Category: Short Short Stories

Eleuthera (the Bahamas. Winter 2012.)

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I was born as lightning struck the Atlantic, during an unseasonable January thunderstorm.  The whole thing had groupers and houndfish cocking their heads to the side in unfamiliar motions.  The ocean was sky blue and clear, but the sky was choppy with swells.     Raindrops fell from the sea into the clouds.   The Sargasso Sea paused its churning, leaving seaweed suspended without shores.    Eel larvae hatched all at once and bathed in the stillness as turtle hatchlings poked their heads above the waves to watch.  The sea sang siren songs to Ayacayia, who delivered me to my mermother.  The bottle-nosed friends of my father gathered round to congratulate and speed along the loggerhead who bore me to the shore.

I landed on the islands among sea biscuits and beach glass.  My sargassum hair held mermaids’ purses and unborn sharks.  My skin sparkled with the pink sand that held centuries of periwinkle dust.   Queen conchs and horse conchs alike exploded with the pink noise of the oceans they held, sending coral-colored stars into the sky.  As the dawn came, yellow hibiscus opened gently, turning orange and deepening into red before falling into the ocean, in a microcosmic mimicry of the sun.   Inland, you could hear potcakes howling at the strangeness of the winterstorm and roosters who could no longer tell the time of day. Hermit crabs came together to perform a junkanoo, which raised me from my sleep.  I had always been able to swim, but it was time to begin to leave footprints in the sand.

The 366th Day (Leap Day 2012.)

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February 28th was like every other day, until midnight, when nature, reassuringly, fell apart.  It seemed that the powers-that-be drew their heads between their shoulder blades and sheepishly conceded that time was not as sane and stable as you’d been told.  The year was out of line to us sun worshippers.  Five hours, 49 minutes, and 16 seconds out of order, give or take.  And for that, every four years, except every hundred years, but not every four hundred, the calendar needed to be slapped with an extra day.

But this isn’t just any extra day.  This day boils with the possibilities of being outside of time.  Clocks and calendars hold their breath as they wait impatiently for the sun to catch up.  The planets and stars saunter slowly across the sky as alarm clocks hold in their ringing and watches repeat the same ticks over and over again.  It almost seems that the sky is teasing Earth’s timepieces, moving in slow motion and even pausing, just because it could.

It was on such a day that she came to you in red petticoats, dressed all in white save for the scarlet blooming from beneath her skirts.  She bore a crooked smile. She was daring you, even before she spoke.  Her irises seemed three-dimensional; as if her pupils were planets whose gravity had attracted rings.  She was decked out in emeralds, on fingers and toes, and somehow it never occurred to you to wonder where they had come from.  She murmured something about Irish traditions that you knew you were not meant to hear and suddenly her hair flashed to crimson.  Just as suddenly, it was black again and indistinguishable from the sky.

She takes your hand and she leads you to the river.  It is silent, as if the water has stopped flowing. It’s too black to see them, but you are almost certain that boats are rooted in the current.  And just when you mean to tell her that you’ve got no time to give her:

“Marry me.”  It was not a question, but it was a proposition.  In the thick humidity of the night, the sky paused long enough for you to wonder what that would mean.  If time would continue its mundane march through schedules.  Or maybe, just maybe, the gravity of this moment would bring the spirals of galaxies to a halt.  Maybe a leap made on a night like this would cause the rest of time to hold its breath, head cocked, suspended in a date that did not exist.

You know already what would happen if you refused.  You would owe 12 pairs of gloves.  One pair for each month in the wobbly year.  One glove for each hour in the faltering day.  They would be worn, again and again, hiding ringless hands.   And time would continue as it always had, orbiting a sun that did not seem to care.

And yet… in just this instant there seemed to be a way out of Big Ben’s repetitive clacking and the 10,000 Year Clock didn’t seem like such a bad idea.  The only movement in this moment came from the flickering of stars and the challenge in her eyes.  In this present, with the universe frozen to a temperature that was livable, the Long Now almost seemed possible.

Is that a chance you are willing to take?

Thank you to http://www.flickr.com/photos/telstar/ for the photo of the 10,000 Year Clock prototype!  Hooray!

You can take the girl out of Florida… (Thailand. Spring 2009.)

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The pull of the swamp is unbearable. As if there is muck in my marrow. The brine I sweat has alligator gar swimming through it, snaky and smooth. It is a cycle that follows me even to Asia — too much grows, it chokes itself, and it falls to die in the water. The gases of decomposition lurk behind cypress knees and tamarind trees alike. They haunt the air and shimmy up to my nostrils. In my lungs, it is wet, it is safe, and it is warm. The perfect place for growth. The perfect place for rot. A steamy warmth for alligator eggs, filling my mouth and forcing a pearly grin. Small cracks and mucus begin to appear as they tumble off my tongue. The birth of baby predators, so cute, falling from my lips to the slippery algae below, is so much more than words.

