Short Stories

It’s a perfect night for a campfire. The air is crisp and brittle, and the fire crackles an orange yellow blue sunset in front of me. I don’t know what it is about fire that makes me stare. There’s something in the heart of those flames, some secret, some memory or truth, behind the curtain, behind the heat, something I can sense but can’t quite see, and I am transfixed. Everyone else has gone to bed, but I’m awake, alone, staring at the fire, and I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I know it’s there, right now, in a language my eyes can’t read, and in the morning it’ll be gone, all of it, with only ash and destruction left behind.

One night, years ago, my house burned down. We stood there in the street, the neighbors gathering around us, and we watched. The heat was incredible. Everything we owned, all of it, was being consumed, eaten by this thing, this light, and I think for all the sadness, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. There wasn’t anything to to but watch, so we did. We held each other and stared. When it was over, we picked through the soggy ashes in silence, looking more for some clue, some meaning than anything else. Of course we didn’t find any.

Maybe that’s what I’m looking for again tonight. If it’s anywhere, it’s there, in the flames. Truth, hope, the face of God, the meaning of life, the collective memories of an entire species. Every war, every story, every night and day and night again, every love and hate and the entire expanse in between, every birth, every death, every moment, locked away behind a shield of light and heat,

blazing,

flickering

and then, finally,

gone.

I look out the window. The sky outside is overcast, both bright and dull gray at once, with layers of clouds like hills and valleys, meadows, mountains, plains, deserts, every place I’ve never been.  Between them and Me, the bare tops of trees toss back and forth in the wind, alive and restless, and for a brief moment I am home, I am home like I’ve never been before.

A noise from behind me, and the moment is gone.  Carl steps out of the living room with the television in his arms. “What the fuck are you doing? They’ll be home soon! Let’s go!”

He’s right. I pick up my box, and we finish cleaning the place out. 

The wind has picked up by the time we leave, and droplets begin to fall on the windshield as we drive away. Carl is silent, and so am I. There’s nothing to talk about anyway.

My phone rang. It was Phil.

“I’ve been to every goddamn grocery store in this town, and not one of them sells beards, never mind by the loaf.”

I thought for a second before responding.

“You might want to put your reading glasses on, then take another look at that grocery list.”

There was a pause.

“…I’ve got to go.”

“Yeah.”

It’s raining outside. I love the rain. The air comes in the window wet and cool, and as it sinks down into my cell I pull deep breaths of it, savoring the moisture. 

In the forty six years that I’ve been imprisoned in this tower, it has rained eighty nine times.

There are no doors. There are no guards, and no one to bring me food, (which I don’t really miss) or water (which I miss terribly.) My jailers are long dead, and I doubt that anyone still alive knows of my existence.  If I were capable of dying, I would have done so long ago, but I’m not, so I wait. And I plan.

The rain will be my salvation. It will wear away at the stone walls, drop by drop, pebble by pebble, decade by decade. Cracks will widen. Eventually, these walls will crumble, as all things do, and I will be free again. Whether it takes a hundred years or a thousand, I will be free.

They couldn’t kill me, so they thought that they could lock me away forever. They don’t know what forever is.

Sylvia walked into the diner just after midnight and sat down at the counter. 

“I’m looking for a woman.”

A few seats down, the only other patron in the place was reading a paper.

“Lady, so am I.”

Sylvia frowned. She opened her purse and fished out a photograph.

“Have you seen her?”

The cook glanced at the picture and went back to his grill. “Yeah, you just missed her. Is she in some kinda trouble?”

Sylvia put the picture back into her purse. “You could say that.” Then she pulled out her pistol. She shot the cook first, then the man at the counter before he had a chance to look up. She put her pistol away and stood up.

—

Allie flew down the highway on her motorcycle. Far off behind her in the night she could see the flames from the burning diner. She shuddered and roared ahead into the darkness of the desert. They would catch her eventually, but not tonight.

I tripped over Albert as I came inside. He was lying face down on the floor. 

“What on earth are you doing?”

He responded without looking up. “Mustache pushups.”

“Mustache pushups?”

“For the Mustache Competition. It’s next week.”

Albert’s mustache was magnificent. 

Harlan sneered at me.

“What do you think you’re doing, Charles?”

I didn’t answer. Instead, I shut my eyes tight. I heard his voice change. A note of panic.

“Charles… I’m your friend!”

“You’re not real.”

Harlan screamed at me as he began to disappear, but even his voice was fading.

“You can’t do this!”

I shut my eyes tighter.

“Yes. I can.”

There was nothing else. No more yells, no more voices, just the air around me. I whispered into the empty night.

“I can do anything.”

The words slipped away into the dark. I was alone.

“Hey Dad! Look at me!”

I looked up from my gardening. Joseph was on the roof with a cape tied around his neck.

“Joe, get down from there!”

“I can fly, Dad!” 

He ran towards the edge of the roof at full speed. I stood and cried out, but it was too late; as he reached the edge, he vaulted high into the air, leaving gravity and me far below. I leapt into the sky after him and caught him by the ankle. As we floated slowly down to earth, I could see the mixed joy and wonder in his face. I sighed. It was time for The Talk.

It cost me six years and every personal relationship I had, but I had completed the engine. I thought about lost friends as I steered my ship through the morning sky, clouds whipping up around the hull, and I wished briefly for someone, anyone to share this feeling with. Then I pointed the bow towards the horizon. The sun was still rising, and there was a world to explore.

She sat across from me, silent for a moment. We let it fill the room. 

“Let me see it.”

I handed her my guitar. She took it lightly in her hand and inspected it.

“This instrument is made out of spruce.”

I waited.

“It was a tree once.  It came from a forest. Do you understand? This instrument was once a living thing. It grew out of the ground for years, and it grew from the rain, the sun, and the soil. The soil that it grew from was made of the remnants of other living things, other trees and plants, and animals, going back for years, centuries, even millennia. There are stories in this wood that have been told again and again, and stories that have never been told at all. Every song ever written, every word ever spoken is written indelibly into the memory of this wood. When you play this guitar, you are bringing all of that history into musical fruition.”

She handed it back to me. 

“The music doesn’t come from you. Or, it doesn’t come from just you. Let the music come from the guitar. Let it come from the life that it once was. Let that life, that history come forward and be.”

All I could do was hold it in my hands. The silence began to fill the room again, and she waited. The guitar waited too.