Polite Fictions

And what I came to understand was this: The After is only a reflection of The Before. Wrapped in filters and soft focus, hiding the sharper edges that once drew blood or left us weeping, gasping for breath, struggling to find the reason embedded in the agony. It is a shimmering star of splintered glass bound by layers of fingertouch gossamer and immaculate cotton, an eternal, refracted interpretation of those moments where once we struggled to perceive the splinter of light woven into the barbed wire.

It was startling, that first breath, after those long moments when the world had spun in mad circles of centrifugal force and the ground rose so swiftly to meet us and I held my daughter's hand so tightly - so very, very tightly - and I tried to speak, to say her name, to push the words past the immeasurable press of gravity against my lungs and that growing, terrible silence and then: (eyeblink) there I was. Sitting in that small office, a halo of fluorescent lights ringing the doctor's head as she looked me in the eye. Parted her lips. And with a single word set free the doves: unleashing a torrent of emotion that began with an approximation of relief and then instantaneously spiraled into a cyclonic double-helix of joy and ecstatic revelation that threatened to tear the room free of its foundations and lift us, weightless, beaming, overcome by the moment, towards the heavens or someplace very much like heaven. I felt the waters break free and spill down my cheek, and I reached up to wipe them away with the back of one hand as I reached for my wife's with the other, the infinitely fractionated angles in the diamond on her fourth finger capturing and reflecting the light with a brilliance I don't know I'd ever seen before, and then we both looked to our son and and he looked back at us - catching our gaze, his eye contact strong and steady and unwavering, his own smile warm and knowing, two and a half and entirely lit from within - and said, "Can we go home now, Mommy?"

(this was)

And there I was: standing, blinking into the darkness, heart pounding so overloud I wondered if it might burst through my chest, toes gripping the thick woolen weave of the carpet as if trying to find the purchase to keep me upright and in place as I struggled for sense and clarity - my head still thick with sleep - and brought the phone to my ear, the air still vibrating with its sudden clarion cry, and my instinct (always: it was always my first instinct) was to try to quiet the moment, to undisturb the night and free you all to remain safe, secure, snug in your beds, but even then realizing that you were not there and glancing sideward across the vast, empty expanse of bed to the amber glow of thin numbers on a clock as a voice I did not know spoke my name and I said, "yes" and it was a woman and she gave me her name and the police department she worked for and the name of the hospital and said there'd been an accident (my heart so loud, I thought: she must be able to hear this, on her end of the phone) but that you'd been admitted and were stable and were asking for me and I was suddenly overcome with terror and gratitude and couldn't stop telling the woman thank you, thank you, thank you, thank

(this was not how)

And there I was, in the autumn sunlight, the air crisp and perfect and the ground beneath my feet a shimmering patina of emerald and reddish gold as the pine needles embraced the cooler joys of the season and drifted from the higher airs to the embrace of grass and earth, and I heard the sound - that clear, resonant sound that only accompanies a clean strike - and I looked up and saw the ball hurtling toward me and without thinking, acting on pure instinct and glad animal movements, I leapt into the air and trapped it against my thin chest, arching my back in perfect time to absorb the impact and kinetic energy, and then both ball and I fell to the ground and with practiced grace I tapped it slightly to my right and then - my left arm rising into the air in counterbalance - my right foot snapped forward and collided with the leather hexagon I'd targeted, the one just slightly off the ground, and the ball rose and arced and then came down across the yard just a foot in front of you, Dad, and you jumped back a bit to field it cleanly and then it was like you'd lost your footing and you came down on your hands and knees as the ball skittered past you and I laughed, because you'd fallen and it was funny, and for a moment you froze there on all fours, your head hanging down, and I waited for you to get up and I was just about to say your name when your face rose and I saw you smiling, embarrassed but laughing at yourself, and you said, "I'm okay, buddy," and I laughed again and you got up, you got up, you got up and jogged lightly after the ball and the air was so crisp and the day so beautiful and then we played some

(this was not how it was)

And they tumble by, one after the other, flowing in time not quite real, softening the blows and cushioning the impact as if trying to salve each and every (I remember) each and every (I remember them) each and every moment that had broken me (I remember them all) irrevocably. They tumble by, offering fresh sweetness and grace each and every time, but I remember. Am I supposed to remember? Am I supposed to recognize the needles hidden in the candy smooth shell? Am I supposed to recognize these undiscovered countries of pain and regret buried deep within these moments of what was not? 

