2 Quickies and a Poem
A couple of very short stories (vignettes, as I like to call them) sandwiching a bite-sized piece of poetry
Dreaming of Ghosts
“I dream of ghosts too often,” she says. She lights a cigarette and drags it hard. Her eyes are wide open and staring ahead, unmoving, into space. “I dream of them, but when I wake up, they’re gone. There’s nothing. There’s nothing but perfect silence. And that’s when I get scared — when I wake up in the silence.”
She takes another big drag. “After that, I just want to go back to sleep so I can be with the ghosts again. They’re silent, but it’s a different kind of silence. A silence of presence. With them there, surrounding me, at least I’m not alone. Most of the time, I feel like a ghost myself, like nothing more than a whisper.”
She exhales a stream of smoke and punches the cigarette into the ashtray. Silence, once again.
Her friend, after looking down at the floor through most of the monologue, looks up with eyes of unease. “Am I a ghost too?”
“Maybe we all are.” She lights another cigarette. “Maybe we should all just go to sleep.”
No One
The smoke circles around
I pick up where I left off
Wood-grain dreams, leaf-drop visions
Ink blotted like blood on the mind
Drastic measures are taken again
Deep blue sob stories
Told like whispers in the wind
Find yourself or lose yourself
There’s no one here
The Keynote Speaker
A tall, skeletal man with a top hat walks across the stage of a high school auditorium. There is no clapping. Only the clip-clop of the man’s footsteps sounds through the room. A wide, motionless smile hugs most of his face as he approaches the podium. Barely a breath is heard, even with every seat filled with forms of adolescence.
At the microphone, the man’s face stays frozen with the same smile. His voice, deeper than one would expect, booms through the silent hall: “Good afternoon, students and faculty of Wentworth High School. Today I have the distinct honor of discussing a matter that many of you may not give much, if any, thought to. Our topic on this bright, sunny afternoon is that of Death.”
The man’s smile along with his eyes grow ever wider. Throughout the auditorium, the silence deepens.
“Exciting, isn’t it?” the man asks, shifting his eyes toward every corner of the crowd in the darkness. No one answers. “Truly a wonderful thing, Death — something we all have the pleasure of meeting in the end. A thing of beauty, the sweet relief of complete release, if Death did not exist, we would have to create an alternative to wipe ourselves clean, to escape from the agony of immortality. Indeed, some set their sights on the idea of living forever, convincing themselves how sublime it would be, dreaming up all the ways to spend eternity. But this is only because they know, underneath it all, that they are dancing with impossibility. We all know it’s fun to flirt with the unattainable.”
The man pauses, looking around the auditorium, his teeth still shining like ivory in the stage lights.
“Now, does anyone have something they would like to say? Any questions or concerns? I open the floor to you all, for I feel a tension growing in this hall.”
From the darkness, a voice teeming with anxiety calls out a question that pervaded the silence long before being asked: “Yes, um, sir… Who are you, exactly? You never mentioned your name.”
The man’s smile cracks open, his eyes widen further, before answering. “Oh, I think you all know the answer to that already. Do I not seem a bit like your escape from immortality?”
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Very melancholy. 🙂 I liked them.