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sascerides · 5 years

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Let me tell you a story.

Once upon a time. Many years ago when the moon hung always in the sky. Big and round and heavy. Back then, there was a stork who fell in love with a crow. He would see her black feathers in the moonlight and he would hear her cawing in the dusk.

He himself lived near a pond, as storks do. Every day he would stand in the water and look at the beautiful black crow wondering if she would ever see him.

As it happens. The crow did see him. She saw him stalking through the pond with his long legs. She saw him stretching his beautiful neck toward the morning sun. She thought to herself: “would that such a beautiful creature could love a bland old crow like me”.

Despite their doubts, it came to pass one day that the crow and the stork allowed themselves to fall in love.

"I love you," the stork told the crow. "I love your beautiful caw and your feathers of midnight dark, and your wings as strong as the wind".

"I love you," the crow told the stork. "I love your elegant legs, and your feathers like the morning mist, and your beak that touches the water". And so, they both found happiness within the other.

The stork and the crow would be near each other all day and talk. The crow in her tree near the water's edge and the stork on his long legs wading through the reeds. Sometimes he would pick out pretty stones for the crow and she would caw out in pleasure. Sometimes she would fly from the pond and bring him back shiny pieces of glass or metals that she found.

But of all the beautiful things they found for each other, they both loved the pearls best. Not the pearls around the necks of ladies or the pearly stones the stork could pluck from the depths of the pond. No, they loved the pearls that formed of the morning dew when the sun rose over the reeds by their pond every morning. The water droplets shining in the sun on the reeds. The reeds in the land between pond and forest. This land that was their own. The reeds in which their love had grown beautiful. The pearls carried by those reeds was the most beautiful thing they knew.

Often, the stork would tell the crow: "if I could pluck these pearls for you, you could carry them with you far away from here". At that, the crow would laugh her deep cawing laugh, but there was sadness in her eyes. Because as beautiful as this pond was, it was no place for their love to grow. Here, their love could sprout, but it could never blossom.

You see, the stork and the crow loved each other, but their love did not fit in the trees from whence the crow came. It did not fit in the pond from whence the stork came. Only hidden in the reeds among their morning-dew pearls did they ever feel quite at home.

The other storks did not understand. They told the stork: “you cannot love a crow. Her legs are so short and her beak is so strong and her feathers are black as the coals”. They said to him: “you cannot love a crow” and he told them: “but I do”.

And the other crows told the crow: “you cannot love a stork. His legs are so long and his beak is so thin and his feathers are as pale as the ashes”. They told her: “you cannot love a stork” and she told them: “but I do”.

One day, the stork said to the crow: “let’s fly away from here my love. Let’s find our own land where no one may judge us but we”. And that very day they took flight and left for a country far away, but the crow was sad to leave.

The crow and the stork flew far and they flew long. They flew through the desert and they flew over the sea. They flew between the mountains and over the deep green valleys where the grass grows as tall as the trees.

Finally, they came upon a pond as they had never seen before. Stretching for miles of moss-green water it stood, perfect and still. And from the depths of the water, strong trees stood tall and proud. The sun fell through their leaves bathing everything in soft, green light. And best of all, it was quiet and empty. Not a bird in sight. No storks on their long, legs looking down on anyone. No crows cawing scorn from above.

The crow looked at the stork and she smiled and she told him: "this here, my love. This will be our home". And so it became.

In this green paradise, the stork and the crow found happiness. For a while. They would wake in the mornings and the stork would wade through the waters looking for food. The crow would fly to the very top of the trees and look at the sea of green stretching out all around her. She would sigh happily to herself and say: "here they cannot find us and laugh at us".

But as the days went on, the crow sighed a little deeper every day and a little less happy. As the days when on, her caws turned into croaks and the brightness faded from her eyes. The stork saw this and he asked her: "what hurts you, my love? Tell me so that I may poke it with my beak and stomp on it with my feet! Tell me so that I may take wing and chase your sadness away from here".

But the crow only sighed again and she told him: "this sadness, you cannot chase from my heart". She flew to the top of the trees and she looked out in the direction from whence they had come. "I miss our pond," she said. "I miss the reeds in the water where we first met. I miss the sun reflecting on the surface. More than anything, I miss the pearls of morning dew congregating on the reeds. Oh, those pearls you gifted me when our love first sprouted from the cold depths of the water. This place has nothing like that, my love". And so she cried. And her tears formed pearls on her feathers, but that she did not see.

