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flowwriter · 2 months ago

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Another great sketch by @perfectlygloriousllama!!! Thank you so much!

Another Midsummer Night's Dream

The sharp, dry Winter morning woke her. She looked around the aging, dank cabin until her eyes landed on Ares. He was still asleep on the cold floor. She tsked at him; no matter how cold it got, he refused to sleep on the bed. Proud son of a bitch. Slow as she could, she unfurled herself from the duna and placed her feet on the floor. Her leg sung out its usual morning groan as it made painful contact. “Remember, you aren’t getting any younger” it said, even though she was only twenty-eight. She ignored it as best as you can ignore a leg.

She had stayed at many places: houses, hotels, mansions, the odd cave, but this cabin, as dilapidated and possibly mold-infested as it was, was the closest she had come to calling somewhere home. She’d slept here maybe eight or nine times over the past few months. She had never felt comfortable just staying in one place, even before everything, so never spent more than three nights in a row at one shelter. But after a long day's walk, or an unsuccessful hunt, her thoughts always turned to this cabin’s quaint little outhouse, or the fine oak table, or the assortment of hand-sculpted cutlery and whitegoods that burst out of every cupboard and drawer. Taking in the cabin’s aroma at dusk, she could almost smell the rose-tinted memories made by the small children who called this place a holiday home.

Ares seemed to like it, anyway, and she valued the dog's opinion more than she cared to admit. He was one picky bitch when he came to living arrangements, she had come to learn. He wouldn’t whine or bark or sulk, but he’d try to walk on his tiptoes if the floor was too damp, or constantly sniff the air if something had died in the walls. She was happy that at least one of the two of them had standards.

She had found him in one of the old cities. She used to like meandering through the cities, but what food was left behind had quickly gone off, and you can only live off tins of beans for so long, even if the alternative is starvation. She had gone to ravage through an apartment complex when she heard scratching at one of the doors. She opened it (thankfully, unlocked) and there he was. She was a strict cat person before it all went down (affection needed to be earned with a cat, she thought, and she liked that in a friend), but housecats made lousy hunting animals, and even lousier companions. She knew that they were just as likely to curl up beside you as it was to run off, never to be seen again.

Ares had never run off though, and she could tell that it was a thought that he could not even possibly conceive of. She gave him meaning as much as he gave her company. She brought him away from the city to the wilderness (or near enough). The animals had not yet been brave enough to retake the cities. Still too scarred by millenia of mistreatment by humans, she thought, so they mainly stuck to their old haunches. Ares may have been loyal, but he was wiley, so prey (squirrel and bird mainly), was an easy day’s hunt for him. He’d eat anything, the mutt he was, but her palette was a little more refined. She had expected the starvation and desperation to overwhelm her disgust at eating rodents, but after the first few bites, the disgust returned tenfold. She had never gotten over the bones - tiny little ones. Every animal, no matter what size, seemed to have fifty or more, scattered higgledy-piggledy through the body. She cooked the meat well enough, of course, but no matter what she did, the animals never made the psychological jump in her mind to being “meat”. She still couldn’t see them as anything but “flesh”.

---

As far as she could tell, she was the last one left. It surprised her how little she thought about it. She used to live in the city, one of those apartments close to the ground floor, and she read a lot, so she didn’t even realise something was wrong for the first day. Silence is a hard thing to notice. She ventured out on day 2 to get some groceries, but there were no cars. No chatter, no movement. She ran to the corner store, god knows why, and just looked around. She gawked at the chips, the cigarettes, the drink fridge still happily buzzing away in the corner. That was when the panic set in. The following day, she just worked off impulse. She gathered up as much food as she could, and stayed inside. There was no internet, which took her by shock (That needed people to work? Wasn’t it just all computers?), and she got bored of reading books far quicker than she expected. A voice in her head gnawed at her, although it never asked any specific question, only what? Why? How?. As curious as she soon became, some unknown force kept her at home. The thought of going out and trying to find other people terrified her to her core.

