Tag Archives: fiction

Green Tea (Part 3) (that rhymes!)

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“How did Leo get his ‘M’ after all?”

Your hands flow over the cat in question, his striped and spotted fur rippling with occasional pleasure at your touch. Firelight has turned you to rusty gold, Leo to dull pewter.  I think myself pale and clouded as alabaster, the very stuff of paperweights and ash trays and souvenir chess sets.  The kinds of things people bring home from the airport for the people they remember at the last minute. I still have the pen holder you brought me from the Roman dig in York, just last year.

Your office door opens, without warning, with force. Rebounds on its hinges into the far wall and back, just shy of the tiny figure that propelled it. I say tiny only because Shelli makes me feel such a mammoth, lumbering around in a wooly sort of way.  Leo makes his feelings clear; he digs in, you wince, and he launches himself into the dark by the edge of your chair, jangling the fire tools in their stand.

“Gil, darling!”  Shelli’s bright lips frame the words, she arrows for you.  Arms open, coat swinging, all in motion. Rising from your chair, you enfold her, blotting out all but the color and sound of her. I think one of those dead lady poets said it best—the red racing sloop in the harbor, little neck clams out of season. If I understood it, I could despise her even more. Instead, I watch as you break on the rocks that have lured you to her, as much a siren as ever brought a sailor low.

Leo stalks past my ankles, tail lashing, a cat scorned. I sit forward, soothing and smoothing his fur and his feelings. I know better than to try to hold him; his legs would bow out in scrambling resistance, his back stiffening into a curve of rejection. He wants little of me, except the brush of my fingers along his arching spine.

“Is there any of that tea left—the green jasmine?” you ask, not looking away from the woman in your arms.

(to be continued)

Green Tea, Part 2

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Leo, I envy your position, secure atop the wide-wale corduroy trousers your master favors.  You great striped melon of a cat, smiling at me, winking your heavy-lidded half-moon eyes.

“And the landlady of the place kept some little mite in the kitchen—a scrubber and fetcher, I suppose.  Ragged but clean—I imagined her a gypsy, of course.  Not more than eight, I should think, but already wise,” you continue, rubbing your cupped hands along Leo’s jaws, marking him as he marks you.

“Every morning, she—her name was Zylya, I think—have it in a journal for sure—she’d bring a wooden cup to me.  Full of something the landlady brewed herself.  My Romansch isn’t much, mind you, but it seemed to be called ‘heart in a man’ or some such.  And do you know, after I drank it, I could go all day with nothing else till sundown?  Remarkable stuff.”

“And Leo’s ‘M,’ Gil?” I prompt you, curious now despite my intention to remain disinterested.  You always draw me in, always have.  I listen to your stories as often as you share them, resenting the hold they have on me, but greedy for them.

A small brass goddess lives on the fireplace mantel behind you, and I see her smiling down at the top of your head. Like Leo, the goddess has known the whisper of your fingers, touching the secret mark between her eyes. What caste, I wonder, suddenly desperate, must I belong to before you touch me? Which antiquity, which ancient land, which dusty collection would make you see me? Your indifference hangs on me like an albatross.

“So it was my final morning there—my bags waiting by the door—but no sign of little Zylya and her wooden cup.”  Your left hand absently smoothes the almost-sleeping cat.  A fluid line, unbroken from end to end.

Sometimes I dream that I leave you here, among your notes, looking out of your ivy-crowned tower.  Perhaps I’ll lose you in the past; the one place where your rounds of writing and speaking and dazzling the faculty at dull luncheons leaves you no time to be.  Pyramids might help me forget you, or the flames of a gypsy fire might burn you from my mind. Most likely, though, I will continue here, in this heavy chair that once knew a Norseman’s backside, watching you and Leo while I toy with the pearl buttons of my new primrose sweater.

I bought it for me, Gil, not you, I remind myself.  It was on sale, after all, and the day was gray and cold.  The first time I wore it, I put my elbow down on one of your charcoal sketches, erasing the face of the Sphinx more effectively than Napoleon’s soldiers managed to do.  But I digress—the only habit of yours that I am able to share.

(to be continued)

Green Tea (or loose leaves from a loose cannon?)

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Just celebrated the end of a very odd, unsettled sort of day with a frosted ginger cookie and a cup of hot black tea with a swirl of milk in it–just the thing to settle nerves and induce a temorary anasthetic for pain inflicted by a Monday that was already off the rails before I left for work. In a fog of  darkly oxidized Camellia sinensis–plus a hint of Edwardian salons steeped in a bluestocking–it seemed infinitely proper to update my oft-neglected blog.