Every morning, she would fly up and gaze at the sun. But she would find no pearls of morning dew, and she would think of her home and weep. "Oh that we had not been chased from there" she would say. "Oh that our love had not been as wrong to them" she would sigh. "Oh that we could have stayed and loved, even in hiding" she wept. For in her sadness she had forgotten why they left their pond behind.

The stork could not bear to see his love in such sadness.

He told her: "I will do anything for you to smile again my love". She answered him: "then let us return to our home". But she knew as well as him, that this, they could not do.

The stork looked at the tears pearling on her feathers and he told her: "I will fly away from here my love. I will fly far and I will fly long and I will bring you back a pearl so beautiful, that you will no longer long for home. Then, then you can be happy. "

And so it came to be, that one morning the stork took flight from their nest to go searching for a pearl. He had seen once, in the old country, a rich lady in her finery. She wore a large hat and a large skirt and on her chest rested a diamond. Oh, how it glittered in the sun. “Surely” the stork thought “surely such a diamond would please my poor sad crow”. And so he flew to the city where the humans live. He flew over the roofs and the chimneys and the streets.

In a garden, he found a lady asleep in a garden chair. She wore a big hat and a big skirt and on her chest rested a diamond. The stork flew down and landed gently on the chair. With his long beak, he plucked the diamond right from the lady’s neck and he flew back to his love in her tree.

The crow looked at the diamond but she did not smile. She said to him: “My love, this is naught but a polished rock. How could human hands ever make something as beautiful as the pearls on the reeds in the morning sun?” And she wept again.

The next morning, the stork took off again. He spread his wings and flew high above their new home. Far to the north, he had seen the mountains glistening in the morning sun. Shining like so many white diamonds covering their peaks.

"They must be piled high with pearls," he told himself and he flew on his big grey wings towards them.

He flew against the north wind, who huffed and puffed and tried to push him back. He flew against the hails. He flew while the mountain eagles laughed at him from their eyries high upon the peaks. "Look at this stork," they said to each other "he must be mad or in love to come to a place like this". And right they were, but that did not stop him.

He flew all the way to the highest peak. It shone so brightly in the morning sun the stork could not see to land. So beautiful and so pearly white was it, that his heart almost burst with joy. "Surely," the stork thought "surely a pearl as bright as this would please my poor sad crow". With his long beak, he plucked a pearl of glittering white snow from the mountain's highest peak. And he flew back to his love in her tree.

But the flight was long and the whole way the north wind huffed and puffed and tried to push the stork off course. And though he flew through the whole night, he was not fast enough. When he landed by his lover in the morning sun, the snow pearl in his beak had turned to naught but water.

And so the crow wept again, and then the stork wept with her because he could not bear to see her tears.

The crow wept the whole night and the stork sat with her shielding her from the cold with his big grey wings. Right before dawn, he flew up to the top of the trees and he looked towards the black sky and sighed. "How shall I ever bring my love happiness?" he asked the night. But the night, as always, was quiet and did not answer.

It was then, that the stork saw something he had not noticed before.

Hanging in the sky was the biggest, the roundest, the shiniest pearl he had ever seen. Reflecting the light of the morning sun that was only now peaking over the horizon. Big and round and heavy. The moon hung low in the sky. It hung so low, the stork could almost stretch out his long neck and reach it with his beak.

"Oh," the stork said to the dawn. "that must be the biggest pearl of them all. Surely, this pearl is more beautiful than even the pearls that gathered on the reeds of our home." And he sighed, stretching his neck towards to moon. "Oh," The stork said to the dawn. "Could I pluck this pearl from the sky and bring it to my love?" But the dawn, as always, was quiet and did not answer.

And so, as the sun crawled over the horizon and turned the night sky pale, the crow spread his wings and flew. He flew up, up, up. Higher than any stork had flown before.

He flew while the sky grew pale. It grew grey, and then rich and blue. He flew while the sun grew fat and yellow high above the trees. By mid-morning he had flown so high he could barely see the ground as it lay so deep beneath his feet.