What it is is what was not. A reflection. A refraction, through an imperfect lens. Moments tumbling by that I can see and experience and feel but know were never mine. A hell of my own making, I think, and the idea almost makes me laugh. Because I made none of it. But I am here. I am always here.

And then the moment begins anew.

Polite Fictions 2.0: The Afterlife

Welcome to the first entry in the second round of Polite Fictions.  This time we're doing things a little differently.  Every writer contributes a self-contained entry based around a theme, which for this round is the afterlife.

***

Call me Bill. I am in a factory. We make Heaven here. I run the press that stamps the Luminescent Blades of Grass into shape. The ore, the stuff – whatever it is – bundles down the line and I hit the button that activates the press. Each stamp makes five Luminescent Blades, which I inspect for errors.

There is never an error. I wave it on and the Luminescent Blades are conveyed to Luis, who arranges them in a Floating Clod. These are bound for fields that hover high in the sky, I guess. Somehow every Clod looks a little different when Luis is done with it. If I'm honest, I'll admit that I want Luis' job. A little stab of envy goes through me when I see how well Luis has arranged the Blades into one of his Clods, and I know that this sentiment is being logged and added onto my time on the line.

That was the first thing I realized: that you're not just working off your sins from your time on Earth. You have to work off your sins on the line. A Manager explained it to me on my first quarterly review. Quarter of what? I thought, but I didn't say it out loud. Then I realized it didn't matter whether I screamed it over the PA system or whispered into to the perfect fold of a Blade as I bent down to inspect it. The sentiment is logged and marked against my time on the line. Besides, I should be more sympathetic. The Manager is stuck on the line just like me.

I think.

We do not eat or sleep on the line. But our bodies ache. My back is wrecked and my heels feel as if I've been stepping on needles. When there were questions to ask the Manager, I asked him: Why do our bodies ache here? What's the point? The Manager gave me a pat on the shoulder and explained: that's the sign of your unwillingness to let go and embrace change. You're clinging to your old life. Once you let go of that life, your pain will disappear.

I forgot my old life long ago. I cling to nothing, but the aching endures. I lean in and inspect a Blade, hoping against hope to find some imperfection in the vein, the shading, the way it seems to react with a palpable, glittering joy at simply being perceived. Perfect as always. I wave it down the line to Luis.

I've only seen the world outside the factory once, when they brought us here. We were in something like a truck, and the back was covered in a heavy tarp. The van was dark, but I could make out a dozen or so like me, silent, faces and shoulders in darkness. None of us knew what to say, so we said nothing.

As the truck slowed, the tarp flapped open, and I leaned forward to see what my arm of Heaven looked like. I put my eye to the crack and saw a factory, busy with movement. And more factories, farther and farther into the distance, beyond even the horizon, because as my eyes took it in I realized there was no horizon here, just more and more distance, and all of it visible, so much so that it seemed that it seemed to curve up and over me, receding into a waving curtain and then a pattern, and farther and smaller still until it became the texture of all things. The landscape of factories was woven into everything here: the Blades of Grass, the Floating Clod, the clever hands of Luis, my aching back, the kind smile of my Manager.

When I think of that moment I spend a little longer on my Blades. I wonder where the Heaven we make is ending up, and what feet fly across its fields.

And thus, we reach the final chapter of Polite Fictions 1.0

Thanks be to all of you who've followed this ship of fools boatload of morons RV full of jackasses crack team of fictioning pros on our inaugural journey. Our caboose - Mr. Whit Honea- is unable to join us for this final post of PF v1.0, but in his honor I'm going to post the hypothetical wrapup to our long, strange story of Slick, Charlie, Mr & Mrs Howell and all the rest that he posited waaaaaay back in September, just as we were getting the ball rolling. I hope you'll enjoy it in the spirit in which it was intended, and look forward to joining us again soon as we relaunch - take a deep breath, because you know this is coming - with Polite Fictions 2: Electric Bugaloo.

 

Slick opened his eyes.  It was dark and he was wet.  Another night of joyful fucking.  Another night of crazy dreams.  He went through a lot of underwear.

He could hear the bakery across the street.  Charlie would be there.  Someday he would say something. Today he'd settle for a smile.  

The dreams left him winded.  And alone.

 

 

Rosebud.

Unbelievable!  In the middle of it all Slicks pants suddenly became a vibrating mess of cell phone hysterics.

It was that ring tone.  The ring tone.  The only ring tone that everyone consistently either loved or hated.  The one ring tone that always caused Slick to tense up right down to the last nerve in his sphincter.

