101 Words

She pushes against the permeability, seeking a way past this viscous reality to the inbetween. There. The truth to temporality.

Quanta slow to perceptibility. Electrons disappear and reappear. The flashing strobe becomes stilled pinpricks in the void, like beacons that summon her.

She is now ephemera, drawn down into the depths of everythingness. Swirling and drifting among pseudo stars, still she searches.

Finally, she is pulled into the lightdark and she is no longer nothing. She feels. Breath upon a proffered neck; arms around a supplicant body.

At the altar of sensation, she worships. Time stretched; imperceptibly frozen between their heartbeats.

Last week refugees from the ruined city of Troy demonstrated outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yesterday our brilliant politician Agamemnon asked for our votes. Kreon, the public speaker, was an enemy of the people and the state—at least that’s what newspapers and reporters used to say. In the meantime, Philoktitis suffered from fever in a hospital that lacked elementary medical equipment.

I used to find it really hard to believe these awkward things.

However, I saw Oedipus in the street this morning. He was blind and weak, and he asked me: “Where are my eyes? Where is your light?”

The hazy globe of light suspended above my head grows smaller.

I desperately want to kick my legs, to push my way back to the surface. My brain screams orders; why won’t my limbs obey?

A black crappy swims in front of my face, flipping its tail as it passes. I continue to slip downwards as the roots of the water hyacinth steadily block my vision.

A dark shape approaches, and fear tightens my chest. Long, jagged teeth overlap the lower jaw, and it swipes me with its tail as it swims past. Mama always said I’d wind up alligator bait.

A cool breeze whips around Summer’s tanned shoulders, pushing her silently towards Fall. Goosebumps prickle across her body.

Fall smiles as he wraps his arm around her waist. Taking her right hand in his, he presses his hips against Summer’s as they waltz across the vale.

The grass beneath their feet changes with each step, green and bronze, shimmering like waves in the sun.

“You look lovely tonight,” Fall whispers.

Summer sighs. “The seasons change too quickly.”

Fall kisses her. Tears burn Summer’s eyes.

“Look at me, my darling.” Fall touches her cheek.

She kisses his palm. “Until we meet again.”

Will she ask me?

On a Wednesday evening, the woman arrives at the table where the man sits alone. In the crowded bar-hall that adjoins the weekly vacant dance floor, this table can be particularly troublesome to find. The act, therefore, is not without some doing.

The man raises his eyes. Before him lies only a long and narrow room, clothed in pale shades of crimson red where lamplight has faded the lush interior. The headache slowly grows larger, each passing moment pounds harder on the crown of his head whenever he looks in the woman’s direction.

‘May I sit down?’

Writer’s block! Cafe posers; they type, and I’ve got nothing. She crammed her laptop into her bag, smooshed workout clothes underneath. Gym time.

Maybe not, they’re talking about a Netflix show! Must drop something near them and catch its name. Her pen tumbled down, and she leaned to overhear their conversation. But, then she tumbled, hard.

A concerned hand extended. “You okay? You’re bleeding.”

“Sure. What’s the show’s name?”

“Uh, House of Cards.”

Elbow oozing, she stuffed her laptop deeper inside the bag. With writer’s block buried as deep as her sports bra, she envisioned hours staring at all and nothing.