Happy Valentine's Day! (Based on a true story)

This actually happened to someone I know!

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She told me that she wants "To Save the Planet." Her jaw set, determined wrinkle in her brow.

I came home from work and every light in the house was on. Almost every light except upstairs. She won't go upstairs on account of the ghost. That's become my responsibility. She says that the ghost and I have a special relationship. If not believing in a thing makes a relationship with it special then I suppose she's on to me.

Every light in the house. She wasn't even home. I called her name once, no response. Walked from room to room flipping light switches. Then I saw the boxes.

In the bedroom, neatly stacked and taped shut. Labeled with a magic marker. On the dresser, half the items that would normally be there. Her things were gone. I peeked into the drawers on her side. Empty. Took a cursory glance into the closet. I knew what to expect.

I was on autopilot at this point. When she came home later, much later, I'd somehow ended up on the couch, sitting there in darkness. She wasn't alone.

"I didn't expect you to be here." Her face, a beautiful silhouette. My mind filled in the blanks and drew the wrinkle in her brow exactly where I knew it would be.

"I live here," Imagine a paper top made by an uncoordinated toddler, spun on the edge of a table. This is how my heart feels. The other fellow shifts. I smell patchouli.

She turns on the light. There she is, breaking my heart again. The guy with her looks like he was Saving the Whales last week. Birkenstocks, khaki cargo shorts with bulging pockets some kind of a weird dreadlocky thing growing off the top of his head. Some kind of a weird, blonde, twisted thing growing off the top of his head.

Looks like it should be held together with twigs, berries and copious amounts of magic. Not the good magic either. The Darth Vader kind.

"I didn't expect you to be here," she says again. "Thought you'd be at class." Then she notices the heart box and flowers on my lap. She fights the urge to smile ironically, glances at her new beau, then back at me. I'm waiting for the anti-corporate, anti-Catholic, anti-Valentine's Day rant but it never comes.

But I never bought into that Save the Planet jazz. I only asked that she turned the lights off, turn the heat down and use less water because it put money back in our pocket. Money we could use to do things. Money we could use to make our life better.

There is no we anymore.

She leaves me alone with the new guy. The new improved version. I suspect he has a gas mask in the back of that VW Bus that he rode in on. I suspect he has rubber bullet scars, a police record and a lifetime's worth of indignation and hostility built up towards The Man.

He probably carries a piece of blank cardboard and a sharpie, just in case a spontaneous protest breaks out. He's probably seen the sparkly end of a tazer. More than once.

I need to sit down. I am sitting. I stand up and walk around, follow her into the bedroom. It would probably be a good time to plead my case.

"I bought these for you," I hold out the bouquet of cheap carnations and the paper heart filled with chocolates. I've no use for them.

She's amused. She is beautiful. I've seen this look before. Is it polite to call a woman stubborn? Resolute. Jaw firmly set, brow a slight crease. It makes me sad realizing that this is how I will always remember her.

She takes the gift from me after an internal debate plays out on her face. "I need you to..." she gnaws her bottom lip.

I know where this is going but it's my turn to play games. I raise an eyebrow slightly. Try to look like she just didn't rip my heart out and put it in a waffle iron. I'm concerned.

She looks towards the stairs. Swallows. She mouths the words. A faint bead of moisture on her upper lip. Resolute. Scared of an imaginary ghost.

I nod. I can't pretend that I have the upper hand in something that doesn't exist anymore.

"You need me to go upstairs?" I say. Her winter coats reside there. In a closet next to the guest bed.

She is trembling. I want to hold her. A faint smell of patchouli reminds me that she's off limits now. Forever.

I climb the stairs, leaving the light down below. I know my way around. I don't need it. The climb takes longer than it used to. My knees are weak. I feel old and tired. I just want to sit down. It's cold. We never turn the heat on up here. Maybe the ghost likes it that way. Alone and cold. The ghost...

I'm upstairs with the lights off. There's a guest bed. Warm, inviting me to lay down. I decide to sit on the edge of it for just a moment. Just to get my bearings. Soon I'm under the covers. I'm not alone. I am not scared of being alone.

I fall asleep counting the ways I will miss her.


* * *

When I wake up, every light in the house is on except for upstairs. She never goes upstairs.

I go from room to room to turn the lights off. She is quick though, and turns them back on after me. We never occupy the same room anymore.

I'm beginning to forget what she looks like. Except for the crease in her brow. Sometimes I catch glimpses of it in the mirror. I can no longer see my own reflection.

I only stay downstairs for so long before the heat overcomes me. She figured out how to use the thermostat as a weapon.