Two months ago Slick had recorded the sound of his grandmother's two 12-year-old Pomeranians preparing to rip into each other as they stood their ground on either side of the prized and amazingly smelly couch pillow.  Grandma had hobbled to the bathroom, which was always a lengthy trip, leaving Slick to fend for himself with the dogs he privately referred to as 'Satan' and 'Stench'. 

The dogs had become pop-eyed animals of hate who, in their attempts to appear more worthy of the pillow by growling, only managed to make otherworldly chirping sounds and drool on the couch.

In his own attempt to survive another visit with his grandmother with humor, Slick had pulled out his cell phone, recorded the melee, and then made it is grandmother's ring tone so he would know to be prepared when he answered her call.

Even in his near-dead stupor Slick tensed at the sound, and the room became silent in an attempt to discover what, exactly, the strange chirping sound meant.

By the time it was over the every door in the place had been slammed open, every weapon was drawn, two more people had peed their pants, and beams of light were waving wildly through the gun smoke and dust...

...and a very smelly old woman was playing the part of a guilt trip tour guide by leaving a message for her grandson about how difficult her life had become since he'd forgotten his promise to bring over a small jar of Vick's Vap-O-Rub.

Charlie felt tears prick the back of her eyes. She knew her mother had her faults --  her childhood had been a tangle of strange men and booze punctuated by the stench of cigarettes and pot -- but she had always assumed she loved her. They were little more than grifters, moving from one town to the next, one dingy motel room after another. Hell, her current situation -- that of holding her mother's beloved pistol (the one with the mother-of-pearl handle that Charlie had called "the pretty one, Mama!") to her head didn't exactly speak of an idyllic childhood now, did it?

"It was you."

"No, baby ... oh, baby, don't do this." Her mother was pleading. Charlie felt sick.

"You knew I loved him and you ... this ..." She gestured helplessly to the mess of bodies around her, to the wall where Slick (hopefully) lay like a sack of wheat germ, mangled as fuck.

She closed her eyes. It was never supposed to be this way. She and Slick were supposed to be in a bungalow by the sea by now, and instead ... Well. No sense thinking of what could have been. Charlie steadied herself, willing away the tears. She steeled herself for what was next.

"Mother."

She raised the gun.

"Baby, no!" A whimper.

"You."

She pulled the trigger.

A single tear fell on Charlie's cheek. She brushed it away -- no time for that now. She raised the gun once more and turned to the men on the floor with a hardened smirk.

"Now, gentlemen. What was the arrangement you and my mother had? I think we'd better double it now, don't you?"

This is what Charlie knew:

Slick was set up. The pie - a pie Charlie had made - was bait. Were they trying to be clever, ironic bastards, or did it just turn out that way? 

They had sent some poor asshole to "mess with The Gingerbread Man." And the Gingerbread Man had stuck a fork in his head.

The Gingerbread Man. Yes, they were trying to be clever, ironic bastards. She had heard his code name on the surveillance tapes. She knew he was important. She did not know why.

Here's what else Charlie didn't know:

Was he named so she'd know who they were talking about? Or because they were pigs and cows and old, old women and they wanted to eat him?

She also didn't know if she had been allowed to steal those tapes. If she, too, had been set up. Was this her final exam for "baking school?" She looked at the three remaining people in the room. If only they would wear name tags, so she could tell who was on her side. Where are the self-destructing directives when you need them?

Which is of course bullshit. When there are people in the room trying to kill you, the nametags should be pretty fucking easy to read.

"I hear the Carribean is nice this time of year," she said to Claudette.

"That's my girl." Claudette beamed at her broadly. She looked like an old woman who wanted to gouge out some raisin eyes when she smiled like that. She was still smiling as Charlie put a bullet through the back of her head.

Charlie turned to face the men.

"Hey Roman, who thought 'Laughing Whore' was a nice thing to call someone?" She didn't wait for an answer.

"For the record," she said, turning to Euri, "I am a lady." A lady who was out of bullets. She could tell by the weight of the pistol.

"Euri, have you tried to kill me today?" Euri shook his head.

"Is there any hope for Doug?" He shook his head again.

"Was he dirty?" Euri nodded.

She cut him loose, wanting to say "go and sin no more." It almost made her laugh like a lunatic just thinking it. Almost. She had made a mental note to keep the laughing in check.

"Get the fuck out of here," she told him (which is the same thing, really).

Charlie went around the bar to check on Slick. There, she found a scene of yellowish flocked snowmen, crippled candy canes and plastic pine boughs. The speakeasy hideout was cramped with all the Christmas decorations stuffed in there. Slick had been busy.

"Merry Christmas," said the Gingerbread Man.