fiction

Cold

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Photo by Joseph Pearson on Unsplash

The cold smacked him in the face and took his breath.  The polar vortex_ the weather folks called it.  When he was a kid, they called it the Siberian Express. Times change.   The ambient temperature was below zero and with windchill his bones shuddered, and his toes went numb. 

The assassin buttoned the top of his coat and wrapped his scarf around his neck.  There was no hope for it.  He would have to wear gloves.  Otherwise, his fingers would get clumsy, and the cuts would not be as precise as was his wont.  His mark, the doorman, would be outside even in this weather.  It was the doorman’s job; it was the assassin’s job to kill him and leave him lying in front of the apartment as a warning to the others.

He pulled out the knife and looked into the blade, but the silvery mirror finish clouded over from his breath.  It was too cold for condensation; the knife was encased in a thin layer of ice.  He didn’t suppose that would make any difference, but still it bothered him.  He liked a clean blade; one he could see his face in.  He wiped the blade on his coat, but the metal immediately clouded over again.  No hope for it.

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The Phoenix

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“How many times am I expected to do this?” The exasperated Phoenix looked at the new fires erupting around her. Her insurance agent had canceled her coverage fires and fires ago. She knew from experience that she had to let the fires burn to ashes before rising, so she settled in and tapped her talons on the kitchen counter – waiting for it to catch fire and burn.

“This is getting old.”

She had given up the fire extinguisher because it wouldn’t allow her to rise. The Phoenix didn’t understand why, but her wings were useless while the flames burned. The rubble had to burn to ashes. Complete ash was required. Cold ash.

Photo by Chris Sabor on Unsplash

She bided her time and used a coal shovel to scrape and scoop. After the last fire, she’d been sloppy. There were piles of ash here and there. They were so deep, and she was too buried in ash to stretch her wings. She had to shovel her way out.

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Ann Louise Edison, Hula Hooper

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Ann Louise Edison was on the stage at the Whistlepunk Café with her hula hoop. Nobody had thought to limit open mic participants to those reading, reciting, singing, playing, or in some fashion making noise. 

I suppose it could be argued that Ann Louise was making noise. The rhythm of the shoop shoop of the BBs inside the hoop creates a beat when she abruptly changes direction.  Her hips circumnavigating the globe of her aura.  Ann Louise was an ecstatic performer if mostly silent. If nothing else, it was a dance.

Photo by David Le Clercq on Unsplash

Ann Marie gyrated and tossed her hair, those hips going round and round, first in one direction and then the other.  Periodically, she would shimmy the hoop from her hips to her ankles, stopping for a moment to concentrate on her knees.  Round and round the hoop went.  Halfway through her performance, someone offstage threw her another hula hoop.  Soon it was circumnavigating the world of her arms, her neck.  Ann Marie was blissed out, entranced, in union with the divine.  The rhythm of the BBs, the beat of the directional changes, the journey from her waist to her feet, her wrists to her shoulders, her shoulder to her neck.  Ann Marie was in motion while standing mostly still. She redoubled her effort and found strength in the kundalini of her spine.

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Stories I’ll Never Finish #1: The Right Reverend

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The Right Reverend Edmund Williams Thorne had been banished from the pub for one year, three months, and six days.  He had done the math.  Sometimes he wondered if it had been long enough for him to set a tentative foot inside the Finch and Purple Iris which everyone just referred to as the pub. In fact, most people wouldn’t be able to dredge up its proper name if asked.

Photo by Amie Johnson on Unsplash

The request for him to leave came on a St. Stephen’s Day when he, the Right Reverend, had gotten deep into his cups and argued with the owner about a complicated and thorny Anglican church piece of doctrine.  This isn’t as unlikely as it seems because the pub owner had taught theology at Oxford for 20 years before abandoning the ivory tower for a working-class pub. 

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