Three Stories
I've been dipping my toes back into fiction writing. Here are three very short stories I wrote this year.
I
After a restless night of dreamless sleep, Jessica awoke, as if from a nightmare, anxious for a conversation she hoped would change her life. She had an interview later that day which she didn't yet know she wasn't going to for a dream job that she didn't really want.
She turned over to see her fiancé tangled up in the navy blue duvet they had used for years. Time was she would wake like this and Mark would wake up too, ready to ask if she was alright, to comfort her. That time had passed. They had since settled into an easy uncaring domesticity. No marriage date had been set.
Jessica called her work to say she was sick and wouldn't be coming in. She never called out sick, so the manager believed her.
She had been excited to move in with Mark. Every day with him was a gift. Now he was someone to coordinate laundry and groceries with. At least the sex was still great. When they both felt up to it. Which they didn't as much these days. But that's to be expected.
Jessica made some toast for breakfast. Most days she would make herself a coffee, but today she was going to treat herself to a latte at the odd little cafe around the corner.
Her job, like Mark, was fine. She didn't hate her life. She probably liked her life. This is probably how people felt when they liked their life. The new job might help. It was the sort of thing people who love their jobs do. The best part of Jessica's day was never at her job or at home anyway, it was always small interactions with waitstaff or cashiers at cafes. Sometimes they weren't good. And then her day was fine. Nothing special.
The cafe around the corner from her house had started to get crowded in the mornings. Probably word was getting around that they had good coffee. She supposed for a long time the strange decor had kept people away. The baby blue candy stripe wallpaper gave the whole thing a sort of nursing home vibe, which was definitely off-putting. But it was the best coffee in the neighborhood, if not the city. And she liked their pistachio milk lattes. They were indulgent and satisfying, even if they had a pale sickly green color.
She was sitting at a table with her latte when she heard the door to the cafe open. She looked up and saw a woman who looked identical to her entering the cafe. Before she could even figure out that she was confused, the woman sat down across from her.
"Hello." The woman sounded exactly like her too.
"Who...?" Jessica trailed off.
"You know who I am," the woman responded, "I'll give you a second."
Jessica searched the woman's eyes. "What?"
"You know who I am. I'm here to help you."
Jessica could see in the woman's expression, a certain confidence. A knowingness. Jessica doubted herself. Did she know this woman? Had she seen her before?
There was something strange about this woman.
Duh, she thought to herself. She looks exactly like you. But it wasn't that. It was some difference. Her maroon top was not something Jessica would wear, or even buy. Okay, but that doesn't mean anything. Wouldn't it have been weirder if they had dressed the same? None of the other women in the cafe were wearing a top she owned. It shouldn't be a surprise that a half dozen strangers chosen at random would not share her sense of style. No, there was something else. It was the face of someone who knew delight. Jessica wasn't sure what that meant, or what she saw in the woman's expression that prompted it.
"So what do you want to know?" the woman broke the silence.
"I still don't know who you are." Jessica saw something cloud in her expression.
"Jessica---"
"For example, how do you know my name?" Jessica interrupted sternly. She watched as what looked like frustration in the woman's eyes (was Jessica imagining it or were the woman's eyes a slightly darker shade of gray than hers?) blossomed into a resigned sadness.
"I can't tell you that," the woman eventually answered. "I'm not allowed. Ask something else."
A long silence passed in which Jessica felt she could see a whole sequence of emotions dance across the woman's face. She was frustrated that Jessica didn't know who she was. And disappointed. And upset. And somehow, it seemed, still hopeful. Or was Jessica projecting herself onto this woman, just because they looked the same? Was she wrong to assume that she could read the emotions of this woman's face, just because their faces were the same? Because she knew how to read her own? The woman broke the silence eventually.
"Is there nothing else you want to know?"
Jessica wasn't sure where this question came from, but she found herself asking, "where did you get that top? It's cute."
Jessica thought she could see a slight smile.
"Macy's. It's on sale, and I think they still have it in our size." She was smiling, but there was something melancholy in her voice when she said, "I have to go now Jessica. I hope I'll be able to see you again. Goodbye."
