Short Shorts
(very short stories)
Wait Five Minutes
Wait five minutes. For me, that’s always been my father’s best advice, the one thing I will remember from a lifetime of sage wisdom and absurd retorts. “When life has beaten you down to a bloody pulp, when you think that there is no possible way to come back from the Mack truck of disaster that has pushed you to the edge, wait five minutes. Life will change. Life is change. Wait five minutes and something miraculous will happen.”
I began the countdown when I was five years old. That sounds absurd, I know. How in the world could a five year old come to the abyss so early in life? What could possess a father, a grown man in his early thirties, to counsel his daughter to “wait five minutes” for the world to right itself? Funny thing is, I don’t remember what it was that happened to start the clock ticking for me. I just know that I have vivid memories of huddling under the covers with a book and a flashlight counting to sixty over and over and over again, five times over as a matter of fact. I remember peeking out from under the covers to look for the miraculous change. At five, I expected some dramatic shift, a bright light to shine down from the heavens or a tiny blue fairy to land on my windowsill with the answers to all of my questions. In any event, that’s how I became a counter—in my head at least. In times of stress, I count--but never past sixty.
I began the countdown when I was five years old. That sounds absurd, I know. How in the world could a five year old come to the abyss so early in life? What could possess a father, a grown man in his early thirties, to counsel his daughter to “wait five minutes” for the world to right itself? Funny thing is, I don’t remember what it was that happened to start the clock ticking for me. I just know that I have vivid memories of huddling under the covers with a book and a flashlight counting to sixty over and over and over again, five times over as a matter of fact. I remember peeking out from under the covers to look for the miraculous change. At five, I expected some dramatic shift, a bright light to shine down from the heavens or a tiny blue fairy to land on my windowsill with the answers to all of my questions. In any event, that’s how I became a counter—in my head at least. In times of stress, I count--but never past sixty.
Gavin
For a moment, Gavin couldn’t remember his life before the accident. He remembered faces, names, places, events, but they were a mish-mash of images that flooded his brain. He stood in the kitchen, coffee cup poised before pursed lips, and waited for the click. There would be a click. He would hear the tumblers stop turning and his life would click into place. He waited. No click. Nothing. The coffee turned cold in the cup as Gavin listened intently, waiting, wishing, wanting, wanting. . . what? He couldn’t quite grasp what it was, exactly, he wanted. His best estimation was that he wanted his life to go back to normal, but since the accident, Gavin had lost all sense of normal. There was no such thing as normal, no reference point to which Gavin could attach a sense of belonging.
He did not have amnesia. Gavin knew who he was, where he lived, worked, slept, ate. He knew without looking that giant sunflowers grew in tall clusters in the meadow out behind the house. He’d planted the seeds himself with clear, warm memories of Tuscan summers and honeymoon happiness. He knew without seeing that not fifty feet from the backdoor was an old oak with a rope and a swing dangling from a strong, gnarled branch. He knew that before the accident he had been sitting on that swing reading his wife’s spiral bound notebook, the journal of her innermost thoughts and secrets sending him into a blind rage. He knew what she’d done, what she’d hidden from him. He knew the details and the depths of her betrayal.
Gavin remembered the impact although he’d missed the horn, the screech of brakes, all of the warning signs that he had drifted into the wrong lane. He remembered the shattering glass, the screams, the blood, the pain, and the blackness. The blackness he remembered most of all. He replayed the images as he remembered them until the moment the darkness fell like a velvet curtain. He was neither cold nor warm, awake nor asleep. He simply existed in one long moment of being, seeing nothing but blackness as the silence of the night embraced him. Gavin had climbed to the surface again and again until he’d found himself home and safe and sound.
He knew every minute fact about his life except why. Why was he here in this house, with this woman, in this city? Why did it all seem so inconsequential? Why was he standing here holding a cup of coffee? Gavin hated coffee. Yet the cup in his hand felt comfortable, felt familiar. And so he stood and contemplated his life and wondered, for the hundredth time since the accident, how he would tell his wife the one thing that he wanted so much to tell her. Gavin had his own book of secrets buried deep in the recesses of his tortured mind, and he had come to accept her secrets as well as his own. But how could he tell his wife that he was dead?