Many thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/danielproulx/ for the picture.  Also, check out the other things on this flickr profile, because they are super cool.

Agaonidae (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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Part I

It began with the fig. It will end with the fig as well. She was my mother, the womb from which I was born and she is my home. She gave life to the forest, feeding gibbons and hornbills, civets and barking deer. But only I am of her.

Before my time, she attracted a body swollen with eggs that soon would grow into me, my sisters and brothers, and him. This swollen wasp body forced her way home, losing antennae and wings in her struggle to enter the fig. They danced together, a dance which would end in death; which is to say, a dance ending in new life. The wasp would not make it out alive. She implanted her eggs into the flesh of my mother, knowing all along it was only a trap.

Part II

I had barely opened my eyes and he was there. It was my lifes first movement to reach for him, tiny legs reaching for his tiny gentle body. Though the fig was our womb, it was he who gave birth to me. He had eaten through the walls of the egg holding me in. For now, I could stretch my wings, and now I knew of a world outside of myself. My wings wrapped around him, enclosing us both, creating a tiny screen to shield from the hundreds of other wasp bodies performing the same frenzied ritual. The flowers of the fig caressed us and showered us with pollen, the holy water of creation. There was no such thing as close enough.

and i left him there

Part III

And just like that everything came undone. My whole world exploded in spirals of starry pollen, glistening with the reflection of a sun I had never seen. The powdery gold coated my abdomen and legs, turned my black hair blonde. Rattan palms turned their fanned gazes upward. Macaques tilted curious heads in my direction. The butterflies all were still. The whole forest held its breath as it watched life’s fairy-dust rain down from my mother fig.

Under these vigilant eyes, my sisters and I fly skyward, the new dilettantes of the forest, in a synchronized ballroom-dance search for purpose. Fig-pollen for lipstick and rouge, we shine. Our lacy wings make us the angels of new life. Drip-tip leaves offer their hands in marriage, strangler figs try to tie us down. But we know we are meant for more than that. We are swollen with the children of the forest.

Creative Commons love to http://www.flickr.com/photos/jingleslenobel/ for the amazing picture!

The Weight of Bangkok (Thailand. Summer 2006.)

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It was a small splash, the first time the Chao Phraya River touched her skin. It collected itself, making a rivulet, its own tiny clone, and slithered from her shoulder, down her back. It was easy enough to brush off at the time; her attention was focused on ochre-colored robes of tan-colored monks and the smell of sewage. The busy-ness of Bangkok is enough to distract even the most worldly of travelers. It would caress her often while she tried to wrap her mind around the city. She often mistook its gentle droplets for her own sweat. Little by little it seeped into her clothes. The algae would get invisibly caked in her hair. Bathing only made it worse, since it was the same snake that came out of the faucet, running in tiny streams down her legs and nesting in her drain, just waiting for the next time she would stand above it. It brought all of Thailand into her room. The sweat from the bathing mother. The piss of the Ko Kret buffalo. The decomposing rice leaves. The acrid saliva of Asian Open-Billed Storks. The ashes of incense from Wat Pai Lom. The river left them on her eyelashes, resting on the shelf of her belly button and curled in the ques of her pubic hair. In less than two weeks time, she was drowning in it, tangled in water hyacinth.

The combination of water hyacinth and wet heat left me with dreams of the Amazon. Before long, each day was laced with ayahuasca. My stomach ached for and wretched with the newness of each experience. My appetite left me completely, and food became just another beautiful band in the rainbow of the life around me. Piranhas nibbled my toes as I walked down streets dusty with the resin of car exhaust, curry-laced smoke, and incense cinders. Vipers strung themselves from telephone poles and carried the secrets of the city from Klongsan to Phra Pinklao. The sky let loose a constant rain of wet sunshine. Even at night, nothing was dry. The moist fervor of the city covered my body, making it a struggle to keep my hips still.

In the end, it was the weight of everything which finally drove me mad. Every blanket was too heavy to sleep under. Just thinking became dangerous because one could get smothered under the weight of a simple idea. Each thought that went into the air collected condensation and dust, becoming more and more tangible and visible, until it finally dropped to the ground in a puddle and actually existed.

Daughters Never Grown (Florida. Spring 2007.)

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There are only plants today. The mosquitoes were blown away early. Love bugs hold each other in hiding. Dragonflies think themselves into sticks. Even the ants are gone. A lone chameleon bobs on the mango tree, tapping out a prophecy in morse code.