And then, oh then. The stork stretched out his long neck and he opened his long, thin beak. And he plucked the moon from it's very place in the blue sky.

The stork beat his wings in excitement. "Surely," he thought. "Surely a pearl as bright as this would please my poor sad crow". And he flew back into the trees and he laid the moon in the nest next to his crow.

The crow opened her eyes and she saw what her stork had done. She saw the biggest, the brightest, the most beautiful pearl she could have ever imagined. It was much rounder, much brighter, much more magnificent than even the pearls on the reeds of her home. Reflecting the green sunlight filtering through the leaves, it was the most beautiful pearl that she had ever seen.

And then. Oh then. The crow looked at her stork, and she smiled.

The moon stayed with the stork and the crow all day, and all day it brought them both joy. No longer did the crow weep, and no longer did the stork ache to see a smile from his crow.

But by the time the sun had wandered her long lonesome walk across the sky. By the time the sun had crawled beneath the horizon again. By the time the land was shrouded in darkness again. Then, the moon was the only light in the night, and it was hidden in a crow's nest in the trees. There was no light in the sky and the night was so black, the stork and the crow could barely see each other.

"My love," the crow said. "This pearl is the most beautiful gift but it is not ours to keep". And the stork nodded, he turned his long neck and he saw the darkness around them.

The crow smiled a soft, sad smile and she let go of the moon. She leaned against the stork and together they watched as the moon drifted back into the sky. It drifted up to shine above the trees. Above the water and the mountains and the pond, far off in the country, they had come from. The moon hung and big round in the sky and they shared its beauty with the world.

The stork looked at the crow and he saw her grow sad again. "My love," he said. "Do not weep. For tomorrow morning, when the sun shines brightly on the horizon. Tomorrow morning, when the night has no need of the moon," he said. "Then, oh then, I will fly back up, and I will bring you this pearl again".

And he did. Every morning from then on, he flew up, up, up. He stretched out his long neck and he opened his beak and he plucked the moon from the sky. Every morning he did this, and if he hasn't stopped, why then, he is doing it still.

If you look up now, in the bright light of day, you may see. You may see how every morning the moon fades from the sky. How every morning, the stork plucks it away with his beak. How he borrows the moon from the sky and gives it in exchange for the most precious thing he knows:

A smile from his love.

#I wrote this #I guess now it is a story

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sascerides · 6 years

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Between the Stitches - A Short Story

Every house in the village has a piece of her work. An embroidered cushion on the armchair, a tablecloth hidden in the drawer, a tea towel hanging by the oven.

She stands by the market on Sundays and sells her labour for five pounds apiece. The countless hours and years of her needle running through the cloth. Her old gnarled fingers bending the thread to her will. Every house in the village has a piece of her work but they barely see her when they buy them. Not the real her.

Hers is a magic as old as the land. Hers is the power and the mercy and the word. With a flick of the wrist, she could bring about the end of an empire. The beginning of an age. She could weave you a tidal wave, a wedding dress, the promise of a child.

Hers is a rage as old as time. But time has moved on without her.

And here she is. Standing in the local supermarket of a half-dead provincial village. Here she is, trying to get something as mundane as canned sweet corn.

And he. He is in her way.

This man. She has seen him grow up. From a pig-coloured screaming toddler in a polo shirt to a pig-coloured stern-faced man in a suit and tie. She has known him all his life and to him she is invisible. Or at least it would seem so. Standing there with his tie-half undone, his phone to his ear and his shopping cart blocking an entire aisle.

He is in her way.

“Excuse me,” she says and he turns to look at her but he does not move. He waves his hand dismissively and he continues talking on his phone.

“I’m telling you, Todd. You’ll regret not making this investment” he says and she says “Sorry. can you move?” He looks at her and he does not know who he is looking at. A little old lady. A villager. Someone who is in his way. She who has been here since before he was born. He does not know her face.

The people of this village do not know that she has been here since before the village was built. She has been here since the first apple blossoms fell with the first autumn sun sinking in the western sea. They do not know, how could they? They do not know and they would not care.