That’s the way it stayed for about two months. She raided the corner store every day or two. The clerk that used to work there, Aaron, probably would have approved. He was a communist, and pretended not to notice her slip the odd snack or drink the day before her paycheck came in. He was kind of cute, and she had the secret suspicion that he was working up the courage to ask her on a date. No matter now, she told herself whenever these thoughts came up in the early hours.

One day the store ran out. This shouldn’t have been a surprise to her, but it was. She double-checked every shelf, every fridge, every spare nook and cranny. Zip. Nada. She made a few hours trek to a supermarket over.

The supermarket was cleaned bare. Licked clean. There were other people out there.

The decision to leave for the wilderness was so obvious to her that she didn’t even think of it as a decision. More of an inevitability. She didn’t know what to take so she didn’t take anything. Just a kitchen knife, a lighter and some tape. She had seen a Mythbusters episode about how you could survive in the wilderness just using duct tape, but she didn’t have any duct tape, so she just bought a roll of sticky tape. This was one of the first things to be forgotten after she had stayed at two or three haunts. She hadn’t missed it much.

---

The days used to stretch long at the start, but they got shorter as she put more of them behind her. She tried to develop a routine, but there was very little to do. Ares didn’t eat much, thank god, so he was content on nibbling away at the bones of any of the larger dead animals he had managed to track down. He kept them stored neatly in one corner of the room. She didn’t need exercise; hunting with Ares was hard enough with her bung knee. Very little cleaning needed to be done, since she moved so often, and had no real possessions anyway apart from the animal bones. That meant most mornings were spent laying in bed, staring at the ceiling.

It bothered her. Shouldn’t she be constantly alert? On her toes at all times? In case the, like, Mighty Wolf (Do we even have wolves?) attacked her in her sleep? But there was no mighty wolf. There was barely a mighty possum. Just the cold and the dark and the sounds. Oh, the sounds were more than enough to keep her awake some nights. Sounds you never heard an animal make before. Sounds that couldn’t have come from an animal. The whispers. Every time she heard them, she remembered the supermarket. The empty supermarket with the clean, white shelves. She had adopted the habit of placing a large rock against the inside of the door in the cabin of a nighttime. Enough to deter any wildlife, probably, but if another person knew there was someone in there, and was hungry enough…

Stop, she said out loud to herself, as she had become accustomed to doing whenever these kinds of thoughts came up. She didn’t talk out loud much, so it startled Ares whenever she did this. It had started as a “technique” that Dr. Menzies had told her about. Dr Menzies was probably dead now. Stop. Or maybe Dr Menzies would be the one to kill her. Stop. Ha ha, she thought madly, I sound like a fucking telegram.

---

She put on the boots she had found a month or two ago at that hotel she had stayed at that reminded her of The Overlook from The Shining. No snow there, but it was remote enough and large enough that she wondered how it could have ever attracted any customers. Lost and found boxes now inspired a kind of deep happiness she wouldn’t have thought possible a few months ago. She opened the door and stepped out into the cold and the bright.

She thought of it as “hunting”. It wasn’t, really. She foraged, while Ares hunted. She had tried to track down some kind of surivival guide in one of the hovels she had stayed in. No such luck. Sometimes she thought they might be hiding from her. Not that she expected them littered on the ground like in a video game, just that at least one these outdoorsy fucks who lived in forest cabins had to have some kind of reference guide. They can’t all have been born with the knowledge of how to start a fire, or how to cook rodents. She didn’t even need to know that much. She only wanted to work out which berries were poisonous or not; she wasn’t going to become Bear fucking Grylls.

Some days it was just a “walk around and see what you find” kind of day. Those days were hit or miss. Either you went home and screamed into the pillow because you walked for 8 hours and found nothing but fucking grass, or you uncovered the second fucking Garden of Eden. Usually including the snake, too. Today she was on her way to one of those Gardens of Eden. She had scoped out a rather promising grove of bushes, covered in what looked like blueberries. She had first located it a few days ago, just as the sun was going down (it had been up to that point one of the “pillow-screaming days) but it was already past 4, she presumed, and the sun dangled dangerously low in the sky already. When she had discovered it with Ares a couple days ago, he had become stiff, and began sniffing along the ground. There had been animals here. Tasty, huntable animals.