Jessica spent the rest of the day wandering around the city thinking about the woman, and how she had looked at her. When she got home that night Mark was busy so she quietly went into the bedroom and packed a bag. Just a few clothes and other essentials, including the maroon top she bought at Macy's that afternoon. Then she came out and told Mark she was leaving. She couldn't be with him anymore. She would find somewhere else. She would be back at some point for the rest of her things. Mark was crying, trying to figure out what had gone wrong. She simply walked out. She had something else to pay attention to. A certain crimson awareness growing inside her. The next time she saw the woman, she would be ready.
II
As I tell you this story, the thing you have to keep in mind is that the painter makes works of real beauty. Shows for his work draw huge crowds of people who are genuinely moved. He receives a regular influx of letters from people who tell him that his work saved their lives or gave them the courage to go on living. That is a big part of how he reasons to himself that he should keep going. Most people don't know how he makes his work.
We don't have time for me to get into how it all started, so I'll just tell you how it’s evolved. The painter is a recluse. He's of course asked a lot about his process, about how he gets ideas, about how he develops them, how he paints, what brushes he uses. The public seems to have a fascination with the accoutrements he uses to paint. As if the brush with the right stiffness, the paint with the right thickness, is the main thing separating them from him. If they really knew his process, they probably wouldn't care so much what brush he used. Once he got to a certain level of success, the begging and pleading to be let in on his process got too much, he had to give them something, so he started to tell them his process centered around a mindfulness practice. To be like him, he suggested, you had to find a way to clear your mind. To be open to the world around you. To be fully present. To block everything else out and just be entirely in the now. Which was kind of true. He suggested that the secret had something to do with transcendental meditation. This was basically a lie.
The truth is that the painter does have a practice of mindfulness, but it has a body count. The reason the painter lives such a secluded life is that he can’t risk anyone figuring out what his actual process is.
I don't want you to think that the painter likes cruelty. At least not in general. In fact he learned at a young age that it was dangerous for him to carry cash around with him, because he was always ready to give it all up to the first panhandler he saw. When he saw someone destitute on the street, he could barely restrain himself from giving away his last cent to help the poor bastard. He had to learn to quickly walk away and put it out of his mind. Or he couldn't go on.
So keep all of that in mind when I tell you about the killing. How he gets his victims, how it all started, all of this is for another time, but you should know that he never knows who they were, their background. There isn't some profile for his victims, this isn’t some kind of psychological processing or retribution. For him it is all about the act itself.
Some killers get their satisfaction from knowing they are performing the act. They kill and while they kill they think "I am killing" and this is what satiates them. This isn't the case for the painter. He needs the actual moment, the presence, the experience. It isn't relish exactly, it isn't what you might call enjoyment. It is the presence. The way that flesh parts beneath a scalpel, the way that blood starts to bead and then flow from the wound, all of it brings him fully into the moment. Screaming helps but it isn't necessary, so he usually gives his victims anaesthesia. One of his most renowned works had come to him in a moment when screaming had turned to gurgling, when he slipped a large blade between ribs and slid across, slashing open a lung. His victim's face after that still haunts him. So he prefers them sedated now.
One time he let the victim live. He figured that if he could achieve the sublime moment by only maiming, but not killing, his prey, that would be easier on his conscience. After he figured he had had enough, he dressed the man's wounds and once the man was healed he released him. The painter had taken great care to ensure that the man did not know who he was or where he had been held. But the work he did after suffered. It was panned by critics and public alike. And after the first blush of excitement that always accompanied creation wore off, he had to admit to himself too—it just wasn't as good. And he found out that two months later the man shot himself anyway. So he went back to killing.
You're wondering why I don't go to the cops, but that’s because you haven't seen the work. In a hundred years or two hundred years, the killing won’t matter. Everyone who knew his victims will be gone. No one will be grieving. It won't make a difference. But his work will still be here. It will still be saving lives.
One day when I was very depressed, when I had recently been fired from a job I had taken in a city I had moved to with a girl who had dumped me, I wandered into an art museum. I saw a painting there by an artist I had never heard of before, Sorolla. It was full of light, a garden overflowing with flowers. The flowers seemed to burst out of the canvas and flow into the room. It was somehow abstract and realistic at the same time. You could see the garden, it was real, it was vivid. But it also transcended realism. It was all color and form and light. Something about the beauty of that painting saved me. It touched something inside me, and from that day on I was able to start to rebuild my life. That's what real art can do. That's why I can't turn the painter in. I can't deprive the world of that. I can't have that on my conscience.
