The two friends sat on his stoop watching rain fall a few feet ahead of them but not yet breaking through the leaves above. It hadn’t been raining when she arrived, but just started once they’d sat.
“It’s raining.”
“Yup,” he responded.
She looked up at the tree and smiled.
“This is nice, sitting in the rain without getting wet.”
He nodded and continued to enjoy the patter.
“I missed you.”
“Me too,” he said with a smile.
“So what do you want to do today?”
“We’re doing it,” he said.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged best friends, fiction, friends, love, people, photography, photos, rain, rainy days, relationships, reunion, writing
“I want to take a trip around the world.”
Illana looked up at Maura to gauge the sincerity of her comment. “Yeah?”
“Yes. Now.”
Illana left her homework and walked over to the bed where Maura lay on her stomach ignoring the text she was assigned.
“You’re one-hundred percent sure?” Maura nodded. “Then get dressed.”
As Maura put on her favorite tee shirt they’d bought because they thought the image looked like Joan Crawford, Illana pulled out an old plaid suitcase, a treasure found at an estate sale a few months back. She opened it and began placing random clothing into it as her friend pulled a skirt up over her black leggings. Once assembled, Maura stepped up to the suitcase, motioning to Illana that it was her turn to get ready.
Pulling out a pair of flower-print shorts and holding them up to a mirror against her leggings, Illana remembered something important and said, “Don’t forget Marilyn. And Old Yellow.” Maura nodded in agreement and grabbed the large framed photograph and a beat up toy car, stuffing them into the vintage case with the clothing.
Illana joined her by the suitcase and they each took a clamp and shut it.
“Let’s go,” Maura said, Illana grabbing the suitcase and following close behind.
***
Illana and Maura waited alongside Paddua Road, a desolate and unused trucking road that ended at a collapsed bridge about three miles towards the mountains. They watched, waiting for an unlikely vehicle.
“I want to see Paris,” Illana said as she propped up the photograph against the suitcase and plopped down in the grass next to the asphalt.
“So generic,” Maura responded. “But yes, we must. And Madrid.”
“Rome.”
“Prague.”
“Really?”
“Yup.”
Maura shielded her eyes from the sun, looking down the empty road. “Nobody’s coming. I want to change my shirt.”
“So change it. There isn’t a house for miles.”
Maura removed the Joan Crawford-like shirt and replaced it with a gray tee,
pulling the long sleeves up to her elbows. She looked down the road again, then started slowly crossing it towards the open field across from them. Illana laid down in the middle of the road and watched her go for a moment before getting up, and grabbing their belongings and heading for the same field.
She joined Maura, who was now sitting amongst the grass and dandelion wishes. Illana plucked one of the nearby flowers and blew on it so that parachutes fluttered in the air, putting on a private dance just for the two teenagers.
“Think we’ll ever actually see the world?”
“Of course we will. Don’t be silly. As soon as we’re eighteen. Summer after we graduate. It’ll happen.”
Maura reached over to the suitcase and opened it, removing the small beat up vehicle they’d found while exploring an abandoned home last summer. She ran her fingers across the writing on the door that said “Kreuzer – Ball Pen Stylo” and then spun one of the wheels. She looked over at Illana, who was laying on her back with her feet in the air. She gently balanced the toy onto Illana’s feet.
“See how long you can keep it there.”
After a few minutes of a quiet breeze and perfect balance, Maura reached over and tickled Illana, making the car roll off her feet and into a particularly large pack of the white dandelions. The car disturbed enough of the flowers to break a large amount of them, and the wind picked up the petals and blew them towards the girls, making a summer snowfall of wishes surround them.
“Make a wish,” Illana told Maura.
“I already did.”
Maura got up and picked up the suitcase.
“Let’s go home.”
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Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers
Tagged art, Belgium, best friends, fiction, flash fiction, friendship, hipster, life, love, marilyn monroe, nonsense of the truth, nonsenseofthetruth, photo, photography, teenagers, teens, world travel
“I’m an actor, I need my motivation,” he said.
“To make breakfast? Really?” She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation with her roommate. “How about to eat? Fulfill your animalistic need to feed? Survival?”
“Meh.”
“Don’t you have call backs later today? I don’t know – a stomach growling on stage, not sure how that would go over. Imagine what the casting director would say…”
He jumped up and headed for the kitchen as a sly smile crossed her face.
“Still got it,” she said, lounging back onto their orange velvet couch. She pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and curled herself up into it. A few minutes worth of sizzling sounds came from the kitchen and moments later he was above her holding out a plate and mug. “Spinach omelet. Irish Breakfast tea with a splash of milk.”
“Yum,” she said as she sat up and took them from his hands.
“I hope you’re happy.”
“It was your turn!” she said with a frown.
“Your hair is a mess. You have sex hair.”
“I do not!”