He did not have amnesia. Gavin knew who he was, where he lived, worked, slept, ate. He knew without looking that giant sunflowers grew in tall clusters in the meadow out behind the house. He’d planted the seeds himself with clear, warm memories of Tuscan summers and honeymoon happiness. He knew without seeing that not fifty feet from the backdoor was an old oak with a rope and a swing dangling from a strong, gnarled branch. He knew that before the accident he had been sitting on that swing reading his wife’s spiral bound notebook, the journal of her innermost thoughts and secrets sending him into a blind rage. He knew what she’d done, what she’d hidden from him. He knew the details and the depths of her betrayal.
Gavin remembered the impact although he’d missed the horn, the screech of brakes, all of the warning signs that he had drifted into the wrong lane. He remembered the shattering glass, the screams, the blood, the pain, and the blackness. The blackness he remembered most of all. He replayed the images as he remembered them until the moment the darkness fell like a velvet curtain. He was neither cold nor warm, awake nor asleep. He simply existed in one long moment of being, seeing nothing but blackness as the silence of the night embraced him. Gavin had climbed to the surface again and again until he’d found himself home and safe and sound.
He knew every minute fact about his life except why. Why was he here in this house, with this woman, in this city? Why did it all seem so inconsequential? Why was he standing here holding a cup of coffee? Gavin hated coffee. Yet the cup in his hand felt comfortable, felt familiar. And so he stood and contemplated his life and wondered, for the hundredth time since the accident, how he would tell his wife the one thing that he wanted so much to tell her. Gavin had his own book of secrets buried deep in the recesses of his tortured mind, and he had come to accept her secrets as well as his own. But how could he tell his wife that he was dead?
Fairy Queen
The streets were crowded the morning of the games with barely an inch of cobblestone showing between stomping, dancing, rioting feet. They walked cautiously between the revelers, dodging this way and that to avoid being hit by swinging arms and legs, flying backpacks, boisterous children lifted in exuberant hugs by laughing red giants. The air was moist and chilly and dewed their hair as they on walked toward the ring at the edge of the field. People noticed as they walked through the crowd, their heads held high, eyes alert with excitement. Giggles and whoops erupted here and there and then silence fell as the crowds parted in a hush.
They’d been planning this trip for two years, saving their pennies and dimes and dollars in anticipation. They’d charted and tracked and plotted each step and stop along the way, unwilling to miss a thing that Scotland had to offer. Now they were here at the games, anxious, excited, and happy as larks to be among the throngs. Then the energy shifted in the people around them, an intake of breath with a sigh.
“What are they waiting for?” one tall daughter asked.
“What are they looking at?” the other inquired.
Their mother walked on with a shrug and a nod, and the girls closed in tight on each side as the crowd backed away in surprise.
“They’re looking at us,” one tall daughter said.
“They must think we’re important—we’re not!” the other insisted.
Then a light shone bright from the dew on their hair and a shimmer of silver descended. The daughters turned to their mother in quiet surprise to see a bright smile and glow.
“I told you I had a surprise for you both,” she said with a grin. “I am the Fairy Queen, come home at last.”
And the world changed in that instant.
They’d been planning this trip for two years, saving their pennies and dimes and dollars in anticipation. They’d charted and tracked and plotted each step and stop along the way, unwilling to miss a thing that Scotland had to offer. Now they were here at the games, anxious, excited, and happy as larks to be among the throngs. Then the energy shifted in the people around them, an intake of breath with a sigh.
“What are they waiting for?” one tall daughter asked.
“What are they looking at?” the other inquired.
Their mother walked on with a shrug and a nod, and the girls closed in tight on each side as the crowd backed away in surprise.
“They’re looking at us,” one tall daughter said.
“They must think we’re important—we’re not!” the other insisted.
Then a light shone bright from the dew on their hair and a shimmer of silver descended. The daughters turned to their mother in quiet surprise to see a bright smile and glow.
“I told you I had a surprise for you both,” she said with a grin. “I am the Fairy Queen, come home at last.”
And the world changed in that instant.