Short Stories

The Figure

Her feet pound out an unrecognizable beat.  She whips her head around to see behind.  It’s still there, the shadowy figure following.  She turns back around, her icy strands of hair whipping her face like a cat-of-nine.  She slides around the corner patent shoes finding no grasp.  She falls, face first onto the cold wet ground, tears running paths down red, scratched cheeks.  The shards of ice an unending bombardment from the sky, she sits with labored breath.  She looks up from beneath the cobweb of hair.  The figure is still following, leisurely.  It seems to be in no hurry.  As though it knows she’s already in its trap and the gate has closed.  She pushes from the ground with bruised, stinging palms.  She feels nausea welling up, the burn trailing up into her mouth.  She swallows down the fire in her mouth and pushes on.  Questions flail about in her mind as she resumes the song of desperation on the concrete below her feet.  She wonders if God would  have mercy and someone, anyone would brave the storm this night and be outside.  She wonders who or what is following her, but is too afraid to stop and find out.

She cries out, beseeching the dark clouds above if this is the night she will die, that God will show some mercy.  Her legs grow weak but she dare not stop her retreat.  She stumbles over the uneven crack in the sidewalk and steadies herself on a brick doorway.  Peeking her darkly shadowed eyes around the cracked side she sees the figure still advancing at the same steady pace.  She ducks back in the doorway.  She tries to figure about how long she has to catch her breath.  Not enough.  Her mind is tired, too little sleep, too much exertion.  She knows she has a choice, just let the figure overwhelm her, or take it on.  She can’t go on anymore.  She slides down the rough brick, pulling snags in her thick, drenched sweater.  But what does it matter, when tomorrow she’ll be a mound in the ground.  Or will she?  A sense of empowerment and strength comes over her.

She stands up, bracing herself on the wall.  She won’t go down easily, she decides.  Her legs are shaking, her eyes still shadowed.  But now, her soul has a mission, a demand.  She will not back down.  The slow calculated steps are near now, as she waits around the corner.  The steps stop, she slides her hand into her pocket, pulling out her key ring.  Slipping a key between her tightened fingers forming a fist, she springs around the corner.  There is nothing.  No figure, no threat.  Just anticipation.

The Meaning of Listless and Gone

Listless.  It is no longer an adjective.  Not to me at least.  To me it has become a noun.  Or maybe it has become me.  As though I should wear a “hello my name is…” sticker.  It became me after you were gone.  How hard that is to say, gone.  So final.  One syllable but it means so much.  I find myself wandering the silent house, listless.  I see what needs done but all I can think is you’re…gone.

Today I found your sweatshirt.  The one I always stole.  It still smells like you.  Just barely, but it’s there.  If I close my eyes and breathe deep, I can almost hear your voice.  Almost feel your arms pulling me in against your chest.  But, you aren't here.  You never will be.  It hurts.  My chest aches, like a scalpel is slicing me open right above my ribs.
It’s almost not enough anymore, just trying to imagine your voice.  It’s like you are a mist constantly slipping over me and then, it’s gone.  At night, sometimes, I think I hear you breathing deeply stretched out beside me.  But you aren't and I am in a cold bed all alone.

I haven’t moved anything.  They brought me a bag with your belongings in it.  Your tags, your uniform.  It’s all there, but it does not fill the emptiness, the void.  Because they are just things that constantly remind me of you, they are not you.  How do they expect me to see things the same anymore?

I see it all so differently now.  I see YOU differently.  You aren't just my lover, my joy, my life.  You are a soldier, a man, a hero.  You are this person who once was, the type that the stories are told about long after you are gone.  I don’t know if I can handle that, people talking about you and how you are gone.

I know what you did was right, noble in fact.  I’m proud of you for all you did and, believe me I wouldn't take any of our moments together back.  But how I wish you hadn't done what you did, couldn't you have left it for someone else to do?  But I know you better than that.  You are more courageous then that, or…were.  You were my hero every single day, and now, you are everyone’s hero.  But what if I don’t want to share you?

I want to tell them all to stop, to stop talking to me about you, to stop reminding me.  I just want to sit silently in my memories alone.  I want to scream, and cry and petition God to have you back.  Even though I know I can’t, it’s what I long for. 


You were a hero, you are a hero, and you will forever be a hero.   But first you were just mine, and now I sit with the loss and I am proud of you, so proud.  But being proud and honoring you and your courage does not bring you back.  People just don’t understand the loss and sacrifice.  But I do now, and how I wish I could kiss you one more time and say I love you.

God's Country

At first, most people miss the tiny dirt road.  It is way back in God’s country where you could get going at a good 60 miles per hour and sail right by it.  It’s nestled deep beneath towering trees with sweeping, low branches.  But once you see it and begin the jostling trek back the rock strewn road you can’t help but marvel at the beauty of the woods around you. Woods so damp and fresh, they spread as far as you can see in every direction.   If you roll down your windows the overpowering scent of the dense forest rushes in.  It’s an indescribable scent.  The overpowering scent is a mixture of soil, moss, and decaying leaves that have fallen to the ground.  It’s almost sweet as it swirls in the clean woodsy air.

            Up ahead a break in the trees slowly becomes apparent as you pull onto a shale path that merges into a small parking lot.  You find yourself nestled behind a massive log lodge that dwarfs your car.  But the building is not nearly as impressive as the way the woods surround and hover over the little alcove far away from the modern world.  This is a place where you can lose yourself in the free, vastness of creation.  You pull your stiff body from the car and stretch your arms up above your head as you breathe in the crisp air.  Your body cracks and realigns after sitting still for so long.

