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It’s hot and stuffy in the apartment. The air is still and she struggles to breathe. Her bangs are pasted to her forehead. She’d moved to Tuscany for inspiration, but was only getting perspiration. She thinks she hears a downpour outside even though she sees the sun bleaching the curtains hot white through open windows. Wishful thinking. There isn’t even the slightest of breezes to move those curtains and she longs to pull in a deep breath of cool air. In desperation she leaves her canvas, strides to the balcony doors, yanks them open and — she freezes.
The air that hits her isn’t the stagnant air of the Tuscan countryside, but the crisp air from the fresh rainforest of Vancouver. The petrichor already permeates the air even though the rain pummells the earth to suppress it saying, “It is not yet your time. Now is my time.”
This isn’t a memory. She’s there. One step onto her balcony and she’s still dry, one more and she’d be soaked. The lights are on next door. She can see the three university girls lounging on their futon sofa with wine glasses in their hands laughing at something. She’s sure she wouldn’t find it remotely funny these 20 years later. But their love for each other, captured in their smiles, is contagious. What happened to these young women next? Are they still in touch with each other? She hopes that they are.
She wants to turn around, but she can’t. She’s dying to see her old apartment, but fears that it won’t be there when she turns. Her giant bookcase, completely full. The old big box TV causing its shelf to sag like a mule’s back. Mishmash furniture that she’d acquired over the years after leaving home. The first place that was hers alone. It really wasn’t even that special. Yet it was.
She gulps in another breath of damp air to root herself in the present and it dawns on her that if she turns around she might see someone else. The apartment never changed in her mind, but of course it has changed many times in the years since she left. A child could have been born and raised there and have already left for university themselves.
She closes her eyes and flares her nostrils to take in as much of that smell that she’s never found anywhere else in all of her travels, as much as her body will allow. She holds her breath at the peak and thanks — who? It doesn’t matter. She is thankful that this was here when she opened the door.
The unbearable Mediterranean heat begins to warm her goose-pimpled skin and the warm tones of the suburban forest fade to white. As she resigns herself to its dominance, she savours her lingering smile, feels refreshed and eagerly anticipates the next door or window that’ll unexpectedly bring her back to a moment she didn’t realise was so precious while she lived it.
497 words
Good job Athelstone! Love the comp and all the entries! Great challenge to not be allowed any prose.
Another Session
“I dreamt about you last night.”
“Hmm.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say? ‘Tell me more?’ This isn’t the first time you’ve started a session this way.”
“Does it bug you that I dream about you?”
“Should it? We see each other twice a week now, it’s not surprising that I have a place in your subconscious.”
“So?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“This was a good one. You’ll like it. We were hiking in the woods – these woods here, but not these woods, dream woods, but nearby.”
“Hiking? I hope I wasn’t wearing horrid cargo pants and a fleece hoodie?”
“Actually, you were.”
“Oh. Go on.”
“I was behind you watching your pony tail sway back and forth, the nice long hair you used to have before. Then I heard a painful cry behind me and I turned around to see you on the ground behind me clutching your ankle. You’d broken it or sprained it somehow.”
“Which was it?”
“Dunno. What’s it matter?”
“It does matter! I mean, if we’re trying to interpret your dream, it could. If my leg broke then it could mean that you don’t feel that these sessions are working for you, that this system is broken in someway.”
“Or … it could mean that I think you need taking care of too. You’re always there for me, but it’s a one way street.”
“Not really. You pay me. Well, your parents do.”
“Whatever. This is the cool part; even though I’m just a scrawny teen, I picked you up and carried you through the woods until I saw a cabin. Then I woke up.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope, but I’m sure I would have been able to make it. You weren’t heavy at all.”
“Right.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“That’s fine, Tyler, I know you didn’t. It’s just that—“
“What? Is it weird that I dreamt that?”
“No, not that you dreamt it, but … tell me, was the cabin red with a white trim?”
“Yeah!! How do you know that?”
“It seems that I dreamt about you last night.”350 words including title
*Contains foul language*
Falling in Love Ten Years Ago
‘Fuck! I can’t be late again! If I miss this signing I can kiss any chance of promotion goodbye. Hell, I can probably kiss my job goodbye as well this time! So where the hell are my keys?’
He frantically looked around his new apartment of half unpacked boxes and scattered belongings. Fredrick stopped in the hallway to catch his breath, closed his eyes and imagined last night when he came home. Yes, he was drunk again, but that never changed his routine. He raced back to the kitchen counter remembering the clink of metal on marble. Next to the counter was an open box of miscellaneous items. He squatted down, shoved his hand into the box and fished around back and forth.
“OW! What the fuck?”