The birds of paradise are fluttering, flapping furiously to keep watch. Their shocking reds and oranges fly like flares heralding the coming of the wind. The grass is shivering, even though it is already May. Frangipani leaves begin to poke their heads out of stiff branches. They are still not convinced the time has come. They expected to be welcomed with showers and lightning — a thunderous cry to expose themselves. But they know they have been waiting too long. The angel’s trumpets have been calling, sending long fluted noted which start green and fresh and explode in screeching upside-down pink. The sounds coax the palms to dance, a primitive hallucination of a trance, a dance to tempt the clouds. Australian pines cry out as they sway, painfully praising the wind that moves them. The bougainvilleas are silent.

The mother mango listens and alone is still. She is weighted by the pregnancy of dozens of offspring, ready to feed. Her tiny flowers quiver and the beat of the shaman lizard plays on. Clouds move more quickly, as if gathering round to hear. The wind becomes more forceful, swaying the mangoes lasciviously. The angel’s trumpets begin to wail; the frangipanis gawk unashamed; the palms quicken to a frenzied dance; birds of paradise hold tightly to their stalks; Australian pines scream “halleluiahs” to the wind.

And just as suddenly it ends. A small patch of silent azure breaks over the tree, baptizing and cooling her. The chameleon hugs the trunk, exhausted by the omens. And slowly, as if gravity is lazy, thousands of white mango flowers drift to the ground. Floating like snow, winking like stars, swirling like Sufis. Hundreds of daughters never grown. Millions of mouths never fed.

The Decomposition of Eden (Florida. Spring 2003.)

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The Decomposition of Eden

 

 

       I want to show you this place, behind banyans and honey-suckle.  Backed into a mess of uncharacteristically sultry vinestreesgrassleaves, its wide open mouth gapes, screaming at us to enter and laughing with our delight at the same time.  It is submerged further than friendly waving palms, because it knows that everyone will settle for that idea of tropical. But not us.  As we kick through the grassy blades, mosquitoes splash out of the ground like water, as if we were full-grown children, splashing through puddles of winged humidity.  But we are not children, and our intentions are not innocent.  The fertility of decay seeps into our nostrils and seems to fill our heads with life.  Crooked vines and banyan roots hang down on all sides of us, lightning striking the ground.  The light is just right now, at dusk, to stab the canopy with a flaming sword of sunshine, orange and opening, pricking a gurgle of water.  The river runs past us, the father of the Euphrates, and you are surprised it is there, in hushed hiding.  You notice the fruit immediately, a flurry of fructifying vegetation.  Mangoes, oranges, papayas, and star fruit stretch out, seemingly seeping nectar just for us.  We eat: they are not forbidden.

I want to show you this place, which is not without its threats.  As the light begins to dim, the vines begin to slither.  They reach for us while we look the other way and hiss at us when we turn around to catch them.  They crisscross, making spun spider webs of foliage, and we have to be careful not to walk into them.  This can only be accomplished by finding a verdant seat.  There are no thistles or thorns, nothing to prickle our feet and grip our clothes, but we do not notice this absence.  We shed the coats of skins we have been wearing for so long. The bugs gather round, hesitating, spying, folding into flurries.  The mosquitoes attach themselves to your skin, and I realize I am jealous of the way they are clinging to you.  The trees swell, transformed and concealed by the checkerboard gleam descending on their branches and leaves.  It is difficult to tell in this glow which of the flowers are honeysuckle and which are angel’s trumpets.  It’s a risky mistake  to make, but the honeysuckle is tempting.

I want to show you this place where it seems like we could be alone.  It is a room of suspended banyan root walls and a tent covering of leaves.   The thick of tree trunks closes like an envelope, keeping people from reading us.  We cannot see anyone through these walls and ceilings, so no one can see us, we reason.  The horseflies come close to spy on us, coming out slowly from behind leaves and up from resting places in untouched grass.  They flood in quietly, undulating, making sure we do not hear them before continuing closer to our breathing bubble.  They tiptoed the whole way, I am sure.  We did not notice them.  To sit inside, our heads and shoulders framed by these viney gums, is to understand how our ancestors could think that they had found a place even God could not see them.  His many eyes, kaleidoscoped like the flies’, can’t be felt by tingling flesh, like the eyes of humans.  We pull blankets of leaves over our nakedness anyway.  It has become habit, by now, to cover up and blaming fingers protrude oppositely from each of us when we have a stab at the reasons for it.

I wanted to show you this place to end the arguments and it happens soon enough.  It does not take much time until we no longer realize that we are naked, and ashamed blamed digits fall to our sides.   It has become too moderate for the mosquitoes, and they give up for the night, following the sun’s example.  The grass cools the bruises on our heels and we become snake-like and god-like at once.  More snake-like looking, squirming in earth with our belly doomed to the dirt.  But we are close enough that our ribs melt together, every other rib of yours falling between two ribs of mine, and like that, we sleep.

