This piece is part of a series of sculptures that were inspired by my poem, Dust. Each piece is half life size, and inspired by a stanza out of the poem.
In darkness take a leap
For trust is blind
Imagine me: I'll lift you,
Caress you and possess you
Imagine us:
In passion and in sweep
Our limbs entwined
LISTENER
Reviewed: 11-08-21
This story was amazing! The ending had me in tears. The narrator was fabulous and the characters were beautiful.
LISTENER
Reviewed: 11-08-21
A beautiful story that is made better by the Narrator’s voice. This author writes beautiful stories to please.
Then, just as the driver starts revving the car, a hand appears in my window, knocking, slapping, tapping at it at a frantic pace.
It’s that waitress again. Why has she followed me? What does she want? Have I forgotten something behind?
For a moment, I think about that slice of sumptuous cheesecake that has been left behind on my plate. Seized by a sudden sense of craving, I wonder: has the waitress wrapped it up for me? Is she braving the elements just to hand it over? How gracious is that! Do I have enough money to tip her?
“Wait, don’t start,” I tell the driver. Then I lower the car window a bit, which lets in a wet whiff of wind
She leans in, empty-handed. No cake, no nothing. Wrapped in a barely zipped yellow windbreaker with a drawstring hood that she’s neglected to fit over her head, she heaves a breath that makes the glass between us foggy.
Gasping, she says, “I must talk to you.”
And I say, “About what?”
“Him.”
“Who, him?”
“Your date.”
In an incredulous tone, I ask, “Dr. Patel, you mean?”
“Yes,” she says, struggling to catch her breath. “No, not him. His wife.”
“What about her?”
“She gave me something for you.”
I’m flabbergasted. “For me? How come? I never met Mrs. Patel—”
“Her name is Susan.”
“—And she doesn’t know me!”
The last thing I need is to establish a connection with a jealous wife. Actually, envy is the least of her problems, especially when compared to being dead.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’m curious to learn more about Dr. Patel, especially about his professional life. Don’t ask me why. I have my reasons. But his wife? I want nothing whatsoever to do her!”
She huffs. “I don’t believe you.”
I insist, “What’s between them is not really my business.”
“It is, if you’re dating him!”
I’m at loss for a good comeback.
Meanwhile, the waitress pulls something out of her pocket. It slips down her windbreaker and over her drenched apron. She bends over, snatches it off the ground, and raises it to me over the edge of the cracked-open window.
Then, with a trembling lip, she says, “It’s yours now! I want nothing to do with all this trouble.”
I shake my head. “Keep it. Trouble is not what I need in my life, either.”
“Please,” says the waitress. Her voice is inundated with fear, which makes a shiver go down through me. “Take it!”
Is she out of her mind? Who is she to order me around? I have Ma for that!
I give a subtle hint to the driver to get us out of here and start closing my window, so as to block this woman out. “No, thank you,” I say. “You hold on to it, whatever it is.”
The waitress clutches the edge of the window so hard that her nails—chipped and painted red—nearly scratch through it.
Just then comes the second flash of light. It outlines her shoulders, fizzes around her hair like a fiery halo as she stumbles forward towards me. This time, lightening is clearly what it’s not.
She’s been shot at, she’s been hit.
Her fingers loosen, letting something drop inside, some small object that misses my lap, rolls over, and lands somewhere underneath me on the car floor.
Meanwhile her eye bulges over. It turns, turns, turns in its socket, until its iris seems to roll back around and over the eyeball, until her chest slips down along the sudden spill of blood upon the glass, until the terror finally lets go of her, leaving her wrung out by the wayside like an old dishrag.
“Stop,” I tell the driver. “Let’s pick her up, take her to the hospital.”
“No way,” he says, stepping on the gas. “Let’s get out of here, save our own skin!”
In the back window, she looks like a mound of tatters crumpling into the night as the car jerks into motion. It maneuvers wildly left and right as we make our escape.'
Months after recovering from coma, Ash discovers that the man who performed her brain surgery has a questionable medical experience and a dark past. Should she expose him, at the risk of becoming vulnerable to his revenge?
The celebration has just gotten underway in the main space. Hearing the hoots and the chest beating, I sneak out of the back room to watch the gang up-close.
Colorful confetti—leftover from the out-of-business party store that used to rent this space—is being tossed all around. Vlad himself is blasting out one party popper after another with unbridled delight.
His men, too, are in a festive mood. A bit tipsy already, they crowd around the long table, now covered by a paper tablecloth. Mrs. Komarov stands at the head of the table, ladling cold Russian soup from a large plastic container into plastic bowls for all of them. From here, it smells a bit like sour milk.
“Thank you, thank you!” says the first in line, having gulped it down hungrily. “What a delicious Okroshka, with boiled potatoes and raw radishes and cucumbers. Just like my mother used to make.”
She gloats ever the compliment. “More food yet to come,” she says, with a matronly smile.
Some of the men set crates of beer at Vlad’s feet, others—pour drinks over his head. The anointment is rowdy, but Vlad seems to bask in it.
I notice that the main door has been unlatched, perhaps to bring in the food. This is my chance to flee—if not for Mrs. Komarov. She is the first to notice that I’ve slipped out of the back room.
“Why are you here?” she demands, gruffly. “Did I not tell you to stay put? Your job is to figure out how I can shake the damn insurance companies off my back—”
“Ah, stop it, Mamushka,” says Vlad. His British accent makes that single Russian word sound out of place.
“No,” she counters, shaking the ladle in his face. “You stop!”
He claps a hand around my waist and pulls me to his chest. His mouth reeks of cheap beer. “Let her join us! What’s a party without a beautiful woman?”
Her face reddens. She grabs my arm angrily and wrenches me from his hold.
Her eyes blazing, she tells him, “Zacroy rot!”
“Shut up? Me?” Vlad gnashes his teeth. “How can you even say that—especially now, when everyone here celebrates my success? Don’t you see, I am on top of the world?”
Mrs. Komarov gnashes her teeth, way louder than he did. If this were a competition, she would get the gold. “Without me, you will hit rock bottom before you know it. So, pay respect. Do not dare cut in when I am talking. And I mean, ever!”
You may have heard those rumors about me: how I escaped by moonlight, how I hid inside each one of the seven wells of Beersheba, with nothing in my possession but the shirt on my back, how I eluded my enemy, my brother, and then, how frightened I was, how alone. I’m afraid you have been, at best, misinformed—or, more probably, mislead by some romantic foolery, some fiction and lies, the kind of which can easily be found, and in abundance I might add, in the holy scriptures.
