short story

Magic

I can’t go back in time so I keep moving. My movement isn’t always forward, sometimes it’s backwards, sometimes in a circle. Movement offers me a false sense of progress. This life seldom dispenses second chances, it offers up lessons.  I keep moving, I keep reaching out.

It’s a lonely quest, scavenging through life in search of purpose, love and someone to relate to. To be understood is to be loved. To expect to be understood is “crazy”. If you want to be loved in spite of all your weird idiosyncrasies and foibles, adopt a rescue dog. If you want to be exploited and abused, allow a cat to adopt you…Relationships are built on such subtle differences. Friends will change without telling you, others may ghost you for unknown reasons and some pass away never to be seen again———at least not in this life.

I worry, “Did I let everyone I love know how much I appreciate them in my life (Note to self, tell everyone I appreciate them in my life, excluding those occasional assholes). I fret over the thought that perhaps I never let my parents know how much I respected and loved them. We become so accustom to our parents unconditional love, that it’s easy to take this gift for granted. My parents stuck by me, in-spite all my stupid life decisions. Time goes by quickly, words are free, don’t hold back——let those you care for, know how much you love them.

These days I lack a meaningful connections with others,…….Maybe I could better define this malady as a disassociation syndrome. In other words, so many things no longer fit together—My “Why’s” far out weigh my “How’s”……..The veneer of this thing called reality is wearing thin. Everything seems so unreal and strange to me. I stumble about thinking, “Is this the way things are supposed to be?” “Is this the way I supposed to be?” We all have our own brand of craziness, we just become comfortable by wrapping it in our own private shiny distractions. If you don’t know how the trick is done, then it’s magic——misdirection, sleight of hand, illusion, Love?? Life??

King Of Sorrow

It’s mid October, the season that gives way to the beauty that comes with the death of a fading summer.  Leaves turn golden, red and purple before being swept away in the autumn winds. Outside its dark and cold, the sun surrenders its dominion over the sky earlier and earlier, this relieves me of the guilt of fixing myself a drink too early, but as we all know, there’s always an excuse for drinking. I hear the faint fizz of carbonation over ice cubes——my oh my, Jameson and Ginger-ale in my favorite tumbler.

It’s the season of tangled sheets, as ghosts whisper under beds and the hellhounds bay up at an angry moon.  I swear I hear the footsteps of shadowy specters moving across the creaking hardwood floor.  The doorknob to my closet appears to be slowly turning. I foolishly decide to step deeper into this nocturnal quicksand. There’s something bittersweet about allowing my darker angels to run loose. I flip through my playlists and click on “Sade”. God almighty, her music always takes me there. It’s got that hypnotic groove that’s made for soul searching, lovemaking——it’s drenched in unrepentant sensuality. The beat pulls me into a grinding pocket. I feel like having a cigarette, but I had to give that up over a decade ago, it’s always the hardest thing to give up on something that you know you’ll remorselessly love forever——and she taught me——forever is a long time!

Some woman know they have it from an early age and they carry it with them through old age.  She has it, she knows how to use it——-she exudes a steamy erotic energy. It affords her an unfair advantage. “It” has nothing to do with beauty or flash, it’’s in the way her body moves through space, it’s that certain look in her hungry eyes. Her heated body radiates the fragrance of lust. When her hand nonchalantly brushes up against my skin, it’s as if a million volts of electricity convulses through my body.  All those other bland pretty girls have no lightening in their soul; they leave no ache in those empty places, no burn in ones darkness. 

The prisons and insane asylums are filled with men who’ve let this black magic rule them, clouding their better judgement and making them do the bad things they never thought they were capable of doing.  I search through a junk drawer and find a single crippled cigarette, I rip off the bent filter and take a deep drag and then slowly exhale the blue smoke. It hangs in the air, mysteriously taking the shape of a maligned dragon. I feel myself going back on things I swore I’d never do. I scroll through my phone contacts and wonder if her number is still the same. The thought of her warm damp voice invades my nervous system with a shot of adrenaline, causing my hands to tremble. I hesitate with my finger hovering over the green call button. “King Of Sorrow” begins to play on my mix.