He yanked his hand out of the box, then watched as a little dot of blood bubbled out of his middle finger. He nursed it in his mouth and dove back into the box with is other hand with a little more caution to find what pricked him. He found a small plastic bag marked with his ex-wife’s handwriting, “Alistair’s Baby Teeth.” Fredrick sat down on the floor leaning against the cupboards and tapped the teeth out into his palm. So small and still so sharp.
Alistair was their cat that Janice got in the divorce. Ten years ago when Alistair arrived at their home from the breeder’s, he was only three months old. They watched him for hours exploring their love nest in upper Manhattan, sniffing every corner and cautiously approaching that other kitten in the front hall mirror. Fredrick smiled remembering Alistair walking sideways with arched back topped with orange fur standing straight up and his tail poofed out to make himself bigger than his reflection. At night he’d paw at the covers until Fredrick lifted them so he could curl up between his legs.
But nothing was better than when Fredrick and his wife would settle on the couch and Alistair chose his lap over his wife’s to circle clockwise and then counter-clockwise until he found the right position for a cuddle. It was hard not to feel valued.
Looking at those teeth, Fredrick found it hard to believe that Alastair had ever been so tiny. He missed him.
A clink pulled him out of his reverie as his keys fell out of his pants pocket.
398 excluding title
Post Script – I have Ukko’s baby teeth in a plastic bag pinned to my cork board in my office. He is still with me and my husband, though he did scare us by almost dying in 2014 while I was at the Writing Festival in York. Drama queen!
She will go to a palm reader, a magic of the past that few believe in and even fewer practice, but it’s her birthday and she’ll want to do something different today.
She will have hoped for an older woman with lots of jewels and a kerchief on her head, but she’ll be unpleasantly surprised. Not only will it be a man, but he’ll greet her at the door in a track suit and with a baseball cap worn backwards on his head the way that they used to wear them. She’ll feel overdressed in her best summer dress.
He’ll welcome her into his apartment which will also disappoint her. It will be completely modern with no art work to speak of. Nothing like the descriptions of mystical rooms with beaded curtains and crystal balls that she’ll have read about.
Still there will be an air about him that is calming and she will trust him with her future. He’ll offer her a seat on his stiff couch and after he’ll have served her tea and finished with the pleasantries, he’ll sit on the coffee table and gently take her hand in his.
He will look over her palm in silence and trace his finger down the lines which will tickle her slightly.
“This is your life line here. Nice and long, curving around the base of your thumb. See these lines coming off of the head line here that go down and intersect with the life line?”
She’ll nod even though she’ll barely see them. Still, she’ll be instantly absorbed and will want to know more.
“Those are your past lives which are still unresolved. You’ve got a lot of work to do still for them. About a third of the way through your life they stop and you’ll start working on this life’s tasks, whatever they may be.”
She’ll squint to focus on those lines and wonder who those people were who will now be her.
That third line is me. I’m not sure what I’ll be leaving unresolved when I die, slip into the void and eventually return as a woman, but it’ll be up to her to finish it since the two before her failed.
I look at the lines of my past life, and wonder if I managed to finish all of their work. If my future self finishes what I don’t, will I know?
They really were all lovely stories. It’s been a while for me (again) and it’s great to see the monthly competition still chugging along, though perhaps with fewer entries. It was great to be pulled out of here and to be transported to four uniquely different places. Great job everyone!
The Longest Night
Every year on this night she took a walk. Winter solstice was important to Hanna. She hated the endless dark living in Tromsø, but tonight she knew that the light was returning to her, even if it wouldn’t arrive until mid-January. True the northern lights were spectacular when they appeared, but usually the days and nights were overcast keeping everyone in the dark.
She found people different in the dark, they were colder themselves as though the winter seeped into their very beings. She’d thought of leaving, but the summers of endless light were what kept her in Tromsø. The light was magical and filled everything with vibrant life.
Loki, her elkhound, pulled on his lead jolting Hanna out of her daydream of summer and imagining how busy this beach would be in the summer months. Which are on their way, she thought with a wistful smile. Loki kept straining, trying to take Hanna down to the water. It was well frozen over now, but when they reached the shoreline there was a cylindrical object lying in a small clearing, half on the sand and half in the water. Loki sniffed at it and Hanna squatted down to examine it. She wanted to take a closer look, but was hesitant. It didn’t make sense that the area around it had thawed completely. Sharing her curiosity, Loki took it in his mouth immediately dropping it with a yelp. Loki barked at the object, but seemed otherwise unscathed from the heat of the object.
Picking it up Hanna could feel the heat of it through her thick mittens. She turned it over investigating it, but it was unnaturally smooth except for a small button at either end. She pressed them one at a time, but nothing happened. Then she pressed them at the same time.