She let Ares give the area a “sniffdown” before she decided it was fine to look around. She used to think that it was a just a dumb thing dogs do, like humping your leg or barking at the wind. That was before she went out one day while the dog slept, and had been chased all the way back home by some kind of yellow snake. Aren’t you only meant to attack if you’re threatened? She thought while sprinting the whole way home. She hadn’t left again for two nights, but hunger has a way of defeating fear. Three weeks later, Ares had actually caught a yellow snake. They were in a different part of the world by then, but she liked to think it was the same snake.

No snakes here today though. Ares finished his sweep and looked back at her, tail wagging. When she didn’t come immediately, he let out a short “arf!”, like, “What’re you waiting for? Water’s fine!” She was still cautious. After all, he was just a dog.

She had a system for new berries, which was basically all berries, since she had no idea how to keep a log of them. And even if she did, did she trust her eyes enough to remember which berries were safe, and which were the ones which looked almost the same but would kill you in an instant?

She carefully plucked one berry from a nearby bush with her sleeve wrapped around her hand. Could berries release toxins into you just from touch? She wasn’t gonna be the one to find out. She took the smallest possible bite from it, her teeth barely grazed the skin. She let it sit on her tongue for a few minutes. No reaction, no numbness or burning. Nothing except for a slight twinge of raspberry, which she thought was strange, since it was blue. She swallowed, and sat down, still toying with the berry in her sleeved hand.

She’d need to wait 30 minutes. She figured that was long enough to feel the effects of any poison if it was going to happen at all. This had worked a couple times - one time she had stomach cramps so bad that she felt that she couldn’t do anything but scream in pain and fold up into the fetal position, right there on the ground. Thank god no sweaty-toothed beast had come lurking out of the shadows, as Ares had long since run off to find some kind of small fluffy creature to murder. She survived, but she knew if she had ingested one drop more of that juice, she wouldn’t have been so lucky.

Soon enough, the thirty minutes came and went, (in this world, she was amazed her watch still worked sometimes) and she figured that the berries were safe enough to collect for a feast on the walk back home. The bush had thorns, which she was careful to avoid. You could weeks in without seeing a bandaid, months without antiseptic. And she knew how fucking dumb she would feel if she got done in by a plant.

As if on cue, Ares had returned. He had three dead rat-like creatures in his jaws, all held up by their necks, and it reminded her perversely of the way a mother cat holds its kittens. He dropped them at her feet. Luckily, all stone dead. On more than one hunting trip, Ares would bring back something she could still see breathing, that tiny little light coming out of its eyes. That it might live to fight another day. She hated killing those ones. She’d do it, but she hated it.

---

The cabin had its own generator, and the previous owners had been kind enough to keep a few full jerrycans of gasoline laying around before they got raptured, or whatever (she found herself thinking less and less about what had happened. She still thought about it, but less). So, electricity was no problem. She knew how to build a campfire, but she had a feeling that that wind was gonna come back. The cabin electric stove would have to do. She had shaved the “rats” with great difficulty, only using one of the sharper butter knives she found. She cut off the grosser parts (head, genitals, tail), filleted them, and put them on a high heat. No seasonings but salt and pepper here. She always yearned for one of the hostels she had stayed in, probably a couple dozen miles from here. Some kind of outdoor summer camp kind of deal. Packed the fucking rafters with spices: garlic and onion powder, thyme, basil, coriander seeds, even bay leaves. Everything and anything to cover up the smell and taste of… whatever the rodent of the week was. She tried to find that hostel again a few times, but no luck. Just what she deserved.

One of the rodents let off a really foul smell when it had been cooked. She didn’t recognise it, but she had somewhat of an instinctual reaction to it. Plague, infection, virus, bacteria. These words spawned in her brain. She went outside and threw it as far as possible away. She wouldn’t even give it to the dog - that didn’t stop him from begging for it, of course.

