Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Flash Fiction: Lifeline

"It's called Whisk," Alex said. He looked proud of knowing this. She told him his shirt smelled good as she hugged him. She felt his razor stubbled cheek against her forehead. The shirt was faded red and had a small logo with a crown and the letter A.

"A for Alex," he said, the first time he met her. It wasn't his only shirt, just his favorite.

The next day they floated on rafts tied together and looked from one another to the close close blueberry sky, felt the yellow heat stirring latent melanin. The bay held off waves and winds, but allowed breezes.

Her house was on one point of the bay, one tip of the horseshoe. She was happy to see seagulls now instead of geese. Goodbye childhood. Her room-mate heaved free weights about in the living room and drank eggs in milkshakes. He looked at her too long sometimes, as though waiting for secret feelings to ripen. She brought Alex home as soon as she found him. He did not lift iron, or eat raw eggs. He smoked weed and drank beer from thin cans he dented slightly afterward. The room-mate scowled at him but lessened the lengths of his stares.

The night she and Alex dropped acid she could hear the rain falling in the rainforest miles away, hitting every leaf, approaching, taking all the time in the world, taking the best decades of her lifeline.



-

No comments:

Post a Comment