Nevermind, of course, that updating one’s own blog, after spending hours writing other things for other people, produces the following quandary:  I’ve spent all  my words and thoughts already; my mental wordbank is seriously overdrawn…and yet, there are still things I want to write–things that have nothing to do with anything but my own thoughts. (That may be a candidate for “most convoluted sentence ever” award!)

To inspire the smoldering wick of inspiration, I’ve decided to feature another short story through a series of updates. “Green Tea” was published in Potpourri several years ago, and it’s always been one of my favorites. . .Is it based on a true story? Parts of it are:  Leo is based on cat I once knew; Gil resembles a professor of mine who taught Scottish Literature; the iron teapot was offered for sale in a store where I once worked. Is the ending happy? Depends entirely on your perspective and who you’re rooting for, of course.  And so, in sections of approximately 250 words, I present–

“Green Tea”

Shadows lick up between your fingers, Gil, as you stretch your hands toward the fire for warmth.  For all their blunt size, those same fingers are as careful and sensitive as cat whiskers.  You love cats, especially the one in your lap now.  You stroke Leo’s face as if he were of immense value to you—one of your many artifacts that litter the walls, the shelves, the floors of this office.  Leo might easily be a cat of Pompeii, all gray-ashy and immutable.

“Yes, just here.  See?”  Your fingers tremble through the short fur between Leo’s notched ears.  “Every striped cat has an ‘M’ between its eyes,” you continue, smoothing the points of the ‘M’ without quite touching it.

How you always know such things is beyond me, but of course you will explain.

“It was in Romania—oh, years ago, now—I was looking into things there…”

You might as well tell me it was a dark and stormy night, too.  It always is.  If your stories weren’t true, I would hate you for them.  But you do not allow me the dignity of overlooking your exaggerations, and I must hate myself instead.  I listen to your words, absorbing them, because they come from deep inside, rumbling up as you remember.  Leo purrs in perfect contentment, enjoying the heavy vibration of your voice.  Two males in tune, at their ease in the depths of the shabby Morris chair that nothing would induce you to part with, or even re-cover. 

[To be continued...]

Terminal

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Before I continue “North to Alaska,” I thought I’d add this post to the mix:

Terminal is a piece of short fiction I wrote several years ago. It was inspired by a wintertime visit to Mt. Pisgah…and the thought of how quickly things can change from delightful to…terminal.

(Terminal was published in the October 2006 issue of WNC Woman.)

Terminal

That last bottle of water was definitely a mistake…

Cotton batting clouds the color of baby aspirin wallow up and over each other on Pisgah’s folded shoulders; the frosted, foiled top of the mountain is the intricate dream of a celestial glass-blower.  Spangled, stiff-fingered pines—chandeliers of afternoon light—are interrupted where last summer’s sumac thrusts rusty arms up toward the sky.  All that dazzling-silver world, but no sound.  No nothing.

No sound, that is, except the hiss of hot pee punching a hole in cold snow.  I crouch, legs trembling as they sustain the necessary hover-mode to keep me from splattering my boots or jeans.  Hands folded into my armpits for warmth, leaning forward for better balance—again I regret the decision to down that final bottle of water before beginning this hike.  It’s a lot easier to access the bathroom when it’s in the same room with you instead of the edge of a cliff.  Who made up that eight-glasses-every-day rule, anyway?     

 When the leaves are gone and there’s nothing to soften the bones of the mountain, the narrow ridge rising in front of me seems inadequate to buttress Pisgah’s towering bulk.  It makes me think of—

–a waiter I saw once, expertly balancing a tiered wedding cake of sparkles and beaded crystal lace as he negotiated a path to the bridal table.  I’ll never see another wedding cake without the image of this mountain in the back of my mind. 

 Late day sunlight knifes through a gap near the top of the mountain.  Somewhere far off, some kind of bird chee-chee-chees to another; nature’s version of a pager.  It reminds me that there is still a world where time is not money, not product, not anything but time.  I tug at my jeans, fingers clumsy in the cold. 

I haven’t had to pee in the snow in what—years?—but the view from this position is worth the ventilation.   

I remembered, though, to scrunch my mittens out of harm’s way in the pockets of my coat, just like I used to do when I was a kid. 

Tomorrow, it’s back to the blah of public and private porcelain for another year until I earn two more weeks of freedom.  I wish I could take a piece of this back with me.  No, a peace of this.  That’s what I really mean.