She went to sleep that night and dreamed. For the first time in a long time, she dreamed of people. No-one she knew. She dreamed that she was out foraging, returning again to the berry bush clearing, when a group of businessmen emerged from the bushes. All blond hair and white toothy smiles. Suits well ironed by their sad wives. “Congratulations” one said, “We’d like to present you with this cheque. One million dollars!” They all erupted in thunderous applause and wolf whistles. Another one pulled out a jumbo novelty check from thin air, “One million dollars” was printed in a fancy type. “To you and the dog” was scrawled below. In the bottom corner, it said “not dying to berries.”

As soon as she touched the cheque she woke up. Ares was napping on the bed by her feet, for once. She smiled.

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flowwriter · 2 months ago

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@dulcie-ruiz kindly drew these beautiful sketches of Godzilla for this story. Here he is in the well known "Kaiju Stance of World Peace and Love" (obviously).

Thank you again @dulcie-ruiz for the sketches. Consider commissioning a sketch from them!

In 2009, an expedition into the Pacific Ocean was commissioned by the Japanese government in order to determine the origin of an anomalous source of radiation. There was a belief that the cause of the radiation may have been a race of Kaiju, most likely members of titanus gojira. The source of the radiation was traced to Monster Island, which has previously been explored, however no living creatures were discovered (perhaps as a result of the 1974 Kaiju Extinction Event). However, basic shelters and primitive technologies were discovered and investigated. One such recovered written artifact has been translated and reproduced below.

What humans are like

Ichika Tanaka

Year 2 - Mrs Tsubuyara

One question all the kaiju on Monster Island [TRANSLATOR NOTE: The literal translation for this phrase is “Paradise” or “Sanctuary”, however, it is more commonly known as “Monster Island” ] really want to know is what humans are like and what happened between the kaijus and humans. Well the truth is we really don’t know because there’s not been many humans that have come to Monster Island and not that many kaiju have gone to Human Island so there’s no one to tell us. There’s been one kaiju that has gone to the humans, and his name was Godzilla. His name meant Hope and Peace on Planet Earth. There has been a few humans that have come to Monster Island but they’re all dead now, but we know a little bit about the humans from them.

Firstly, Godzilla was a Kaiju who really wanted to see the humans. He thought that we could learn a lot about them and make friends with them, and they could come over and see our big volcano. The island elders told him he couldn’t and said that if he went to the Human Island, then he could never come back. This made Godzilla sad. But he went anyway because he thought that humans were actually really nice and not like how all the stories saythey are.

When he left, he didn’t ride in a boat because he thought it might scare the humans, so he just walked over. He must have been pretty tired and hungry by the time he got there! Hopefully there were nice sheep or cows that he could eat.

After that people never heard from Godzilla again. The island elders said that this was a lesson that humans were evil, because they killed such a good guy like Godzilla. This meant that no-one could ever go to Human Island again. Other people think that Godzilla liked it so much on human island that he didn’t want to come back because of all the good friends he made over there. That’s what I think anyway.

There has been a few humans who have come to Monster Island that anyone remembers. The first one was a human with white fur on his head who came in a boat. He landed on the shore and one of the elders came out to see him. The elders tried to talk to him but the human let out a war cry and began running around. The elder was worried that he was going to attack and kill the other kaiju so he ate him. A lot of years later, more humans came in a big big boat and started roaring at all the kaiju. They had little sticks which they pointed at the kaiju which made popping sounds. Apparently it was all very scary, so those guys got eaten too! [TRANSLATOR NOTE: Likely referring to the disappearance of the 1957 Kaiju Expedition team.] From that day on, everybody started saying that humans were evil and scary because they wanted to use those sticks to kill us. I think that they might just be scared because they were so small compared to us.

No humans came for a long time after that, which is probably good because I think they would’ve gotten eaten. There were some people who thought that all humans were evil and wanted to hurt the Kaiju, but some others thought that humans and the Kaiju could live together. I’d really like to live with the humans because I think they’d be fun to play with and they could take me on a ride in their boats. I’d really like to talk to Godzilla if he ever comes back so he can tell everyone how nice the humans are and that we should go live with them.