“Do you honestly think I didn’t hear captain marvelous stumble out this morning? He stepped on Walter,” he said as their cat entered the room on queue, almost frowning at her in frustration after having been stepped on.
“Aw, Walter, come here, I’m so sorry,” she said in a baby voice, making him cringe.
“So, yeah, sex hair. You’re so transparent. If you’re planning on going to class I would at least run a brush through it. Not that the neighbors don’t know what a whore you are, what with all that noise last night. Or maybe they’ll just think Walter was in a cat fight.”
“Sounds like you’re the one in the mood for a cat fight. Don’t forget to wash the dishes,” she said, leaving her plate behind on the couch for him to pick up but bringing the mug with her. He grunted she spun back to answer.
“It’s your turn! I did breakfast yesterday!”
“Yeah, I remember, runny eggs and toast barely toasted. A real treat.”
He sat back and ate the last bit of his omelet and then jumped a bit as she screamed.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to brush my hair! It’s really knotted!”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have let him pull it so much.”
She poked her head out of the bathroom, blushing a little.
“Yeah, I heard that part too. Everyone did. Whore.”
“You’re just jealous that I have a man and you don’t.”
“For the hundredth time I AM NOT GAY.”
“Now who is transparent?” she asked from the doorway again, this time smiling.
“Try taking a shower. You can’t possibly be planning on going out today without washing off the stink of nasty, dirty hair-pulling sex.”
This time only a hand with an extended finger protruded from the bathroom.
“Mature.”
She started running the shower and then poked her head out again.
“Shouldn’t you be heading out to callbacks? Or do you need me to tell you your motivation. Probably to get a beej from the director.”
He gave her the finger, and as he did so noticed the time on his watch, cursed, grabbed his coat and ran towards the door.
“Have a nice day, slut.”
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged acting, actor, anger, best friends, breakfast, cooking, fiction, flash fiction, friends, friendship, gay, homosexual, humor, life, motivation, omelet, roommates, sarcasm, sex, stage, tea
Some music to accompany the story:
He opens the fortune cookie, drops the remnants onto the little dish, and reads it out loud. “Your life will be happy and peaceful.”
“That’s ironic,” I say from across the table.
“Why?” he asks me.
I give him a quizzical look. How could he fail to see the irony in this situation? “Why are we here tonight? Why did you drag me out on the coldest, rainiest night ever to a Chinese Restaurant we haven’t been to since we were dating ten years ago?”
“I sometimes forget we dated, we’ve been best friends for so long. We used to come here all the time.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that. But that’s not why we’re here.”
“Oh yeah…that.”
He’s so frustrating. Clueless. But then, that’s the kind of person who would do this in times like these.
“So,” he said, “Can I have your orange wedge?”
I push the little plate towards him. “Knock yourself out.”
He reaches his big, stupid hand over to my plate and takes the wedge. He starts slurping at it, sounding like a kid who just started wearing braces.
“Don’t you think I’ll look good in fatigues?”
Ugh. “Yeah I hear they’re quite slimming.”
He looks like I just slapped him. He puts down the chewed remnants of peel. The smell reaches me, making me regret giving up the orangey sweetness.
His gaze is drawn outside, looking at the street now devoid of cars. Every once in a while the wind blows a splattering of drops onto the window.
“It’s nice here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. I don’t get why you would leave.”
“There’s so much peace and quiet.”
I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall. He continues.
“I love this place. I’m going to miss it.”
“Then why go?”
“You know.”
I really didn’t. There is no reason, no point. The worst is that as of now it’s faceless to me. I don’t know anyone there, so I don’t need to worry or care. I can avoid it by staying away from the news, papers, websites. But now he will be there, and now it has a face and I will be confronted with it at all hours. At work. In the car. Washing the dishes. On a date. I’m forced to think about it now…and it makes me feel…
“Uncomfortable?” he asks.
“Huh?” It is like he was reading my mind.
“You look uncomfortable. Need to switch? My chair is pretty soft.”
“No, no thanks,” I say, laughing a little.
“I ship out pretty early tomorrow.”
“Do they still say that? Ship out? Isn’t that the navy?”
He turns a little red, reminding me of the time he walked in on my little sister changing.
“I dunno…”
“Maybe you better find out before you make an ass of yourself.”
He gets up, bumping into the table and making the glasses of water sway enough to spill a bit over the edge. He drops a twenty on the table.
“Thanks. This was important.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He turns to go, and I feel like I need to say something meaningful, but can’t think over the emotional noise cluttering my head.
“Wait.”
He turns, but I still don’t know what I want to say.
He gives me a sad wave and turns around to leave. Pulling his coat tighter, he opens the door and is attacked by the wind, rain spraying him as he makes his way out of my life, and possibly out of his.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged army, best friends, Chinese food, death, fear, fiction, flash fiction, fortune cookies, fortunes, friendship, life, loss, rain, sorrow, war
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