101 Words

Janey slowly turns the key in an arthritic lock, opening to a waft of stale cigarettes and cloudy memories.

The ancient fridge whirrs and wheezes at the oxygen masks lying in a heap by the bin, while exhausted pots wait patiently beside a cold oven, long past dinner time. Warmed only by a dim ray of autumn sunshine through the nicotine-stained window, unopened mail weakly beckons from the table in the tired sitting room. A man on a double-glazing flyer watches with a hollow smile as she scans the room for some comfort.

It’s the empty chair that does it.

Sue and Terry lived at odds in what everyone affectionately called ‘The Pink House.’ The front yard was packed full of random pink items including a non-working toilet. One evening, Terry snapped. “Goddamn you and your pink. I can’t take it anymore. Either the pink has to go, or I go!”

The next day, there was a new pink sculpture in the front yard of a man running. A television reporter interviewed Sue. “I was never allowed anything pink as a girl. Everything was navy blue or brown.”

“How do you afford your hobby?”

“I just invented a new paralytic drug.”

“I hate too much baggage,” he often said. So, while packing for their honeymoon, she chose a one-piece swimsuit, shorts, tees, flip flops, chiffon dresses, and lacy underthings. She snapped shut the carry-on and lifted it. Light as his kiss.

The load of setbacks, resentments, frustrations, and self-doubt was locked within her, out of his sight. She knew better than to let it hang out.

Shoulders pulled back, she stepped out with a carefree air, a winsome smile. Crossed her fingers and placed them in his outstretched hand.

It must work out this time. Third time ought to be a charm.

“…in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”

I smile and you smile, but my thoughts race wildly through all the reasons you might say No, no, I do not. And so now I want to say it out loud, my darling, that I’ve never told you this but I fell in love with you the way meteoroids fall—remember how you loved watching those with me on summer nights?—absolutely and irretrievably. Twelve years we’ve been friends, Ted, doesn’t that mean anything?

“I do.”

Right. Of course it doesn’t. You kiss my colleague in white and everyone cheers.

“Come, Fool, entertain your king,” the chancellor instructed, pushing the jester forward, keen to raise the king’s spirits before requesting yet more money. The jester shook his sceptre. Bells jingling, he whispered to the grotesque atop.

“What nonsense is this you speak to your puppet?” the king enquired.

“I remind him who is master and who is the marotte,” the jester said.

“Why so?”

“Lest the puppet becomes the puppeteer,” the jester replied, bowing courteously.

The king wafted the chancellor away and turned to the jester. “Sometimes a king may be a fool,” he said, “but you, Fool, are never so.”

“Better luck next time!” Lucy grins.

A river of jealousy bleeds through me. Her swan wings dance onto the stage. The lack of grace infuriates me.

Rejected, my feathers gather dust.

I watch from the sidelines as the performance ends. Lucy embraces the ballet master—lovers incognito. My throat tightens—a toxic bile in my mouth.

Closing evening:

The master scowls at me. “Sophie! Get ready! You’re taking the lead.”

Ruffling my quill, I prepare to fly.

Gliding through the air—a bird set free.

The curtain lowers, the audience rises.

Cheers and whistles echo.

My face alight.

It’s My Night.

Tall and curvy with glossy black curls and smudged cherry lipstick, the girl adjusts her clingy red dress and glances nervously up and down the darkened street corner. As she slinks out of the dented silver car with tinted windows, her stilettos hit the pavement, producing that distinct metallic echo that signals a woman on the prowl. She cranes her neck up wistfully towards the stars, wondering how it all went so wrong. Tonight will be the last time, she vows, placing her hand reassuringly over her faux-leather purse, palming the pack of sleeping pills she stole from her last customer.