If I could I would tell the humans about the Kaiju Dances where I go sometimes. [TRANSLATOR NOTE: Referring to primitive, ritualistic and violent Sacrifice Ceremonies held by Kaiju. There is no direct evidence that Kaiju held leisure events similar to humans.] Last time I went I met up with Sue-Ann and we played Ring-A-Ring-A-Rosie, which was very fun. I would also tell them about the plays that get put on every month down at the theatre, last time they did one about Godzilla, where he had to learn to live with the humans. My favourite part about it was when he had to show them how to make [UNTRANSLATABLE], which was funny because everyone on Monster Island, even the kids, know how to make it! I would also tell them about my mum and dad [TRANSLATOR NOTE: Despite extensive research, there is still little evidence towards familial affection between Kaiju.], who are very nice to me and give me extra lamb if I’m good enough. I wouldn’t tell them about my little brother Eiji, who I think is a little [UNTRANSLATABLE], because if they knew about him, then I don’t think they would want to come at all.

In conclusion, we don’t really know what the humans are like but I’d really like to be friends with them. I hope that in the future we can all visit each other’s islands and we can all have fun together.

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flowwriter · 3 months ago

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What humans are like

Ichika Tanaka

Year 2 - Mrs Tsubuyara

#short fiction #short story #original fiction

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flowwriter · 3 months ago

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Another Midsummer Night's Dream

---

The supermarket was cleaned bare. Licked clean. There were other people out there.

---

As soon as she touched the cheque she woke up. Ares was napping on the bed by her feet, for once. She smiled.

#short story #short fiction #original fiction

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flowwriter · 3 months ago

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Dirt

It was nearing 14:00, and the second sun had nearly set.

Skuzz wiped her brow with a dirt encrusted sleeve, knowing that soon the shift would end, and she could sleep. Feen, who seemed to have a supernatural sense for when she did this, turned around and tapped her with his shovel. “Hey, you think you can’t get dirt behind your eyes? You think you know better than the last guy?”. Skuzz only grunted.

The dirt mines were hell. Skuzz remembered on Earth they said “War was hell”, but she had fought in a war, and she preferred it to this. War, she thought, meant something. She wasn’t a patriotic woman, but at least you knew why you were shooting the guy with the different colour shirt, even if you didn’t agree with it. In the dirt mines, you only dug, and you never knew why.

In fact, the whole planet was hell. Skuzz never understood why they colonised this shit-hole anyway, less so why she ended up moving here. Something about jobs, she seemed to vaguely remember. All she knew now was that whatever you did, unless you were in the one percent, you eventually were thrown into “Voluntary Employ” of Mining and Extraction Services, LLC.

“Can’t get dirt behind your eyes. Shits’ cropper ganda.” said Piper, after a silence that was only punctuated by the sound of worn shovels hitting soft loam.

“You mean crock a shit?” said Feen.

“No, cropper ganda. Like that shit they tell you that’s made up to make you into a communist.”

“Propaganda.” said Skuzz through a dry throat. She couldn’t help herself.

Piper said nothing, but Skuzz could feel the heat of his gaze onto her.

There were only two things anyone knew about Piper. He was old and he was a fascist. You heard a lot of things about him, but the longer you stuck around the more you realised it was all horseshit. Her first week, she heard that he came to this planet on the first fleet, and that he used to be Count of the Underland, and that he personally led a sacrificial battalion in the last of the great water wars. ]Skuzz just thought he was old, and people got bored.

“Piper, did you even go to school? I heard about a million stories ‘bout you but I reckon they’re all bullshit.” said Feen. He often did that, said out loud what she was thinking - far too often for it to be a coincidence. Skuzz would have even thought that they were maybe soulmates, destined to be together, but they had shared a night of especially terrible sex about a year or so back, and it had shut the idea out of her mind forever.

Piper, of course, said nothing, but Hutt mumbled. “Thought you was personally tutored by the Empress herself, Piper. That's just what I heard anyway.”