            You take the first few steps with your legs feeling the vibration from the car’s engine still.  But it only takes a few steps as you walk purposefully with anticipation toward the heavy wood door.  It’s so heavy on the spring holding it closed that you have to use your whole body and thrust backwards with the door in your grasp to get it open.  You huff as you finally get it open and squirm through before it slams back shut behind you.  It’s bright inside.  Sunlight filters in through the skylights that seem miles above you in the cathedral ceiling.  Looking to your left and right you see massive fireplaces that remind you of a colonial hearth.  People of all lifestyles sit around each fire, bursts of laughter and loud talking ring through your ears.

            The room has a chill to it.  The large room is sparse with several cafeteria tables, a stage and a door to the kitchen.   You are greeted warmly with calls of “Hey!” and “Glad you made it!”  Genuine smiles greet you on every face.  Bearded faces, young faces, weathered faces all showing their gladness at your arrival.  It feels like a homecoming.  You hurry over to a fireplace avoiding the long tables to scare away the chill.  It doesn’t take long until someone offers you a paper cup of hot apple cider.  You puff air across the top of the drink, pushing away the steam and watching the ripples bounce against the side of the cup then disappear as more push in.  You take a tentative sip and find it too hot to drink.  There is a burning, metallic feel to your tongue as you run your teeth over it hoping to take away the feeling.  You begin to feel much too hot next to the massive fire.  Your face and ears feel as though they are burning along with the logs.

            You step away just a bit, hoping to find the goldilocks zone not too close and not too far from the hearth.  You try to sip once more from the cup after once more blowing on it and find it more bearable to drink.  The cinnamon and apple combination explodes in your mouth as the warmth trickles down your throat.  You follow the feeling all the way to your stomach as it heats with the arrival of the warm drink.  Your mouth retains the spicy goodness of the spices and you sigh with contentment.  You carry the drink cupping it between your two hands as some color returns to them with the warmth coming off the cup as you walk to a large door with a solitary window on the back wall of the lodge.

            You pull the door open with one hand sloshing the drink down your jeans.  It leaves a dark trail in its wake but you hardly even notice it.  You step down the concrete step and are smacked in the face with the scent of cold, raw flesh.  Looking to the left you see two deer hanging upside down from a hook in the ceiling.  One is stripped of its fur and flesh and you can see each muscle and sinew.  You shudder with disgust.  Then shake off the unease.  You realize that for someone, this will feed their family for the next year.  Suddenly, the death and gore of it hardly bothers you as joy that this person will be able to feed their family overwhelms you.  Dodging droplets of fresh blood among the dried ones you cross the screened in porch and push open the door.

            With a screech the door opens and you once again find yourself in nature.  It feels colder now as it hits you in the face.  But you breathe deeply anyways.  Yes, this is what you’ve needed.  The peace and contentment of being where no one can reach you, where the problems of day to day life are forgotten for just a snippet of time.  This, you realize, really is God’s country.

Scented

Rain, tinkling against the window woke her from her sleep drenched mind.  Her room dark with the foreboding of the stronger force to come.  She curled into a tight ball, hugging her knees to her chest with a shuddering sigh.  Her hair lies matted against her cheek slicked with damp salty tears.  She tries to embrace the calm silence before again joining the land of the living, or barely living depending how you saw it.  She wanted much for her life, but somehow always felt as though falling short.  Once, she had considered herself a warrior of the game some call living.  Surviving more then some people can claim on their dying day.  But somehow, this failure seemed too startling and blatant.  Surely everyone knew by now.

It seemed as though it should be so easy, just choosing to slip away and not wake up.  But it wasn't. She stretched her legs out, moving her ankles a bit to revive them.  She hasn't slipped away in unconsciousness so for her to give up in wakefulness seemed too cowardly.  Life called whether she wanted it to or not.  She started to rise on her elbows.  But a strange scent stopped her like a rabbit caught in the garden.  That scent, so familiar.  It was heady with a sense of exotic.  But yet it somehow smelled homey.  It smelled like a hug with a whispered encouragement.  It took her off guard, breathing deep she whispered, "Who's there?" No voice echoed back but her own.  She pulled the blankets close to her face trying to block the scent.  It disarmed her and she didn't like feeling out of control.  But the scent filled her blankets and memory too clearly.  She couldn't escape.  She couldn't move.

She knew the scent from some time previous, but somehow couldn't place its time or place.  Somewhere deep inside she knew it was nothing to fear.  But she also knew that in this moment she did.  She began to weep, cry "what do you need from me?" Why now in her utter failure did it wash over her?  This wasn't the time for a visit from Him.  Not when she had lost all she had hoped to be.  But that scent, tangling in her hair and brushing her skin with an otherworldly glow of joy, it seemed to disable her mind.  She felt whole and...happy.  Her tears gone, she lifted her eyes to the fan spinning above her.  She began to sing, a song she had not known just an hour ago.  A song of joy and hope.  This was her place she found refuge.  She found peace.  Her own personal sanctuary.

She no longer belonged in this world but she had to press on.  She felt strong, but it wasn't her strength to waste on something other then what it was meant for.  She was marked, the scent flowing from her hair.  She was different.  She didn't belong here, she belonged there.  She belonged where no one could go and return. She belonged away from what had plagued her only moments before.  She, was not of this world.  She smiled, knowing she had not failed.  He had visited her, here in her sanctuary.