Lampyridae (A Love Story)

At four in the morning, it woke up and at seven in the evening it was caught in a jar and used as a reading lamp until it sputtered and died. Between those two dynamic and equally earth-shattering moments, it ate, grew, fell in love, fell out of love, fell back in love and then out again. By eight-o’clock that night, when the boy had opened the jar back up to set it free, it had already been dead for a half hour (maybe longer) and it’s rear-end had fizzled out leaving a weird blue glow in the jar and behind the boy’s eyelids.

The boy would always wonder about that after glow. Whenever his mamma would turn the lights out, he’d think of that jar, the one that looked like captured radiation. He’d blink his eyes once or twice, trying to get rid of the image of the room in negative.

This story isn’t about the boy, for the boy was busy living his life. The little thing in the jar, however, had finished and was now reflecting as the air ran out of the Jar. It had lived a very short life, and in the moments of its expiration had glittered and popped as the little light his thorax produced started to die-out. It felt it had spent too much time loving, and not enough time understanding, for now, it had no idea what to do in its current dire circumstances. It spent more time with his small brain clouded with romance and the scents of females, the tiny sparks of loving in the dark, the warmth of nearness, that it was now In great need of escape and hadn’t the capacity. It lay its head down on the cold-ish glass of the bottom of the jar, the part that raised just enough for it to elevate his mandibles and sigh outwardly. It moved its legs to a more comfortable position and watched as its formerly excellent vision began to blur around the edges. I have loved but I have not lived… but what is it to live without having loved? Then, with a moment of self satisfaction, It quietly passed away, leaving a dim blue glow in its wake.

You Must Be This Tall

We were on the side, where there weren’t no one looking. We were up in the air, where not nobody could shake a fist at. We were down below, where they we could dodge their rubber soles when they took them giant steps above us. We was invisible. There were four of us at the time, pink cheeked and outta breath. We tongued suckers and lipped cotton candy the color of our ruddy faces. There was big-tops and trains, toy boats and freak apartments. That man with the no arms, he done rocked back and forth like a monkey in a straight jacket and we’d watched like anyone dumb enough to sit and giggle. It was summer, and like I said before, we’d run underfoot. Things ain’t like that place was. It was gold, and it was brown and summer-tasting. There wasn’t no fear like back when, in that gold place. It was warm and oblivion and we loved it. We would sit for hours in that place, would stick out our tongues at them leering clown faces, impressed to heck with our own grotesque faces we made in the mirror wall. During the noon hours the four of us worked to spoil that sweet of ice cream and chocolate round our mouths, spouting words like “Hell!” and “Damn!” and “Screw!” as loudly as we could into the midway. We’d look around like we ain’t had a clue if we was bein’ watched by someone’s gramma or somthin’. At seven, Josie, Cal, Dickey and my mamma’d come and get me for a supper we was never gonna eat from bein sick over all that junk. I got myself a beltin’ those nights from getting my dungarees all dusty and smudged from road dirt an sugar, but in the end, there’d been a few hours there where weren’t no-one looking and where not nobody could shake a fist at. Those gold days when we was invisible.

Not There

Dirty sneakers line the foot of the entryway. A stack of drippy umbrellas and the carpet dusted with tracked-in leaves and pollen… there was once a time when it hadn’t been carpet, but hardwood—easier to sweep. In the foyer, on a lamp table, sits the day’s mail and still damp rolled newspaper bundled with ads and coupons. The rubber band that ties it all up is pink and inviting. Though it is two in the afternoon, no-one has bothered to look at the mail or the newspaper. The living room is dark; the heavy shades are pulled against the weather. The housekeeper brought in fresh flowers despite the weather and snipped the stems with sheers that now rest on the cutting board block. The kitchen is spotless; dull grey light permeates the porcelain sink and Teflon pans patterned with blue cornflowers. The room smells sharply of ammonia and lemon, sterile and clean. There is a dishtowel neatly folded over the refrigerator handle, for convenience sake. The front door opens and shuts abruptly, and the silence is broken only by this.

Euphorbia Pulcherrima (A Christmas Story)

I sat on the bench the night before, winking one eye and poking at stars as I breathed dust below the canopy. There had been a man earlier who’d tawdled by with headphones on demanding the sidewalk to take him to its leader. There’d been a woman earlier speaking to a poinsettia. That’s it, I thought, still moving the stars around with one eye closed and my forefinger directing, it’s the poinsettias that are brainwashing us, I think. They walk away, like five thousand little ants in a line. The sugar bowl was left open, and now their fat and happy little bugs. Their appendages move to separate key notes, one two three. All around in sneezy circles. Mandibles bend and crack. The man that passed by earlier, he hums to himself, forgets his place, and trips over a slightly risen edge of the sidewalk. Don’t step on a crack, break your mother’s back. Crack, back… Smack! He falls face first into the dirt, disbelieving as I breathe dust below the canopy. There’s an ulterior motive here. The poinsettia’s did it, with their death scarlet leaves and venomous insides. It resembles the star of Bethlehem, come all ye faithful sings as the laypeople walk on past. Jesus was born in March. An Aries. That’s a special thing. You wont believe your eyes, hundreds of lies, in the skies… the ones I rearrange like a lite-brite.

This happened when I sat on the bench the night before.

Affectopathy