There was always four to a mining gang, and no more than one woman in each. No-one really knew why. It was Just How It Is. That seemed to be the answer to most questions worth asking here. Why do we have to mine? That’s Just How It is. Why can’t we know why we’re mining? That’s Just How It Is. Why do we have to mine for the great crime of being homeless while the bourgeois can bankrupt three interstellar banks and get given a medal. That’s Just How It Fucking Is.

Another thing that’s just how it was, was that Hutt was in their gang. People seemed to either forget about him, or hate him, and Skuzz hated him. No reason, of course; he did his fair share, didn’t steal food or water, minded his own business. But she got this feeling. He oozed something. Something like ethereal body odour. It was the same effect as those bugs that are the danger colours to let animals know not to eat them because they’re poisonous. Stay away! Don’t trust me! Flared a brilliant neon green from him, reflected onto a sense that she was not aware of.

Feen glanced behind himself, out to the head of the tunnel they had dug into the ground. The second sun had finally set. “Alright, shovels down. Back to camp”.

When they got out of the mine, Skuzz fell to her knees on the coarse dirt and felt the weight of the day collapse with her. The others paid no attention, and started to walk away without her. Hutt half-heartedly called back “C’mon S. You gotta eat”. It only made her hate him more.

---

Say what you will about the camps. That they were predatory. Preying on vulnerable people for no good reason. Psychological torture etc., but the did make you appreciate the simple things in life. There was nothing to make you appreciate tedium more than pain.

The unwritten rule of the mess hall was that there was no talking. Only eating. You lined up in-front of The Vat, waited until every person in front of you had filled their bowl with food. You sat down, and you ate. Perhaps “food” was too generous a description. The vat produced what could only be described as an oddly pale “sludge” out of a tube which groaned worryingly after every use. Skuzz had spent many evenings early into her indenture worrying that the entire machine was going to explode and rain (nutrient paste? gruel?) onto man and woman alike, like a low budget production of Carrie.

For her tardiness after kneeling in the sand, she was rewarded one of the last spots in line. She could hear the machine dispense the sludge ahead of her. Gloosh. Groan. Gloosh. Groan. If she were a more religious woman, she thought she might be able to achieve zen while waiting in that line, listening to the drone of the Vat, again and again.

When her slop was finally dispensed and she took her seat, the hall was filled with the cacophony of a thousand spoons hitting a thousand plates, and a thousand mouths slurping up as quickly as possible. Almost all of the dirt miners ate quickly, sloppily, hungrily. Heads down and shovelling the food into their mouths as quickly as their broken and tired hands would let them. Skuzz had begun this way too, especially on the first few nights. On her first night, she had even raised herself from one of the long wooden benches and returned to the machine for a second portion. No sooner than she had stood up, however, she noticed the quiet, and turned to witness a thousand eyes looking at her. Slowly and deliberately, as one would in a fight with a bear, she turned back and sat down. She had not made that mistake again.

But nowadays, Skuzz ate slowly - as slowly as her growling stomach and screaming mind would let her. “Eat! Eat! Eat quicker!” it said, and she knew she would eventually. But if you ate quicker, you got to that nauseating, all-you-can-think-about kind of hunger quicker as well. Or at least she thought. Oftentimes she caught Feen looking at her. Not a judging look, but a look she knew the meaning of. “That shit don’t work, Skuzz. Might as well not torture yourself. Eat up”. She did it anyway.

She was one of the last to leave that night, which she liked. Being alone at dinner seemed right, for reasons she was not adequately able to explain. When she was done, her only companion was a young looking boy (thirteen or fourteen, she guessed) who had both of his hands bandaged. He balanced his spoon between both of the bandaged nubs on the end of his arms, and tried to scoop the gruel into his mouth. More often than not, it would end up all over his lap. Finally, frustrated, he got up and left too, with most of the bowl still full. She was tempted to steal the boy's food after he left, but she didn’t. Didn’t seem right somehow.

---

Skuzz was exhausted, but sleep didn’t come easy. Even after she had masturbated, (which they all did in the bunks, the creaking of old bed-springs was almost endless) she felt wide awake. Tired in her bones, but not in her eyes, where it mattered.