III
Heat. The sound of cicadas. The feeling that you will never die. It's the week after graduation, and you're going to a party at Henry's place. You weren't going to go to the party at all, but at the last minute Eli asked you if you were going and pointed out that this was a chance to see everyone and stop caring what they think of you. High school was over and you didn't need to worry about what people would be saying about you, you could finally do whatever you wanted.
On the way to the party you realize that part of you always believed you and Eli were friends because you were both outcasts, but Eli had a reason to be an outcast, Eli was gay, you were just weird, and sitting in the passenger seat of Eli's 20 year old Mazda convertible on the way to this party that you didn't yet know was the last night you would see Eli you realize that you always resented him a little bit for this feeling that you were somehow stuck together which thinking about it you realize is kinda fucked up and you think about apologizing but you can't quite bring yourself to explain what you would be apologizing for so you just turn to Eli and say "you know, I really value your friendship" and he looks back at you and smiles and says "me too, promise you'll keep in touch" but before you can promise you've arrived at the party and Eli sees some other queer people he wants to say hi to but these aren't people you know so you don't follow him instead you go over to what looks like the area with the drinks.
You ask someone about beer but they just point you towards a stack of plastic cups on a table by a keg. Your first attempt to pour a beer goes badly and you just get a lot of foam, but Jason who's casual confidence has always intimidated you notices and says, "dude, you're not gonna get a good pour, check this out" and he grabs another cup and shows you how to dispense the keg slowly enough and at an angle so you get a proper beer. He tells you that he's never seen you at one of these before and it occurs to you to explain that you came out to this party because you realized you could finally let go your anxiety about what people are going to think about you because you know you aren't going to see them again but it occurs to you that this will probably make the vibe weird so you just say you don't really know why you haven't made it out to one of these before and Jason smiles at you and then wanders off to find his own friends again.
After finishing your second beer you start to realize the courage to go talk to Nina, the girl you sat behind in geometry the second year of high school and have had a crush on since then. You find her and she looks preoccupied with something, but you've already decided you're going to approach her so you say "hi" and she looks at you with a strange expression but manages to summon a smile and says "hey Mark" and you ask her "you alright?" She pauses for a few seconds and it looks like she's weighing whether to open up to you about it before she just says "yea fine, what's up with you?" You don't really know what else to say so you decide fuck it and you say "well, i wanted to tell you that I've always had kind of a crush on you" and she gives you a strange smirk as she says "and so you wanted to tell me when it was too late to do anything about it?" You start to say something else but she cuts you off with "see you around Mark" and she kisses you on the cheek before adding "maybe." You stand there for a minute processing what just happened before deciding that went probably about as well as it could have gone and you shouldn't follow her, so you wander back to the keg.
After mingling for a while you realize that you've spent so much of high school worried that these people could ruin your life that you've isolated yourself but the other students are just normal too, and you just had to be normal this whole time. Either that or everyone else has also realized that this is the last time you will all be in the same place and so it really doesn't matter. At some point when you are at the keg getting another beer, you've lost count at this point although if you're honest you were trying to lose count and it hasn't been all that many, you are approached by Amanda. You took chemistry together last year and you've always thought she was cute but you also found something about her kind of intimidating. You make small talk for a bit until she tells you that she has actually had a thing for you for a while and asks would you like to get out of here.
After she drives you to her place windows down so you feel the breeze in your hair and after sneaking into her house quietly and after the two of you hook up and you lose your virginity, you're looking at the completely out of place poster of the periodic table on her wall. She sees you looking at it and smiles and says, "yea remember when we had to memorize that for Chem?" You nod and she continues, "well, I kept drilling it and I could not remember it so I eventually got that poster and left it up so I would just look at it all the time. In the morning and before going to sleep I would just read off a row and then close my eyes and repeat it and eventually that worked. But after the test I realized I'd miss it if I took it down, it strangely fits in a way." It absolutely does not fit but it seems rude to you to say that to her in this particular moment after what you two just did so you say "yea I see what you mean."
You talk about other things, about the two of you, about whether you want to see each other again, about your near future and your long term plans but right now you are thinking about that poster because ten years later and hundreds of miles away it is an identical poster that hangs in the classroom that hosts the meeting where you just shared this story as you realize that that was the last time you really enjoyed drinking, and every subsequent night of drinking after that was trying to capture the feeling of that night, and listening to yourself share that story now you are struck by how banal it all sounds.