It was as if the world had reached the far side of the sun and she was standing in its eternal light. Startled by the blinding light she dropped the cylinder in the snow and the world returned to darkness. When her sight returned, she recovered the object and pressed both buttons again and again the night turned to day. It was as bright as a cloudless day at noon, but there was no sun, just a vast and beautiful blue sky, but oddly no warmth in it.
“What kind of trick is this Loki?”
Home
It had always been a struggle, Kristjan’s relationship with Safiya, but it had been worth it. They met when she was studying in Reykjavik from Malaysia and it was love at first sight. It was a difficult courtship because Safiya never appreciated anything about Iceland save for it “having made you,” as she would say.
Kristjan could only see one solution to stay with her and so he took the plunge and moved to Kuala Lumpur with her at the end of her studies. They wed earlier than planned in order to help with his immigration paperwork, and afterwards he found work quite easily. Life was full and exciting and everything seemed to have snapped into place.
There was always something happening Kuala Lumpur, taking them from music festivals and night markets to impromptu circus performances in the park. People were everywhere and always on the move. It was invigorating compared to home, but also a lot to adjust to.
Safiya liked to go for long walks in the evening as the air was starting to cool. Kristjan partly thought that it was for him because it was so much more calming than anything else.
One evening in late August, a little over a year after they wed, they were out for one of these walks. Though always beautiful, the sunset was getting repetitive to Kristjan. Sun up, twelve hours later, sun down.
However, Safiya’s soft hand fit perfectly in his, her thumb unconsciously rubbing back and forth, making every walk special. They’d taken this route many times, knowing it was the best way to avoid certain nosy neighbours who still treated Kristjan like a commodity that Safiya shouldn’t be keeping to herself.This evening walking through the leafy suburb in Kuala Lumpur, something was different. Kristjan felt out of place and not for any stray comments he’d overheard. He’d made Malaysia his home, but now there was a bubbling inside, feelings he’d ignored that were straining at the surface, ready to erupt.
To clear his head he looked up at the sky as he always did at home, but the foliage blocked any view there might have. Leaves were everywhere, crowding the sky and even the houses around them. He could barely see the
homes on the other side of the street.He let go of her hand, but she barely noticed.
He tried to take a deep breath, but there was no fresh breeze coming off the Atlantic to reinvigorate him. Instead it was humid and stale and made breathing more difficult. He could feel his sweaty shirt bunching in his armpits as he walked.
After a few more steps he stopped walking.
A couple heart beats after that and she turned back to him, a concerned look on her face. He couldn’t look at her. It was too much. He loved her and she loved him, but this wasn’t him. He was endless sky, cool air and drastic changes in light.
He was going home.
(500 words including the title)
“Let’s go. Everyone’s gone!”
“Not yet, there’s still one coat left.” I only been working in the cloak room for less than a month, but I take it seriously. It’s my first job after my stint in jail. Nothin’ bad, just got me some sticky fingers is all. Then of all the jobs to land after that, I gets a job takin’ care of other people’s belongings. Who says life ain’t got a sense of humour?
“Then they left without their coat. I checked the loos, they’re all empty. If they miss it they’ll be back for it,” Ralph says, opening the door to a brutal winter wind. “C’mon I gotta lock up.”
Fat chance anyone’d go out in that weather without their coat. “I’ll check the pockets. For ID, ‘kay?”
Ralph rolls his eyes at me, but don’t tell me not to. I hurry my fingers into the pockets of this old army great coat. Feels good to go looking even though I’ve kinda got permission to, but the pockets is all empty and I find only a crumpled up scrap o’ paper in the breast pocket what was buttoned shut. I unwrap it and read it twice, but it don’t make no sense.
I’m sorry. This coat is yours now.
I come ‘round the counter to show Ralph the note, but he’s comin’ to me with his hand in the air sayin’ “Whoa! What d’you think you’re doing? Take that off!”
“Wha’?” I said.
“It’s a nice coat sure, but you don’t get to take it just cause someone forgot it.”
“I ain’t takin’ —“ but I am. It’s on me. Feels great too. Nice weight. But I don’t remember puttin’ it on. I take it off and go to show Ralph the note, but he’s standin’ there, arms crossed, lookin’ at me like I’m an idiot. The coat’s back on me, but I know I didn’t put it on.
I go to give the coat to Ralph, you know, gotta show I ain’t stealin’, but then I sorta black out and next things I know Ralph’s on the ground out cold at my feet. That’s bad.
I run outside and immediately the coat’s collar goes up, protectin’ me from the wind. I know it sounds crazy, but I swear it’s true.
But the note lied. The coat ain’t mine. It don’t belong to anyone. I belong to it.
