Messages
by Jen Larsen
It’s been hard on my relationships. We kiss at the door, and his hands move down my sides, cup the back of my head, his hips fit against mine and I have to push him back, and tell him “I’m sorry. I really can’t.” And then I go upstairs, all by myself, the way I do every night.
Every night, I set a half-full glass of water on my bedstand. I turn the covers down, and smooth the sheets. I brush my hair out, and when I lay back against the pillow, I have to tell you I think about the picture it makes. Do the dead think I look like Sleeping Beauty, with my curls spread around my face, tumbling over the duvet, spilling across my pillowcase?
My pillowcase is cool against the back of my neck, and I close my eyes. Do the dead think about anything? I have to think they do, or else why would they demand this of me, the ritual every night, the darkened room and my hand, palm up, laid across the bed. My fingers relaxed, not trembling at all at the thought of cold hands touching me. Or maybe they are dumb creatures of habit, maybe they run along the rails I lay down for them.
I lay down for them every night, spread my hair across the pillow, and close my eyes in the dark room. I never try to look. I try not to think about what might be brushing against the curtains, rifling through my dresser drawers, standing over me and watching me with dead eyes. I hold my hand steadily and still, and I breathe evenly, slowly.
Slowly the pressure fills up the room and then my fingers curl around what they have left for me. They have given me a button, a length of twine, a bobby pin. A child’s impossibly tiny sock, a curl of hair tied with a ribbon, a piece of quartz, the delicate, paper-thin gear from the guts of a pocket watch.
Watch me line these pieces up along my dresser in the morning, rearranging them. I don’t know what they mean. I don’t know why they are, but they are, and I do. Every night, every morning. These tiny things fill up my life; these ghosts fill up my room, my head. The cupped palm of my hand.
Silver Box
by Luc Reid
Carlo kissed Becca on the forehead and squeezed her hand as the bus pulled up. She smiled at him, and he smiled back so brightly, the light seemed to shine out of his whole face. As he climbed onto the bus, he waved, and then the doors closed and it pulled away.
Becca practically danced as she made her way down the sidewalk toward work. She had never imagined it could be possible to give her heart so freely, so easily, but she trusted Carlo, and Carlo trusted her.
Seeing Carlo off had made her a few minutes late, and she decided to cut through an alley that came out right across the street from where she worked. Stepping from the May sunlight into the dirty shadows of the alley she shivered, but the aftereffects of Carlo’s kiss still radiated through her body, and she kept up her elated pace. Then someone grabbed her.
She didn’t even see him at first: the man just grabbed her from behind and jerked her down onto the grimy pavement behind a trash bin. A minute later he was on top of her, a knife held out in warning, pushing up her dress.
She should have been frightened, but instead she was furious. How dare he! Carlo would rip his eyeballs out if he were here. Her attacker lifted his body off her dress for a moment, and Becca took the opportunity to drive one knee up with all the anger and power she could muster into his crotch. He jolted as though he’d been shocked, and his knife hand jerked reflexively and plunged into her chest, just to the right of her sternum. She gasped. He whimpered, pulled himself up, and stumbled away as fast as he could, still clutching his injured privates.
Becca pulled the knife out of her chest and threw it away as she sat up. Her dress, nearly new and worn specially to impress Carlo, was ruined–ripped and filthy, with a slightly bloody hole over the right breast. She picked up her purse and opened it nervously, taking out the silver box she kept there and lifting the lid. Carlo’s heart undamaged, beating steadily in its silken padding. She breathed a sigh of relief.