I end my day staring at the boxes in the bedroom and the fine layer of dust now obscuring the magic marker labels. The box of chocolates scattered and mixed with the rotted carnations, my nostrils forever filled with the cloying scent of patchouli, hands, fingers twisted into vile instruments that I can't bear to look at.

She will never understand.

I end my day, trudging up the long staircase, back to where it is bearable. Where I can feel again. Allow the thoughts of mourning to wash over me. I can see the lights come on from here, at the top of the staircase.

I can see the lights, signaling the end of my day that never ends.

I will never hold her again. No one will hold her again.

The Story...

I must tell is about love. Love in all things makes the world turn. Love of self, love of another, love of material goods, love of altruism: love is the eternal question for which there is no answer.

How do you define love when people are so different that two of them could argue over a color or a taste? Is it blue or azure? Is love even tangible? Can it be all things to all people? Is love really just a catch-all for something greater than the human experience? No person experiences it the same way as another or do they? How could you tell without being someone else?

All forms of love are not equal. Even in the most committed relationship, there is certainly an imbalance when it comes to what one will or not do for love. I would do anything for love, however...

People love one another, people fall in love with each other, people love themselves and this self love is what keeps a person going from day to day. Is love really just a biological response in order to perpetuate our species?

Why do we love? Do we actually decide to love? Does a person sit down, weigh the alternatives and make a conscience decision to begin loving another? Is it just as easy to stop loving? When we love what do we get out of knowing that we love someone? What do they get? Security? Can we choose who we love? How we love?

Can someone really die from a broken heart?

Why do we try to change the ones that we love? Shouldn't love be unconditional? How does someone know what's better for someone else? Is that love or selfishness? Is it inherently selfish to love someone? Is love really just an attempt to possess another?

These are the themes I want to explore. Even a human incapable of loving another still must love their self if they are to continue to exist. Love is something we are all familiar with whether we understand it or not.

Love is universal, intangible, and unquantifiable yet it exists as surely as the sun rises in the east.

It's all about love and that is the story that I desire to tell.

Eventually.

Trapped in a Cliche

I was out last night sitting at that one place with a tall cup of something or other, taking a swig, staring at an unlit cigarette resting on the bar in front of me.

My phone rang. The number: Unavailable. I don't answer those. Figure if it's important enough guy'll leave a message right? Besides I'm an unpopular sort. Anyone calling me at that hour would be someone I owed money. Not likely to come down to the watering hole and fill my cup a time or two.

Really that's all I'm looking for, at least my eyes tried to say that to the gal at the other end of the bar: "Why don't you sidle on over here and fill my cup a time or two?"

I winked. Maybe I could fill hers.

She turned her back on me, slowly. I assumed she was going for dramatic. Ladies and gentleman we have a winner.

The condensate rolled from my glass now, starting to pool on the bar, spreading towards that unlit cigarette. Guy that gave it to me said it was organic, no chemicals. Think I was supposed to be impressed. Wanted to tell him that cancer was organic too. Figure I'd better shut my mouth since someone was being nice to me for once.

Stupid phone is going batshit now. Still "Unavailable." Bout to drop it in the pint for what it's worth, but that would ruin a perfectly good beer. Maybe ask the barkeep for a glass of water, "Half full, easy on the ice." Yeah that'd do trick.

Raised my finger but he's on me first, cordless phone in hand. "You got a call, chief."

Who the eff is calling me here? I grunt. He slaps the phone into my palm. "Shoot," I spit into the receiver.

"Hello." I know that voice: plaintive, yearning, unambiguously reeking of despair and need. Lots of need.

"You have got to be kidding me." Hackles are up now. Anyone in the bar in on this? Glance around, see a woman's back. Two dudes shooting pool. Bartender drying a glass, watching a baseball game. Uh oh.

"You did it to yourself," the voice says.

Why so snarky? Figure I better play it cool now but my hands are sweating so bad I'm leaving grimy prints on the bar and the man's phone. "Did what?" I ask. I rolled and came up with coy. Hey it's an angle.

"Don't be coy." So I rolled two sixes. Maybe two ones. Either way I'm screwed.

"Look, I'm..."

"Sorry? Do better."

I can't do better though. I'm zapped. Creativity gone. I got nothing, as the man says. I end the call. Pointless. Wave Charley over and hand him the phone back. Watch him wipe the sweat from it.

"Pour me a stiff one, ace." Gonna need something to wash that taste out. Nothing like realizing you're trapped in a cliche.