“Sir,” she says again. And she is moments away from anger. His name could be a curse in her mouth. His fate could be crushed in her hands. But all she does is mutter under her breath. And he does not hear her whispers. He does not hear her, just like everybody else. They don't hear her whispers, they don't hear her songs. To them, she is nothing but a seamstress, and oh, she thinks, with an almost venomous satisfaction. Oh, they have no idea. They have no idea what is coming for them.

The man covers the phone with his hand and he turns to her “Can you keep quiet, please? Can’t you see? I’m in the middle of an important phone call?” and before she can say anything else he has turned away from her again.

She wishes she could call a thunderstorm on him right here. Right here in the canned food aisle under the fluorescent lights. She wishes she could open up a sinkhole and watch him fall, fall deep beneath the floor and the village and every safety he has ever known. She wishes she could be back on her porch with her needle and her threat.

She brings forth from the cloth the legends of old. An apple tree on an island in the lake. A sword sinking deep, deep beneath the waves. The old man in the hills, the young man on the cross, the woman with her sword screaming wildly in terror or rage. She brings the flowers in the spring and the golden light of autumn. She will leave you gasping for air in the waves of blue-green thread she stitches into a sea. If she wants to, she will leave you spell-bound. Tied into the stitches of her work. If she wants to.

Some might call her wicked. Cruel. Heartless. But she has no time for the morality of man. She has been here too long for that kind of trifles.

Now, she is tired and old and all she wants is to buy her sweet corn and return to her porch. But this man. This man who, like so many men before him, has no idea of the danger he is in. This man who thinks an old woman can be dismissed. That he is the one who has any sort of power here. This man has no idea what she could do to him.

There was a time when the land was full of magic. A time when the people believed. A time when they saw and feared what she could do. A time when she was young and strong and carefree dancing through the night. Before their church bells and their bank notes and their television screens.

Now, she is old an bitter and all she feels is the chill. All she feels is their hollow voices and their empty eyes. Their feet moving in patterns they learned from when they were children. Walking like a wind-up toy from one box to the next never leaving the paths on which they were set. She has watched this village grow and age and sink into quiet desperation, shrouded in a mist.

“Sir,” she says again. “I have to ask you to move” and again he ignores her. And for a second she gathers up all the magic of the land that sleeps within her. All the rage and the anger that has dwelt in these valleys for centuries before him. Every thunder strike and every hurricane. Every evil spell that she could throw in his face. And for a second, above them, clouds are gathering and winds are starting to blow. For a second, every can and jar in the aisles around them starts to shake. For a second even this man, oblivious as he is, feels a chill in his bones and he looks at her with a sudden fear in her eyes. Then, she breathes. She counts to three and she walks over to him. She pushes him away, with her frail old arms, and she takes her corn and walks away. He shouts behind her and he curses. He has dropped his phone on the floor. He is angry but she does not turn. She does not spare him a look.

“Sorry” she mumbles, but she does not apologise for what she did, she apologises for what she is yet to do.

Hers is a rage as old as time. And as she walks out of the supermarket she can feel it boiling. Walking past the duck pond she is clenching her fists, whipping up waves on the surface as she passes.

At home in her living room, she lets the silence settle in. The deep silence. The old silence. Hidden underneath the traffic noise and the cawing of the crows. Underneath the whisperings of her neighbours and the echo of a shouting man in a supermarket aisle. She sits there, quietly, watching the clouds go by. Slowly, slowly whispering beneath the sounds of the village. She sits there, patiently, as the darkness fills her living room. The shadows of the longest night of the year. As the moon starts his pilgrimage across the sky.

And then. Then she begins.

She takes out her needle and her thread. Her cloth and her tiny, round glasses to help her see. She sows by moonlight in the silence of the night. Up goes her needle through cloth and night and silence. Down goes her needle through cloth and life and time. Stitch by stitch by stitch she devises a world yet to be. A fate yet to be told. A story no one in this village will tell.

From her needle springs a landscape. White as snow and cold as death. Hills and valleys and the cliffs, beaten by the waves. From her cloth grows a village. Tiny houses with their tiny doors and chimneys full of smoke. A cross-stitch church tower shooting up between the roofs. From her gnarled old fingers, she brings forth a supermarket and a high street. A dozen tiny houses full of tiny people in suits and dresses and faces that will soon begin to scream.

