the cliff side. Then he fell off the cliff, and died.

I said it was short.

The brown waitress he loved so much caressed her napkin and sung a lament through teeth stained brown, and the town moved around her still, sunlit form. “Why bemoan the transitory nature of life?” she mused, mechanically going about her routine tasks with typical assiduity. “I’m here, he’s there, where tomorrow I’ll be.” The dust glinted in the morning sun, the coffee-stained cafe showed not a sign of the coming spring, and outside the street was full of emptiness.

2

Hopkins went his way down the damp, dreary lane. As he glanced through the dark at the shuttered windows, he wondered, “Is there anyone left alive in this city?”

Stacey had his watch, so he knew only that it was late, but the endless labyrinth of deserted alleys ran on until he felt it must be morning, although it had only been an hour. An hour of trudging through the dismal air of London, alone, friendless, and hopeless.

He let out a breath of relief to see her waiting for him under a yellow lamp. “Why are you so late?” she asked. “I came as quickly as I could. It’s been murder keeping out of sight. You’re the only person I’ve seen for the last hour.” “Good”, she replied. The gray walls and the fog blended into one monotonous blur punctuated only by the solitary lamp and the two figures.

“Have you got it?” she asked.
–Got it.
–Can I see it?
–No.
–I think you haven’t got it. You’re empty.
–I’ve got it. It’s here. I’ll show it to you.

A chink of light escaped from his overcoat, which he hastened to pull tighter around himself. But the momentary burst of flame had wounded Stacey, temporarily blinded by this intrusion of brilliance into her murky world.

“God, what a light!” she cried.
–It was only a dim sliver, wait ’till you see the whole thing.
–I don’t want to see the whole thing.
–You must.
–I’ll die.
–You’ll die. But you’ll live.
–I don’t want to live.
–But you just said you don’t want to die.
–I don’t want to die.
–But you just said you don’t want to live.
–I want to live.
–Then die.

She relaxed as he dropped the coat to reveal his naked form, dazzlingly bright and transforming the dingy alley into paradise.

3

Blood and sputum filled the toilet bowl as Clara hunched over, felt the contents of her stomach surge upward, and heaved with spasmodic rasps. Why had she done it? Why hadn’t she told anyone? Why hadn’t she told him?

“Told me what?” Mike said from behind her, “Told me fucking what?”

Gasping, slipping, and nearly fainting with terror, she whirled around in the muck.

–I didn’t mean… I didn’t….
–Like fuck you didn’t.
–I didn’t…

Suddenly she was seized with convulsions and puked right there on the spot. Not that she had much material left at this point. It was all there on the floor, dripping from her mouth in thick cords: clear saliva forming a single, continuous thread from her gut to the pool of filth in front of her.

“You deserve worse,” he sneered as he aimed a kick at her midriff, the sick, vomiting, heaving sound instantly magnified as the boot knocked the wind out of her. She crumpled up in a quivering mass on the floor. “Down on the ground where you belong, bitch!” he screamed, irate, his eyes popping and red forehead blue with veins. Grinding his teeth and clenching his fists to contain himself, he paced.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he screamed. “How the fuck could you not tell me?” Now on the verge of madness, he relaxed, his hands covering his eyes, “How the fuck could you not tell me?”

“I tried,” she gasped. “I tried so hard. You wouldn’t listen.”

He was curled up crying now, shaking almost as hard as she was, rolled up in a ball like a fetus.

“I’m sorry,” she moaned. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

He cried.

4

–We live short stories. They’re not very long.
–But why do you have to go?
–Because I must.
–You mustn’t.
–I must, Johnson. Don’t do this, please.

She walked along the pier in the mist, encompassing darkness around her, with only the solitary yellow light of a dim lamp lighting her way to the ship.

–I’ll miss you.
–I’ll miss you, but it’s for the best.

With that, she died.