She used to think about home all the time. The memories had faded though, and she noticed she was losing little pieces day by day. The name of her hometown. Her childhood best friend’s face. The smell of an Earth Winter morning. All gone to the dirt. It was strange to her how the bad things remained, crisp and real. First heartbreak, first broken bone, first night crying herself to sleep. It would be a long time before she forgot those.

And so she laid on her back, staring at the ceiling, for nearly an hour. Then, she noticed Feen had gotten out of his bunk, and heavily plodded towards the door. Normally, she couldn’t tell people by their footsteps, but Feen had a special *plud*, *plud*, *plud* which was distinctive. She saw him exit the dorm into the cool night air, and rose to follow him.

Once she was outside, she saw his silhouette under the weak moonlight, sitting cross-legged. Almost like he was meditating. She sat down next to him.

“You want some?” came Feen’s gravelly voice. He held out a worn metallic flask to her.

She took it, and took a careful sip. Then, she begun gulping hungrily. Feen quickly snatched the flask back. “Hey,” he said. “Smuggling that shit in ain’t easy. This is meant to last me a month!” He sloshed the flask to see how much was left, and then sighed.

“Then why’d you offer it to me?” Skuzz said.

Feen didn’t reply. They both sat there, marvelling under the light of the twin moons. Two great eyes supervising life on the new planet. Or so the old stories went, meant to scare children into doing any of the things that children were meant to do but didn’t want to.

After an age, Feen finally spoke. “What… happened to us.” Skuzz, the liquor finally marching its joyous trail towards her brain, said “Whuh?”

Feen, as sober as could be, said “I mean, we had that one night… and, I don’t know… sometimes it feels like you’re the only one in the world who understands me. You’re the only one who doesn’t make me feel so alone.”

“Feen…” she began, assuming that she would know what to say. She didn’t, so she just trailed into silence. “Feen, I’m just trying to keep the dirt out of my eyes, OK?”

“Sure” whispered Feen, barely audible.

She felt that she should say more, to the hunched over blob in the dark, but the words did not come, and so she left.

When she got back to her bed, she fell asleep almost instantly, and slept through a dreamless night.

#short story #short fiction #original fiction

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flowwriter · 3 months ago

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Piano

I was your first piano.

I don’t remember much about being made. I remember a little about being in the store. People loved to play with me - just my high and my low notes, mainly. Little children, old people, they loved to make me make noise. Jab, jab, jab - I got used to it. The store clerk used to get mad at them, but he used to play me too. On those slow nights, he’d wander over to me, looking guilty, and just happen to lean on me. Who are you pretending for, I used to think.

Your mother was just like any other woman. Well, almost. She seemed more nervous. She stood looking around at me and the others. She had a notepad full of things she looked up online. Whispering to herself, “Weighted”. “In-built metronome”. “No light up keys”. She stood there until the clerk came over. She asked him what she should buy. He said, is it for you? No, she said, it’s for my daughter, she wants to learn piano. The clerk raised his eyebrows. She wants to learn piano? The eyebrows said. Or you want her to? She heard her grandmother play Fur Elise, your mother said. She danced around the room, like a tiny ballerina. She told me on the car ride home that it was the most beautiful thing she ever heard. I want to get her one for Christmas.

I enjoyed being taken home too. I could feel the happiness of your mother. She was excited too, I think she liked being sneaky. She took me in and wrapped me in some used wrapping paper. One night she put me under the tree. The next morning, you walked into the loungeroom, jaw open. What’s that BIG one? Is it a piano? That was the first words I heard you say. Your mum, all giggly and proud of herself, said nothing. “We’ll see” said your dad.

You unwrapped me and squealed. I was so glad I ended up with you.

The first few months were tough. Your mother said “no playing on the piano with sticky fingers”. You never listened. Until it got too hard to press down on my keys that is, and you cried. I’m not proud of it, but that made me laugh a little.

