what if ...

Everyone is either searching for something or is dead. He believes this and it makes him a bit nervous, anxious, because he doesn’t know for what, whom or that which he searches. He thinks for a moment, then wonders: What if I already found it and didn’t know? This is his paranoia, his guilt, and he curses himself, again, for being so Catholic. Guilt is such a stultifying thing. Worse than paranoia. Much. So, he frees himself from both by assuming that he’s not yet found it. A lover once said to him, “All who search are not lost,” and he saw it on a t-shirt, later, which mean, of course, that it must be true. So, perhaps he’s a searcher. Perhaps that’s his calling, he thinks, wondering if everyone has a calling. He wishes he could talk with someone about this, but his friends, mostly co-workers, have families and he knows, from experience, how families usurp thinking. His phone vibrates; he keeps it on vibrate. It allows him to stop thinking, for a moment. So, he does. He can think later about it. If so.

away

“Do you remember
our first kiss,” she asked, and he said, “No,”
and she felt her heart shrink, a bit, because
she
remembered
it so well. “You asked if you
could kiss me,” she said, and he shrugged, with
an embarrassed, apologetic smile, because he
was that sort of sincere. “You
actually
asked,” she said, and he felt good about that,
because it was important to her, that,
but he wasn’t
sure why it was so important to her
that
he
remember, as she did. Then, he saw it
in
her
eyes. “If I ask you again,” he asked, “will it make up
for my forgetting?” and she smiled
a sad smile and said, “No,” then shrugged and
turned away, a bit, not too much, because she wanted him to
love her,
but,
still,
away she turned,
enough, enough.

gone

It is the one curve on her body that he remembers. Her cheek. Her breast. Her stomach. He has an idea about those. But this one he knows. It is the part, the place, as she lay flat, between the small of her back and the back of her thigh. He remembers the times, moving his hand across the curve, as if trying to make it an indelible memory, in which he may have succeeded, which sometimes brings a gentle smile to his face. It is not a sexual memory, though it could be; the sex they had was wonderful. It’s more a knowing, a comfort, a beauty, a calm. It’s the kind of feeling some might liken to coming home. Perhaps that’s why he misses it so. It was like that, and he’s away now.

Rufus

He watched her walk to the far shelf, where the coffees were shelved and then he watched as she scanned the selections, picking up one brand, replacing it, picking up another and studying it, then replacing that one, too. Such mundane movements that seemed somehow graceful and expressive, alluring and somehow innocent. She caught him watching her and he blushed. “Are you watching me?” she asked, and he shrugged, bashfully, and said nothing, then blushed, again, nodded, because he couldn’t lie to her. “I love you,” she said, and he said nothing, again, but she smiled, because she knew. “I think I’ll wait on the coffee,” she said, “The prices are better at the uptown store.” Then, she moved close to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek and whispered, “I love it when you watch me. I can feel it and I like the feeling.” For some reason, he wanted to ask her if she ever watched him, but he didn’t. He was afraid to ask. Maybe some other time, he figured. Some other time. Later. Maybe. Her name was Andrea. His was Sam. They would be married for 23 years, soon after which she would file for divorce, citing irreconcilable difference, singular. Their dog was named Rufus. She got him.

hmm

What goes around, comes
around, except,
when it
doesn’t, which would
mean
that
it goes, where? There? Over there? Waaaaaay
over yonder? In the past,
if
it
could? He considered this perplexity
with some
acknowledgement of
complexity, then decided
it was best if he just
didn’t
use
clichés, at all, and, better yet, avoided
redundancies, like – oops, such as –
at
all, when in trail
of
avoid and the like.
Or similar.
Be it therefore
known.
Amen,
can I have an?

visitation

The pelican appeared
to him in his sleep, speaking
in perfect English, which he found not so
surprising, for some reason, at
all, and it said, only,
“Be true,” and he awoke, not suddenly,
but after some
time, and sat – not up, but just – and
said, back, “Yes.”
Then, he lay,
again – not down, but just – and
stared at the ceiling for minutes, then
hours, then
fell back
asleep.
He awoke at the alarm
and
remembered
nothing, as was supposed
to
be.

roselyn

She slipped into the bathroom, into a stall, took a deep breath, and slipped off her panties, folded them, put them in her purse. She’d never done anything like this, that. Never. In high school she’d been named Miss Goody Two-Shoes. That was years ago, now, but time hadn’t made her any more daring. Until tonight. And it hadn’t been time, tonight, either. It’d been the young – well, relatively – boy at the bar and the few drinks she’d downed to bolster her courage. She’d decided an hour ago to have sex with him. Just like that. She sucked in a deep breath, now, checked her lipstick in the bathroom mirror, pushed her hair back, but in a sexy, willing way. Would she respect herself in the morning? Maybe not. But she didn’t really care, right now. She just wanted to fuck him. Or have him fuck her. However it went would be ok. Her name was Roselyn. She was a teacher. At a Catholic school. Of course.