The young boy was impatiently running ahead. Lagging behind him, the elderly couple held hands and constantly stopped to take in the sites. They would read the signs and take pictures and discuss what they each were seeing. Growing frustrated, the boy eventually stopped and turned to them and said, “We need to go faster Papa and Gramma or we won’t get to see everything.” The old man turned to his wife and smiled. “He will learn someday that by slowing down, the quality of the places we do see is much more rewarding than how many places we see.”
Category: flash
The sun will come out tomorrow.
When the future seems to hold no hope and it feels like the world is conspiring against you, remember the old cliché that when one door closes another one will open. So when hardship hits, don’t waste your energy on things that you can’t control. Be patient and concentrate on what you can change. Without change there can be no growth.
Jason…
Janice has withdrawn into herself again. She’s setting there on our yard sale couch staring into a TV that isn’t even on. With the old quilt, that our grandmother made, wrapped tight around her; though it’s eighty degrees in our trailer. Her face is sunken and her skin hangs lose from fragile bones. Like all the emotions have been sucked away from her and left her deflated.
I sit down next to her and she leans into me, resting her head on my shoulder. We set for an eternity in our silence just staring at the floating specs of dust in the sunshine. It’s like we’re frozen inside a snow globe.
“I hate Fridays,” she says to me. I smile because I know she’s trying to push away the ugliness that is shrouding her.
“I know Jan.” I tell her, because really I do.
It was three years ago on a Friday that I found you huddled in the woods, just off the path that we used as a shortcut from school. We took that path everyday together…except that Friday. That Friday, I wasn’t there for you because that Friday I tried out for that fucking school play. I found you there, shaking so hard I was afraid your bones would shatter. Your head was in your hands and the tears burning the scuff marks on your cheeks. I heard you whispering between your sobs, “No, no, please no.”
You were only twelve years old and collapsed into a pile of flesh and bones. Left discarded in the woods like some wounded animal. I found you there, with your clothes covered in your own blood. Your innocents ripped from your soul. You wrapped your fists tight into my sweater as I picked you up. Your eyes squeezed shut because you never wanted to look at anything again. There would be no beauty left for you in this world. I carried your trembling body in my arms. Your convulsions were so heavy that you vomited onto my cloths; your tears so large they washed it away again. Your short wisps of breath floated into the night sky along with all your dreams. All I could do was tell you that it was going to be okay…but I knew it never would.
While you searched for some answer, you cried, “Oh God, why, why?”
I don’t think God will ever give us those answers my dear sister, but I will always hate him for taking your childhood away.
March
March –
Named for the God of War but Loki is your nature. Each year you bring the prospect of spring yet your deceit hides that promise under your cloak of white. I should know better, but you understand how much I need to believe your promises.
Beware the ‘Ides of March’; Julius did not heed the warnings and you repaid his arrogance with the cold steel of betrayal.
Now you say that you are the master of time and will move the sun to bring me another hour of light. But you’ve only robbed from the beginning to repay the end.
Connie Was a Cheerleader
Connie is a cheerleader. With her bright, white teeth, smile and bouncing tits. Her short skirt legs running long and lean through indecent thoughts. Those bright Friday night lights are her stage. She uses the crisp November air as her makeup. Robert envies the night breeze for the chance to caress her skin and send that blushing red color onto her cheeks.
Connie is mysterious and foreign to Robert. She is the manicured lawn and a garden filled with flowers that only exist in his dreams. She is a white fenced house with a stone pathway, a refrigerator filled with food. She is Norman Rockwell family dinners. She knows Van Gough, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, lavender bath soap, satin sheets, silk pajamas and pink bed spreads. She knows Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Abercrombie and Fitch. Although he has only talked to her a few times, Robert is sure she knows him too.
As they talked, he watched her piercing green eyes stare through his soul like holding a paper to a light bulb. He saw her cringe at the sight of his shriveled up insides, Salvation Army furniture, Batman comics, and cold bologna sandwich dinners. He knew she smelled his stagnant life in a broken down trailer on a filthy back lot where she could hear a life filled with “god damn you”, “fucking little punk” and “get the hell out”. She saw the empty beer cans stacked on the garage sale coffee table covered with cigarette ash. Yes, Connie knows him and she wants nothing to do with him. Connie is a cheerleader and he is not the quarterback.
*****
Robert is a loner. With his sky blue eyes, crooked smile and fuck the world and let them kiss my ass attitude. With his broad shoulders and sad puppy eyes, he’s learned to survive and take the things he needs. She envies him for his freedom and strength. He is a no curfew James Dean adventure. He is “something much better than this” hope and “I will never leave you alone” safety. Things that she longed for in her dreams. He is strong and silent yet she has seen the gentleness in his stare. Though they have talked only a few times, Connie knew he read her thoughts with the ease of a first grader’s book.
He had looked into her eyes and cringed at the lies she keeps hidden in the shadows. He has seen her pretend life behind her parent’s money. He feels the fear of fatherly lust. He saw beneath the heavy makeup hiding her bruises. He hears the “better not tell your mother or else”, “you worthless little bitch” and “you’ll do what I say.” He flinches at the sharpness of the razor blade in her bathroom drawer. Yes Robert knows her and wants nothing to do with her. Robert is a loner and she is damaged beyond repair.
Jerry Brotherton 