Your mum got you a teacher, and that helped. You used to sit at me, brow furrowed, eyes laser focused on your fingers. Hot. Cross. Buns. You used to play. Hot. Cross. Buns. One-a-penny. Two. A. Pen. Ny. Oops, wrong note. That got you upset, and you hit my keys really hard. I didn’t mind, you made it one note further than last time.

But you and I grew up together. The first few years, you played me a lot, and you got really good. You couldn’t see yourself getting better, but I could. But eventually, after a few years, I became that thing that sits in the corner that gets dusted once in a while. You grew older and got interested in other stuff, boys, going out. That kind of stuff. Sometimes I saw you look over at me with that guilty look. You thought I didn’t see you, but I did. I missed what we had, but I knew someday you’d come back to me.

Years and years passed, but I was right. Your mother is what started it. Boxes filled the living room, you were cramming clothes and appliances and old finger-paintings into boxes and garbage bags. I thought you might be leaving you behind. Your mother came over to me and wiped some dust off with her finger. Darling, aren’t you taking the piano? She said. Remember, you used to play it all the time when you were younger. She was getting misty-eyed. Ugh mum, you said, can you please not talk to me right now I need to sort out my clothes. You ended up taking me.

You set me up in your new room. Ian was also there. You moved in with him. Oh my god, you play piano? He said, when he saw me. He started poking at the keys. Just like the fucking store. I used to, you said. That hurt. Then, play something, said Ian. You sat down at me, just like old times. Your hands remembered where they needed to go. They were a little bigger now, so it was hard for a moment, but they danced across the keys like they used to. You played half of a minuet that you pracitsed on me for three months when you were little. God I find that so sexy, said Ian. You’re so sexy when you play piano. You shot a glance at me. Fucking Ian, I thought.

You started playing me again after that. Not as much as you used to, but from time to time. Old songs which you barely had to think about. New songs which were struggled on, note by note. Less crying this time, which was nice. The crying was spent on the bed this time, I don’t think it was about me.

It was only a few months before we moved again. Ian wasn’t there this time, which I thought was nice. Just us two this time. You started to play me a lot again, but no crying. That same laser focus, but it was different. You seemed distracted, playing me to focus on something else. I still enjoyed our time together.

One day you disassembled my stand and put me in a box. You stood me out the front of your new house and gave me to someone else. I could hear them walking up the driveway. You pulled me close and whispered, Goodbye,I loved playing you. I’m sorry I have to sell you. Maybe someday we’ll meet again. It’s okay, I said back, I understand. Thank you for playing me. I don’t think you could hear me.

You gave me away and I stayed with my new owners for a few months. There was a young boy who played me really well, but he didn’t really like playing me. I could pretend sometimes that it was almost as good as with you, but then his parents would come shout at him. The next person was an older lady. I stayed with her for a few years. She loved playing me, she even used to play Fur Elise on me for her grandkids, which reminded me of you, but one day she left her house and never came back. A while later, some people boxed me up and brought me to their house. They never played me though.

Eventually, they brought me out of the front of their house, just like you did. “FREE TO A GOOD HOME” they wrote on the note they stuck to me, and they sat me out next to the road. I waited there for nights and nights and nights. Then one day, a car drove past me. It came to a squealing halt and pulled over. Two people got out and one of them ran over. No way no way no way, she said. There’s no way, that can’t be it, the other said, c’mon I’m tired, let’s just go home. The first one picked me up and ran her fingers over my plastic casing. I think… she said, holy shit this is it. And then I realised, it was you.

You threw me, literally threw me in the back seat of your car. There’s a crack, you said, down the side of its casing. One time when I was younger I wanted to know how it made sound so I tried to open it up with a knife and it cracked the casing. It’s the same fucking crack! I remembered the incident well. I hoped you wouldn’t do it again. Lucy it’s the same fucking one! you said.

You drove me home and scrambled to plug me in. I didn’t have the stand any more, so you just put me on your lap on the bed. Lucy sat right beside you, her head on your shoulder. Play something for me, she said. You did, and I was happy.

#short fiction #short story #original fiction

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