Dan Wicket has posted on FaceBook that May is Short Story month. The Emerging Writers Network is onboard, not surprising as that’s Dan’s project, too. I don’t know quite what this is, I think flash (fiction? experimental writing?). I think that I might continue with more of this during May. There’s a thought. Let’s see how far this goes during this merry, merry month of May. Comments, thoughts, suggestions welcome.

Tomorrow

The lump of garbage will linger below the shallow winds before a whisper, a snicker really, can startle ears into flight. The bearded woman takes off her jacket that fateful night, her slender rear a blip in the unnamed prattle that will surge over the gully. Her foot will ride out of the sneaker as she recalls her smooth-faced lover.

Not much of the dark remains. The coming day crosses the paths of people, lingers below consciousness as pale light shimmies out of its nightgown. Her lover left a note, C-sharp, echoing on the piano. It grates onions over the volley, rounds blasting from cannon on the cliffs. Silhouettes slide across the sea’s horizon, warships invading again.

The fight had been brief. Her smooth-faced lover wanted her beard, not her heart. He cursed his Anishinabe rootlessness. Paper-airplane resumés boomeranged around them. Work. The mold rejected them, refused to grow even on their old oranges. Stars faded. The night wanted to escape.

Woman / Tomorrow, digital art, @2013 Michael Dickel

The sneaker slips to the floor, a thump against sleep. Fighting the tide of dreams, she prepares to slip out, under cover of the winds. Now naked. Alone. She crosses the gully, mounts the hill, lights the bonfire. The road to town mocks her. Standing on the cliff she waits. Smooth faces attract her. Her naked skin drinks single malt whiskey while making up stories for invisible companions.

“Good-bye,” the piano note hums. “I can’t live here anymore.”

The smoke stench coats her. A poor blanket, but who knew then. She looks out at the frigates shrinking out of perspective. Then she goes to bed.

The series, Chicken and Egg, has six installments for now, in this order:

Tomorrow | Today | Morning | Afternoon | Evening | Yesterday