Publishing the most Innovative Short Stories, Prose, and Flash Fiction
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Wind on The Verandah by Michael Giardina - Page 3
"They're calling him a voyeur. They're saying he was just some perverted child. He wasn't a fucking child. Do you get it? He was a writer." "Maybe he was just confused. Everyone has things they're ashamed of, things they do at night in the privacy of their own -" "He's not a voyeur. He's a writer. Can't you see the difference? He wanted to write the perfect dialogue, to describe the perfect landscape. He was listening to other people's lives and making them into characters." "I thought you said you didn't read anything he wrote." "I haven't." "Then how could you know -" "I just know, okay? Why can't you just accept it? I knew him. You get me? He was a poet, a thinker, a man of aesthetics." "I'm not going to talk to you," the man said, "if you're not going to look at me. You just keep staring over the cliff. Will you come sit down? I ordered you a drink." "You can't order me anything." "I didn't mean it like that. I'm trying to be a friend." The woman walked back to the table and the man stood up to acknowledge her movement. He looked at her for a moment, wondering if they would sit down at the same time. He didn't know why he had risen, it just seemed customary. The woman's face grew sad and neither sat down. She walked over to him, a tear forming at the corner of her eye. They were in an embrace. The man didn't know who was responsible for the gesture, but it felt genuine, like old times. "I'm sorry. I know I'm taking things out on you. They're trying to make a disgrace out of everything. He had a chance." "Everyone has a chance," said the man. He placed his hand at the small of the woman's back. She remembered the touch. It made her uncomfortable for a moment but then something about it comforted her and she didn't move away. "They'll find something," said the man, "things just show up. Life works like that." "Like what?" the woman said. "At first nobody understands you and they think you're off. They think you're sick until they realize you're sick." "He was sick," the woman asked. "A pervert is sick in the mind, a poet is sick in the heart." The two sat down at the small table. A butterfly flew down and landed on the man's Mai Tai. The liquid was gone but a piece of pineapple was still sitting in the cup. "Butterflies are so beautiful," said the woman. "Sometimes they die, though." "No they don't." "They do. They're like us." The woman brushed the butterfly away with her hand and said, "You don't know anything about them. All you see is their wings. They look beautiful to you. You never look past the wings. All you see is the surface. Butterflies are eternal. You don't know anything about them." "You didn't have to call me," the man said. "You didn't have to come," the woman replied. "Well I guess we're all attracted to the things we fear." The woman didn't respond. She looked stung by the comment. "What? What's wrong?" "I'm sorry. He was scared of heights. Did you know that?" "I didn't know him." "You remind me of him," the woman said, "that's why they said I should call." "Who?" "Why do you care? Didn't you hear what I said? You remind me of him." "I heard you," the man said. He motioned at the waitress to bring him another drink. She put up two fingers in a questioning fashion. The man realized that the woman had not even touched her drink, but he nodded his head anyways." ...continued on Page 4 |
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