"Last call, bub. Happened while you were shooting your mouth off." Figures. I size him up. Wondering how he ended up with a thick Boston accent when we're on the other side of the map. Yep, this is bad.

"In that case, make it a glass of water, half full..."

"Easy on the ice?" He starts nodding.

Looks like this ain't his first rodeo.

Shadows (Poem)

The best never listen
They are illusionists
Skilled in the art of conversation
Able to weave their tale
Against the silences and pauses of your own

Like suns in their own solar system
People, events, revolve around them
Reduced to mere shadows
Engulfed by the light
Devoured by the best

For Paola

There's no piece of carbon paper between us
Our differences bind us
Together, we are stronger
With the other

Like fingers interlocked
Legs twined together, in bed
We breathe in unison
Our hearts almost synch

Together, different paths
We share the same goals
And find each other at the end
Soulmates, lovers, friends

Coffee Talk (Short Fiction)

I wrote this before I read the piece (which I can't find) about editors fleeing in terror from coffee shop pieces, so forgive me if it's been done.

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She was always friendly when no one else was around to see it. I told Chris about it once and he didn’t believe me.

“You’re making it up,” he’d said. “I swear she burns my milk on purpose.”

She never burnt my milk. Not once, and if the shot ran too long or too fast she’d dump it out and start over until it was perfect.

I’d try to start a conversation and ask her how things were, like I knew about her life. I knew nothing except that she made great espresso, and she liked art. The walls of her shop were adorned with a constant rotation of local artists’ work.

My favorite piece was in the impressionist style, a woman sitting on the bench at the market, her foot kicked in the air somewhat; the sandal on her foot hanging on by the toes. She ate ice cream out of a cup, while her little daughter sat next to her; a vague, faceless, not completely formed being.

“That’s not her daughter,” she said when I told her how much I liked the piece, “The proportions are all wrong.”

“Couldn’t that be the point?” I asked, and she shrugged and held out her hand for the price of the drink. I didn’t want to hold the line up so I paid her.

On my way out the door she said, “It’s not her daughter, it’s a doll,” loud enough so that the whole café could hear.

I asked Chris, when I saw him again. “I don’t go there anymore. I got tired of her messing my drink up.”

“Where do you go now?”

“The one down the street with the drive-through.” Chris said. “I’m pretty sure she burned my milk on purpose.” He added.

“Have you seen the painting?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Art is silly, especially that half baked, amateur, café trash. Anyone can do that. A woman’s body, now that’s art.”

He nudged me with his elbow and winked. Chris was a coworker, not a buddy, and my politeness was out of convenience. He was the only other guy in my age bracket where I worked, so we’d formed a loose acquaintance based on common experience.

“Care to elaborate?” I asked, since the ball was rolling, why not.

“She always wears though Capri pants, right? The ones that fit,” he made a curving shape in the air with his hand. “I noticed that if I stood on the end, where they keep all the free newspapers, and flip through one, I could get a nice wake up shot to go with my espresso. It’s how she dumps the wasted shots out, all bent over.” He smiled like a schoolboy. “I bet she does it on purpose even.”

“I couldn’t tell.” I never really looked at her like that. I finished my lunch and went back to my desk to work.

The next day, I stopped by the café for my morning cup. There was no line and no other customers, just me and her.

“Hey there,” she said, beaming. I smiled back and went to look at the painting again. Maybe she was right and I just couldn’t see it. It was gone though.

“Someone bought it yesterday.”

She steamed my milk and I walked around and looked at the other pieces while I waited. Nothing caught my eye. “I wish it would have been me,” I said, the screeching woosh of steaming milk drowned my voice out.

“Here ya be, sir” she said, when the drink was finished. I paid her and wished her a good day. On my way out I stopped and glanced at the free media rack. It was populated with local classifieds, alternative papers and a little post-it board filled with the numbers of locals offering goods and services.

I looked above the board and remembered, right as I saw it, the camera aimed at the end of the counter, in the line of sight of the cash register and the espresso machine. They’d installed it after their third robbery in a year.

“Any luck with that?” I asked, pointing at the camera with my cup.

“Kind of… I mean it hasn’t helped us catch the burglar if that’s what you mean,” she said.

I nodded, and took a sip from my latte, glad that she never burnt my milk.

Untitled (Poem)

Joe Average holds his piece of the pie tighter
And says that love for his fellow man
Extends as far as his arms can swing
In the land of the free, altruism and social responsibility
Can be had on the cheap
In the land of the free, you get what you pay for
Even if it means overpaying
For something that shouldn’t be for sale
Even if it means settling
For Average