She stitches long and she stitches slow. Drawing her needle carefully, pulling the thread through the fabric of existence with every single stitch she makes. Pulling tight the future and the past and the very darkness of this night. She works and she whispers and she does not stop. And by the time the moon has made his way to the top of the sky, she has stitched out a village. Complete with shops and people and cars driving down the streets. She has stitched a village, not unlike the one that she is in. Exactly like the one, she is in. And if you showed it to the villagers they would marvel at her work but none of them will ever see it.

When she has finished her village, the real work begins. She has mimicked what is. Now is the time to create what will be. Now, the real magic begins. As the moon grips his walking stick tighter and hurries on towards the dawn she brews herself another cup of coffee and picks up her needle again.

She stitches up a flower, then a flowerbed. A forest on the outskirts of town. She stitches the duck pond bigger and the waves in it wild. She stitches a tree at the village square stretching her branches over the roofs. Bigger and bigger it grows as her needle dances through the cloth. Bigger and bigger until the moon is all but blocked out by the branches. She stitches the trunk of the tree, growing strong at the movement of her hand. Roots shooting up through the cobbled stones of the high street. Piercing the supermarket floor.

There was a time when she was patient. There was a time when she was kind. Before the monks marched into the land carrying their dead god of dust and sin and sacrament. Before the men in suits with their pitiful paper gods conquered the ground. Tamed the wind herself and lay barren all that had been meadows and flowers and song. There was a time when she was young. But now, now she is old and bitter and she is done with it all.

Hers is a rage as old as time and she cannot tame it anymore. Will not tame it anymore.

In the infant hours of the morning. While the sun is a mere glimmer on the horizon. When the moon is weary and footsore and nearing the end of his journey. Every embroidered flower in the village blooms. Every vine grows tall and strong bursting through the cloth from where they grew. Bursting up from cushions and coin purses and carpets in every house on every street. Every fairy tears through the cloth that binds her and soars through the stale living room air.

And in one house. One house in particular. A house with an angry middle-aged man in a suit. A man who dropped his phone today and shouted at a little old lady. In one house hangs an embroidered picture frame over the fireplace. A silent forest scene with quiet deer grazing. Sunlight streaming in from above. It is a piece he has inherited. From his mother and her mother before her. From a woman long ago who bought it from a lady at the marketplace. A lady with old tired hands who had been in the village for longer than anyone remembered.

In the home of an angry middle aged man, sleeping soundly on his pillow hangs a landscape. And in the infant hours of the morning, the trees in that forest start to grow. They stretch their branches like limbs after a long sleep. Their roots shoot through the frame of their quiet, happy world and run towards the floor. Their trunks grow thick and strong and on their branches, new leaves shoot out every second. As the man sleeps on his pillow, the deer leave their meadow and jump through his living room. Antlers and all. The branches of the trees work their way through his ceiling and into his bedroom. Their leaves grow strong and bold and green. And on every twig a flower blooms taking up every spare inch of the house.

In the infant hours of the morning, the home of the man in the suit ceases to be a home. Instead, it becomes a forest bursting with life. Trees breaking through his roof shooting for the moon. Bushes in every corner and hares and badgers jumping the couch. In the middle of the living room, cross-stitched deer drink calmly from a forest pond that grows with every minute.

And somewhere deep, deep in this forest, under the roots of an ancient oak. Behind worms and dirt and what seems to be a century of growth. Somewhere in a dark cavern hidden in the trees. There sleeps an angry man who shouted in the supermarket. There sleeps soundly a man who would wake to find his home overtaken by life. But this man will never wake. For this is the magic of the needlework. In the world that she creates only her creation will blossom, and she did not stitch him waking up.

Hers is a magic as old as the land. Hers is a rage as old as time. And he. He was in her way.

In the childhood hours of the morning. When the sun peaks over the horizon and the moon takes off his walking boots. When the birds wake from their slumber, she puts her needle down. On the tapestry in front of her was a village. Now it is a forest. A land full of magic and trees. Of horses running wild and fairies dancing on the hills. Where the village was is now nothing but a lake. Deep and blue and quiet.

