A Curious Story

 

A short story.

 

The street was long and twisted, like a black snake slithering among the abundant foliage and small, cottage-like houses with little red roofs and porches with rocking chairs. An dense and menacing overhang of gray, ominous clouds loomed over the town, rather like a vague, yet menacing school teacher. A smattering of sunlight rays speared the clouds here and there, and a light fog rose slowly from the dew-damp street.

There was a girl. And there was also a dog. The both of them were sitting together on a green porch, two peas in a pod. The girl had a mother. The dog had an owner. They were both barefoot. The porch also had an owner, it was the same as the girl’s mother. The peas normally wouldn’t be there; that was just a metaphor.

However, it was true that both the girl and the dog were eating peas. The girl was eating the succulent fruit from the inside, and the dog was cleaning the porch by eating the tough wrinkled shells, which the girl discarded.

I mentioned before that the girl had a mother, and the dog an owner. Neither of those facts were strictly true. The girl had a mother, but was not entirely sure where that mother went. The dog had an owner, who had unfortunately vanished along with the mother. The porch still retained the same owner, and did not feel the loss of said owner keenly, as it was only a porch, albeit a nice one. I won’t even bother to explain the metaphorical peas. The reason the girl and the dog were eating peas was that they both did keenly feel the loss of their respective overseers, and had grown rather hungry with worry.

“Espy?” Said the girl. She was speaking to the dog, whose name was not Espy. It was, in fact, Esperanto. However, the girl and the dog were rather close, and affection in such a form warranted the use of what might otherwise be referred to as a ‘nickname’. In this case, the term Espy might quite possibly be used far more often than Esperanto, and thus become more than a nickname.

“When do you suppose Mama will be back?”

The dog, who we now know to be Espy, merely regarded the girl and the half-empty pea pod in her hand. She turned and looked at it too.

“I’d say it’s half full.” She murmured to herself. Espy moaned slightly, wanting to continue the pea feast on the green porch. The girl seemed to have another idea.

“Mama and Aunty said they would be back, didn’t they, Espy?”

The girl’s aunt was the dog’s owner, and the sister of the porch’s owner, with no relation whatsoever to either the metaphorical peas or the ones on which the dog and the girl feasted.

The girl did not wait for the dog to respond.

“But they aren’t back.” The girl dropped the paper bag, inside of which were the peas – the real ones, not the metaphorical ones – and clapped her hands together loudly, to rid them of any dirt. She then turned to Espy, whose round black nose was shiny and wet, and whose eyes watched the girl excitedly. The girl had succeeded in reaching nine years of age, and surpassed that by one quarter of a year, and as such, was feeling extremely grown up and responsible.

“Because they aren’t back, do you know what we have to do, Espy?” Said the girl. Espy did not respond, but this did not deter the girl. The porch didn’t respond either, nor did the metaphorical peas.

The real peas were unable to respond, as they were currently being consumed by the unresponsive dog, whose name was actually a nickname.

“We’ll have to go and find them.” Said the girl. She picked up the paper bag containing the real peas, and stepped off the porch. Espy, who felt a strong loyalty to his owner, followed the girl.

And thus, the metaphorical peas left the metaphorical pod, not to mention the porch that was very real and not metaphorical at all.

Neither was their journey that they had just commenced.

This Day and Age

A short story.

 

 

 

The park bench was cold and wet, and leftover rain dripped from the trees above, making little wet spots, blurring the words on the page as the book created a protected little warm spot on my criss-crossed legs. Next to me, a man sat, not looking at anything. He was wearing a gray trenchcoat, the same color as his hair. He was sitting and looking, but not at the same things as I was. I was looking at the stream of people who marched their daily lives down the gray streets, none of them running into the other, a big sea of gray and white colors, gray clouds overhead, clear drops falling from the sky, green leaves trampled and yellowing on the ground. The people all appeared prehistoric as they hunched over their electronic devices, protecting them from the falling water.

But the man next to me wasn’t looking at that. He was staring almost into space, eyes focused on some indeterminate point. But I knew he wasn’t thinking. He was listening for the start of the broadcast. The daily broadcast that people listen to or watch. The antique-looking, silver-rimmed glasses – the new style – sat upon his nose, and his eyes were focusing on the images flashing across the little screens, not even an inch from his face.

And he saw nothing of the world. And the sea of gray did not part, as the Red Sea did for Moses. And a woman walked up next to me, and looked a little confused.

“Sorry ma’am, would you like to sit here?” I asked politely.

“Why, young man, what is that that you’ve got there?” She said, hardly bothering to look up from her cell phone as she tap-tapped into it. It was as though she hadn’t heard me.

I looked down at my book, with a sigh.

“This Side of Paradise. F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

The man next to me did not seem to notice the change of atmosphere around him.

The woman looked up from her device. She glanced down at the book, and looked back up at me, pulling a smile that so forcibly reached her cheeks, I wondered for a moment if her face would crack in half. Perhaps the pale gray porcelain of her cheeks would splinter, and the bottom would fall off, to reveal the whirring machinery, like the device still held in her hand, instead of a brain; with zeros and ones instead of words and thoughts.
“Well.” She finally said. “How… lovely.” And as I watched, the fake smile broke down piece by piece, and her eyes clouded over, turning as unfamiliar as night. She turned back to her device, and turned around, as though she were going to sit right on top of me.

I swiftly got up and brushed some clinging raindrops off my light-colored blue jeans. She sat down right where I had been.

“Sorry to upset you ma’am…” I mumbled. Her glazed-over eyes seemed to stare right at me, but when I moved my hand, they did not follow. She no longer registered my existence.

I was invisible. And as I walked away, book in hand, many other eyes set in pale, gray faces hooded by gray coats, also ceased to see me.

And then I was running. It always unnerved me, the way their eyes seem to turn black and rotten. It made me think of all my flaws; my love of books, my love of color, my creativity. I was running, and the stream of people began to part for me, and for that one second I was Moses, and the sea was not red but gray, and I felt something like sadness, but I was proud too.

And then I was falling, and hitting the soft wet ground with a heavy thump. I opened my eyes, and there was someone below me, who I must’ve hit. And then her eyes were open, and they were blue, and wet, and shining with untold stories. They did not cloud over as they focused on my book, which I had hugged as I ran, and had become sandwiched between us as I fell. And I looked at her book, and my fingers felt numb because they were squished between This Side of Paradise and Harry Potter, which she had been hugging as we collided. And as we looked at the books, and our eyes did not glaze over, there was this perpetual moment where the air was clean, and her coat was red, and there was just us; one tangled spot of color in the sea of gray. And then I stood up, and helped her up, and she smiled, a proper smile. And I smiled back, and the rain continued to fall and the sea of gray swept around us, and even then I wasn’t looking at the sea of gray, I was looking at the world, which seemed very, very bright.