Here’s another flash fiction that I experimented with recently. The brief here was to explore the theme of “Abandonment.” Again, I didn’t trouble the judges, but I am still learning.
Those that have read “Gone to the Dogs” might recognize one of the characters here!
“So, you’re back?”
She peered around the door frame, silhouetted in the warm glow of the half-light.
“Yes.”
She lowered her gingerbread eyes. “You can’t keep doing this.”
“Please,” I stepped forward and placed a hand on the peeling panel. “I can explain. I’ve been busy.”
“Too busy for me?” Her remark struck me like a blow in the solar plexus. I was winded, and she was right. I could not defend myself.
“Kathy, look, I’m here now. Here to stay if you’ll have me? Here to the end.”
Immediately, I heard the chant of ‘fraud’ echoing around my mind. I winced, but her downcast eyes missed the deceit.
“You had better come in. You’re letting all my warmth out.”
The door yielded, and I stepped across the threshold.
I sat on the lumpy sofa. The crocheted throw slipped from the rear as my weight dissipated. I tried to adjust it, but it was no use. A tear in the cushion fabric emerged, sprouting fibres like exotic fungi.
“You’ll have to make do with black tea, I’m out of milk,” she called, from the kitchenette. Her voice seemed tired.
“That’s fine.” I doubt she heard my reply. My eyes were busy scanning the myriad of candles that lit the room. She emerged, clutching two mugs.
“The meter ran out,” she explained. “I don’t have any coins.”
I began to fish in my empty pocket. “I prefer it like this. The droplets of flame catch your eyes.”
“Please, don’t.”
“But you’re beautiful. Can’t I say it?”
“Perhaps once, perhaps a few times. Anymore becomes repetition. It becomes all that I am. Just a painted shell.”
“Don’t be like that.”
She placed the mugs onto the coffee table and sat opposite. The wingback chair hugged her femininity, and her ebony hair cascaded against the antimacassar. I caught a waft of her perfume on the air.
“When is my birthday?” she asked suddenly.
“What?”
“When is my birthday? It’s a simple enough question.”
“Well, you’re thirty-two. Too young to have antimacassars!”
“That wasn’t what I asked!” There was anger and exasperation in her tone. “You come back here, having disappeared for goodness knows how long, begging for forgiveness, yet you still know nothing about me? How is that supposed to make me feel?”
I considered her question for a while.
“Angry?”
“You’re damn right, I’m angry! I’m angry at me! I find you so inconceivably annoying sometimes, but you know I cannot live without you!”
“You cannot live without me?”
She leapt from the chair and began, with a swerve, to march around the flat.
“How can I? You created me! You are the author of my story, yet you leave me here, waiting for weeks on end, while you no doubt write about someone else!”
I felt the shame. I knew that Kathy was right. “It was just a few flash fictions. They meant nothing! It’s you I love! That’s why it will be so difficult to do what I must do.”