101 Words

He held the note as a mother holds her child, and the audience held their breath. His desperate melody encircled and entwined the minds of those listening until their worries fell away.

As the cadence dropped and the chord changed, the spell collapsed like soufflé scooped by a silver spoon. The audience was locked in; their escapism found in his efforts.

“Play it like you mean it,” he said to himself, seeing impurity in his skills despite heartfelt applause surrounding him. Tired lips re-pressed on brass, and a new tune summoned him to greater heights in search of the perfect sound.

My mother yelled, and I rushed to her under the tree. I followed where she was looking and found a cat with a fish in its mouth. “Get it!”

I climbed the tree and tamed the cat until it dropped the fish.

My mother shrieked, but my older brother caught it.

I cuddled the scared cat in my arms and scrambled down. “It’s safe.”

“Always the stupid kid,” my mother said. “It’s the fish I needed! We wouldn’t have our lunch if it weren’t for Jonathan.”

My mother slapped me, and I looked at Jonathan for help, but he just grinned.

I hate seeing you. This is why my fingers will never ever let me write your actual name. Caught in between naming and not naming, I invent a lexicon that reveals itself with invisible ink, yet I see it on the back of envelopes and scraps of paper tucked into books.

Ambiguity is chasing me with a number two pencil. Graph paper, with its orderly aqua blue boxes, taunts me to write.

Sometimes when I am driving or daydreaming or looking at mothers and fathers playing with their children in Riverside Park, I whisper to myself, “I’m glad you are dead.”

The two FNG’s (Fucking New Guys) were alone together on a listening post in the deep, dark jungle.

“Don’t it suck being drafted?” Tommy grunted, swatting the mosquitoes who were feasting on him.

“I wasn’t drafted.”

“Then how the fuck did you wind up here?”

“My parents are divorced. Unknown to them I picked up the telephone extension while my mom asked my dad to pay for Emerson College in Boston. Mom pleaded, ‘But he’s your only son!’ Dad coldly answered, ‘No, tell him to make believe I’m dead.’ So, I enlisted.”

“I guess you showed him, numb nutz,” Tommy laughed.

My mother was almost 27 when I was born.

And her mother was almost 27 when my mother was born.

I am now almost 27.

And while I am not a mother, I feel as if I’m sitting in a quiet, empty room with only a tick, tick, ticking clock on the wall to keep me and my quiet, empty womb company.

No matter how much I try to ignore it.

Because, honestly, I really don’t want to hear it right now.

The room and the silence residing in it makes tick, tick, ticking sound so much louder than it is.

The young man fell asleep during service. The usher nudged him and said, “Wake up.” Slowly, he opened his eyes, stood, and left.

The following Sunday when the young man did not return, the usher thought Good riddance. Was I too harsh, too judgmental? It’s my fault he isn’t here, but he was rude. I didn’t even ask him his name. I wonder where he is.

The pastor answered from the pulpit, “…his name was John. He suffered from sickle cell anemia. Last Sunday, he fell asleep at the wheel on the way home from Church. He now rests with God.”