In between wracking coughs and long, thirsty swigs of Jim Beam, Bessie takes a good hard look at Burt’s face. “That storm. It’s brewing again. In your eyes,” she says, craning her neck to study his mixture of dark blue twisted with gray and green; changeable eyes that reflect his mood. Somber, with a pinch of angry.
“You can’t hide it from me.”
Hassan sat on the bench and looked out over the water. He wondered what it would be like to be lost at sea. The view of the water was obscured by all of the boats, but he focused on the one clear patch that stretched out to the horizon and imagined being adrift. A single human soul in an ocean entire lifetimes have been spent upon without seeing all there is to see. He was filled with the low grade, buzzing sensation of nascent awe. With something so immense, words don’t sound big enough, so he made due with emphasis. The ocean was just so big and constantly moving.
All of the boats bobbed in the endless ebb and flow of the waves. Some sat low in the water, barely registering the lift and release of the tide. Others seemed to rest on the top of the water like a leaf, obeying every twist and pull, every rise and fall, every whim of the water that had existed billions of years before the boat and will be here billions of years after. And always moving! Always in motion! Always in–
“Excuse me.”
Everyone has a limit. I hit mine on a picture-perfect Saturday in late April. I had resigned myself to being alone. Unlike my mother’s generation, I didn’t need a partner. I didn’t need a marriage contract. I did fine on my own. Or so I thought.
The loneliness set in after I started perusing the online dating sites. It was as if knowing what my prospects were made it worse. My profile was overflowing with potential mates that had perfected the bathroom selfie. The few times I accepted a match I quickly realized the dating software had failed me. I had no gracious way out. My “thanks but no thanks” message was most often greeted with, “Whatever. You’re an ugly bitch anyway.”
The modern howl of the train never fails to break the spell. Unless of course it’s synchronal, in which case, choo-choo. Regardless, the sex is phenomenal.
My name is Paty, last name immaterial. That might not even be my first name, just so you know, but it is. Paty from LA. That’s LA like Los Angeles not Louisiana. I’ve hopped around town all my life – from Noho to Venice and all the way to Alhambra – but I was born in Glendale. Living back there now in an old Spanish style bungalow situated in the Tropico district, southwards, bordering Atwater and within a whisper of Los Feliz. I rent from an ancient fiend named Miller. I don’t know if that’s his first name or his last name and I don’t care. 3,500 a month gets sluiced out of my checking and goes into Miller’s moldy old coffers because I no longer have a home – it’s been wrecked. Did you catch on or should I elucidate? No, you’re smart. When I slid the cheap wedding band I’d worn for thirteen years off my finger, I felt OK. Know why? Because underneath the ring, I noticed that my skin there was lighter than the rest of me. I still had a teeny bit of myself left untainted by wasted time and misplaced love.
I’d been here a few weeks in relative peace but now the park was being dug up all around me, and I was having trouble finding out why. At first I thought they were going to excavate and replant the flower beds and shrubberies. I panicked then about being displaced from my comfortable abode in the heart of the ancient rhododendron, which was larger than my last apartment and rent free. Would I have to go back to the west side tunnels? I couldn’t do that. Peggy was probably still marooned over there and she wanted, understandably, to kill me. But I couldn’t go to a shelter either. The city’s shelters bring out my claustrophobia worse than any tunnel ever could.
He was in heaven again, umpiring a school cricket match, when something interrupted his appreciation of an exquisite cover drive.
“Dunc,” Heather whispered, jostling his shoulder under the duvet.
He tried to return to the cricket, but it had gone.
“Duncan…”
Why was she lying behind him? Oh. Holiday. France. First night. The farmhouse only had double beds.
I’m afraid our 12-year-old son is a budding psychopath. As in he isn’t yet, but I’m scared to death. Hurting animals is a sign, right? I won’t say what he did because it’s too upsetting. Ruth doesn’t want to believe me until I show her what I found in the small lake in the grip of our subdivision. We agree Jacob should see a counselor.
I take Jake by myself to his first session with Dr. Penser because Ruth has a late meeting with her boss. Again. After my son and I sit with Penser together, the doctor asks for some time alone with Jake. The shrink brings Jake out to the waiting room about 30 minutes later. I give the doc a look that says “Well?”
The marketing interns were in the break room, holding the Quarter Finals of the World Cup of Crisps, an event that had been dreamt up one bored Friday afternoon. Packets had been bought from the shop, randomly allocated groups and then pitched against each other in a tournament to find the one true champion. In the latest matchup, Josh and Becca were arguing that Prawn Cocktail was superior, while Tony was mounting a firm defence of Beef and Onion.
“You’re crazy,” Josh said. “Prawn Cocktail’s iconic, man. It’s a lifestyle thing. It’s chunky polo necks and wifeswapping in the 70s.”
After his introduction, I lead the mantra. May I be Free from Pride. May I Live in Integrity. Through the Grit of Sand, may I become a Pearl. The faces below tilt upward like flowers to the sun. Smiling, I shift my gaze to Arnold, but he stares ahead, his lips turned down. It wounds me deeply, his brusqueness, because I know that I disgust him. I disgust myself. Thirty-two years with Arnold Burgstaller and I am still slow to learn.
“Perhaps, Bronwyn,” he says, looking at the students in the front row, “you could allow me to finish speaking before you jump in. Just something to remember going forward.”
Idle Ink 