Shae strummed her guitar angrily in a fit of frustration. She’d been working on the once promising song for days now, and it seemed she was getting nowhere with it. She paused. Then she strummed the chord again, more gently this time, listening closely. To her surprise, the chord was exactly what the song called for.
Delighted, she decided to push her luck even further. As thoughtlessly as she’d strummed the first chord, she played a second, and a third. Both were perfect, almost uncannily so.
She looked up from the guitar over to where her dad’s body lay on the bedroom floor. Blood pooled around his head and shoulders where the carpeting had become saturated. Tonight must be my night for overcoming stubborn obstacles, she thought, taking her penchant for understatement to a new level.…
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Over the mountains the oil sky was splitting open, the yellow light crawling over the world. I stood sleepless at the end of the dock watching a flock of gulls float over the small swells, their white feathers dissolving in and out of the fog.
The rest of the class drifted down the small hill toward the boat in small groups, bundled in matching blue and white sweatshirts with our school mascot. They huddled into a small circle and I lingered. Across the distance—the impossible new divide between us—I could see their excitement spark at the sight of the boat and take shape in their faces and wrestle them over completely.
Cappy’s blue truck coughed into the parking lot at six and we all gathered up behind the truck’s bed.…
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People make too much of dissociation—it’s a wonderful coping skill. Time honored, really. I’m not a multiple, mind you. It is just that if you need to touch my body, don’t worry; I have some place to go where I can’t be bothered.
Let me pause here, while I undress. I’m going to do this carefully, seductively even, although you’re sitting there on the mattress; all ramped up for something more.
Here is a bit of collarbone. Not as fine as when I was younger but still enough to catch an eye or two. I’m leaving my hair down for now. Later, I’ll pull it back and let you glimpse more of my neck.
So, let’s talk about my cashier job when I was a kid. …
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It reminded me of the time I was at a high school dance and the pretty young woman I was secretly in love with was standing near the dance floor and I had every opportunity to walk up to her and ask her for a dance but told myself it wasn’t the right time and what would I say while flopping around to some music that was nothing but noise and finally why does the guy always have to be the one to make the first move when in the end she didn’t look that great anyway.
– Jeffrey Zable …
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