I want to show you this place, where we can fall asleep rib to rib, where we are fooled into believing that horseflies and God cannot see us, where the honeysuckle and angel’s trumpets get muddled, and where deterioration is the formula to renew life.

Childhood Landscape (Florida. Winter 2012.)

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The landscape holds the deafening density of memory.  The needles of each slash pine burst with the recollection of some childhood experience just on the edge of my mind.  Each oak limb twists in the shape of a person long forgotten, whose name I would only recall if someone reminded me.    It’s as if the trees and Florida air are storing the memories for me.  They are my Giver, coddling reminiscences in case some day I might want them.  I’ve seen them all before.  Every sabal palm, every old oak, every casaurina.  I’ve left pieces of myself in the sap of each tree.  They whisper a promise to hold it, to free me, to lighten my load.  It is only in this way that I am able to travel.  In leaving behind the teenage worries and prepubescent fears, there is room for Thai macaques and Czech bridges.  But they are not lost.  The Spanish moss dangles with the whispers of elementary school friends.  Mistletoe glistens with stolen first kisses.  Pepper trees play melodies I know I’ve heard before.  Even the formations of clouds seem to materialize into shapes that I’ve seen, in the same sunset, over twenty years ago.

Crew (Florida. May 2004.)

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The boat lay sprawled on top of the water.  It floated on its back, legs and arms spread limply in all directions.  Each limb had a rower attached to it, up to his knees in swaying water.  I watched as small, listless waves tugged at the shorts of one rower, insisting he wade further from the shore.  They all waited for me to wade closer.  I hadn’t expected to get my feet wet, so my socks filled my upheld hands.

One by one, we slipped into the boat, as the others held it down on its back.  I was last.  We clumsily rocked and hit the oars, sending the hovering boat rocking.  We hesitantly strapped our feet into stationary shoes that did not fit.  We tried to find the right position in which to begin this new skill.  My seat slid back as I attempted to squirm myself into a more natural posture.

The water sloshed around us as we tried to maneuver the large arms and legs extending from the boat.  Four arms and four legs thrashed and splashed in the water, undaintily attempting to move in unison.  The waves sniggered at our irregular rhythm, beating against the boat in a unison we could not achieve.  My arm slapped another arm.

Above, sea gulls circled as if waiting for the thrashing-swimmer boat to drown.  Though it was in no other way obvious, we could see we had moved because the fog now hid the shore.  The sun had made its first appearance rising sleepily from the horizon.  We made all the noise that was on the bay that morning.  I looked to my oar and saw a pelican gliding across the water near us, his beak open in a mocking grin of our ungraceful endeavor.  The sun rose higher.

We tried to just sit still, to find a balance on the boat that could be maintained, but the boat writhed beneath our weight, and attempted to push us of its belly.  We held its arms and legs tighter.  My knuckles began turning white, just from embracing the rod of the oar.

We began again, after our unsatisfying balancing act.  Again the two sets of limbs entwined and were flung about, attempting a dignified dance, but looking misshapen instead.  We sucked in breath and held it intermittedly, trying for a rhythm with each other that seemed unfeasible.  I glared at the back of the rower in front of me.  He was off.

It happened suddenly, and caught us off guard.  The coxswain gasped.  We could not tell whose limbs were whose.

They moved together, slipping into the water and caressing it as it moved against it.

slip…and…slip…and…slip…and…

slip…and…slip…

We moved together, pressing with our thighs and sliding back and forth in unison, pushing against the limbs of the boat.  It glided beneath us.

slip…back…and…slip…back…and…

slip…back…and…

The boat created waves in perfectly timed wrinkles over the skin of the water.  It cooed at us now, the sniggering could no longer be heard.

slip…back…slosh…and…slip…back…slosh…and…slip.

The sun rose higher and warmed us, but the fog remained, confining our sight to our little patch of water.

We moved faster, all our motions in unison.  Large breaths escaped our lungs, chanting together.

slip back slosh blow slip back slosh blow slip back slosh

The shore came back into sight, and together our motions slows.  Our oars dipped into the water, cooling and slowing the boat.

We dragged the hull of the vessel back on shore, lifting together.  We held the boat as it was washed, not minding the water which found its way to our clothes.  Our steps moved in synchrony as we walked home.

Striving to be Struck (Prague. Fall 2005.)

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I want to grab ahold of lightning, let it char my hands as it sends phosphorescent energy screamingstreaming from my mouth. I want to vomit the blue bolts, leaving spatters of electrical inspiration on sidewalks and toilet seats. I want to be forced to help ’em power you and me, to light lives with impulsive volts. I want to let it grab ahold of me, twisting spidery tentacles across breasts and back, lifting me with its weight. I want to hold your hand all the while, transporting flashes through you, giving life more real than Shelley’s nightmares.