My truck is less than a quarter of a mile from here.  I would have driven all the way to the trailhead, but I couldn’t get past the locked gates that separate the state’s narrow access road from the Parkway.  A quarter of a mile is pretty far in weather like this, when the rangers probably don’t even patrol more than once a week, just to check for storm damage and rockslides.  I’m glad it’s all mostly downhill to the place I’m staying, too, in case the truck takes a notion not to start.  

As the day fades and the light dwindles down to dull grape and pewter ashes, the slush on top of the pavement will start to ice up again.  Time to head back before it gets any harder to keep my footing on the increasingly uneasy surface beneath my boots.    

With its matte surface like a blacksnake’s hide, the road clings to the mountain, reversing its direction each time it wraps Pisgah in another loop.  This whole section of the Parkway from Cherokee to Shining Rock is still closed for bad weather—they get a lot more snow at this elevation than they do back in town. 

I guess it was maybe not smart to come up here by myself, without telling anybody where I was headed.  You never know.  There were those girls up at the Buck Springs Overlook a couple of years ago—they never caught whoever did that—

A shower of icy fireworks shivers down, disturbed by a movement in the branches arching over my head.  In one smooth sweep of dark wings above pale breast, a hawk launches itself into the empty space below me, banking side to side, held steady by the same wind that whistles through the gap between my jacket and jeans.  The hawk eyes me, a stranger in its kingdom, still standing spraddled above the evidence of my trespass.

My pants are no longer at half-mast, but the zipper defies my fumbling attempt to grip the flat, narrow pull and finish the job.  My fingers slip, shredding the skin over one knuckle.  Try again. 

There—at last it’s up!  Now to work the button closed and get my backside off the backside of this mountain before I start hearing sinister footsteps crunching up behind me—at least I won’t pee in my pants if I hear somebody coming and have to make a run for it.  How much more skittish you get when you’re in danger of being caught with your pants down!

 I must be out of shape, my legs are that stiff, I’m—

Caught on something?  Boot-lace snagged in last year’s matted underbrush?  What the—

The hawk veers away with a single, startled shriek.  Echoes my own, left behind in a frozen balloon drifting through empty air. 

Blink, blink again, try to open my eyes.  There is a sort of sound, after all.  A throbbing beat that I feel in my whole face; it matches what I guess must be my heart, still pumping underneath what is now the snagged, ripped ruin of my jacket.

Can I turn my head, even a little?  Blue blur pressed against my cheek?  So my hat is still with me—that’s good.  I let go of a breath I didn’t known I was holding.  Steam puffs up and a slow flood of something warm crawls over my upper lip, settles into the depressions on each side of my nose. 

“Uck,” I say out loud, disgusted by the mess clinging to my lip.  One numb hand goes up to paw at it—where are my mittens?  Birthday present; don’t want to lose them.  My fingers come away red and shiny, coated with a bloody bungee snot-line that stretches, snaps back cold against my face.  Double uck.  Hot copper taste blooms in my throat, drips backward.

If I turn my head the other way, I can see part of the gouged, wallowed track I left as I tail-over-teakettled down the slope.  The snow was a cushion, maybe, between the rocks and stones and stobs, but my jacket is still bleeding chunks of its lining through snagged rips and peeled-back flaps.      

The hawk swims in rippled rings of sky above my head.  Can it see me here, a footnote at the end of a blank page?  Can anybody see me here, fallen all the way to the bottom of the world?

Get organized, take inventory—that’s important. 

Hat?  Good.  No mittens?  Bad.  Jacket structure compromised?  Also bad.  As in not good.  As in, this is really not good.  Nose?   Like an overripe tomato, trembling, ready to burst its fragile skin in a minute.  More not-good. 

So—not-good currently outranks good.  Where’s the escape key to get back to good?  Problem is, command option is non-functioning.  Hands too cold; don’t want to work. 

I’d reboot… if I could feel my feet.

Surely there’ll be someone soon—a flash of warm plaid in the spaces between the trees or a bit of face showing between beard and balaklava as someone bends over me.  Surely I’ll feel bare hands, still warm from gloves, checking for a pulse against the underneath of my chin.  Not a ranger—I don’t expect that much—but someone that could call a ranger.  Please, someone?  

I’ll never go peeing again.  I promise.  The hawk knows what happened—surely it will tell somebody.  It just circles slow.  Circles slow; a toy bird on a tether, gliding in widening circles. 

Control, ALT, Delete.  System is not responding.  Wait twenty seconds.

Seconds tick by.  Ringing in my ears—no, in my pocket?  Doesn’t matter.  I’m not available; please leave any messages after the tone.   

Program has performed an illegal operation. 

Terminal error results in system shut-down.