There was a time when she would have been pleased. But she is tired and bitter and old. There was a time when she would have been proud, but pride is far behind her. Now, all she does is lay her needle on her floor and crawl into her bed. Aching fingers and tired eyes and a quiet smile on her face. As she closes her eyes and goes to sleep her spells do their work and as the sun begins his journey over the sky, every stitch of hers will come to be.

As the moon rests on the horizon glancing back for a glimpse of his bright lover on his shining steed. As darkness retreats into the morning. She closes her eyes and sleeps. And all across the village embroidered duck ponds and ocean waves and forest lakes grow pregnant with purpose and power. All across the village they overflow their frames and overflow their quiet, decent living rooms, and overflow the houses they were in.

Hers is a magic as old as time. And this is her magic. What she has foretold will be true.

Every stitch of hers will come to be. And every house in the village had a piece of her work.

Thank you for reading. You can find more stories here.

#magic #short story #story #fiction #magic story #I wrote this

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sascerides · 6 years

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This is how it goes (a poem)

This is how it goes

The first thing is your smile

Your eyes buried deep in a book

A poem I won’t understand

And I, too afraid to speak to you

And from here it could go

Several ways

The next thing might be your hand

Your fingers intertwining with mine

As we walk down the streets

Heads held high, unafraid

Of the eyes of other people

The next thing might be your hips

Your hips your hips

Your lips on my fingertips

And I, no longer afraid to part them

The pages in a book

That I will read and reread till I have tasted every word

memorised each syllable within

(every breath, every moan, every whisper)

The next thing might be your hair

You put it up in a ponytail

And wear a shirt that makes you look respectable

And my parents are excited to meet you

Even though I am afraid

The next thing might be your voice

Your words failing to meet you

Running and hiding in the shadows

In the corner of your eye

In your tear ducts

As we both look for the words to say

Goodbye

Because neither of us knows

what we came here for

The next thing might be your feet

Your boots leaving footprints

As you leave me behind

And I, still searching for the words to say

Hello

In the end

It doesn’t matter how it goes

It always leaves me here

The last thing is always this

The airport bus

and me

Alone on it

#poetry #gay poetry #poem #poets of tumblr #word words words #i wrote this

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sascerides · 6 years

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An unsent letter to a childhood friend

This is a poem of sorts.

But mostly it’s an unsent letter to a childhood friend whose address I no longer know

_______

Do you remember the day

when we disappeared together

that one day

when no one knew where we were

no one could hear what we said

what we thought or

do you remember that the sun forgot to set that day

that the forest didn’t have an ending

that we could speak without a language

do you remember back when we didn’t know

which way the world is turning

which way the world is heading

back when only grown ups really knew the meaning

of the word

fear

Do you remember the light that day

how everything was larger and more...

how everything just was more

I have been trying now for months

to teach myself to breathe

the way you breathe

perhaps, perhaps I can sleep again

dream again

if I almost believe that I am still there

with you

Do you remember the darkness back then

in the very longest night

do you remember the sun

and the very first snow

do you remember our footprints

or how we never looked back to see them

how we always - always got up when we fell

I have been trying now for years

to teach my self to laugh

the same way you laughed - on that day

perhaps, perhaps, I can dance again

if I almost believe

that I am still there

with you

Do you remember our hands

our feet barely touching the ground

do you remember how we were going to conquer the world one day

and perhaps perhaps perhaps

we were gonna do it together

Now, the world has conquered us

Now you don’t remember me anymore

And I don’t know the person you’ve become

now you have become a selfie

a name I don't recognise

a LinkedIn profile

do you you remember we were /children/ back then

and we expected EVERYTHING from the world

now you

are expecting

your first

child

and I...

I don’t expect to come back home

___________________________

I read this poem as part of the piece “letters” at an event last night and since it’s world poetry day, I thought I’d share it here as well. The other half of the piece is a letter to my teenage boyfriends and it’s here.

#poetry #nostalgia #poem #growing up #world poetry day

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sascerides · 6 years

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Fire - a letter to my teenage boyfriends

You’d set me on fire just to light your cigarettes on my heart.

You’d watch me burn and say “feel how I turn you on, baby”

You’d break me in two to warm your hands on the flames bursting free from my soul

You’d saunter away and not notice

the soot on your hands from the way that you touched me

And you’d think it’s all your doing.

But here’s the thing you don’t get:

I don’t burn because of you

This fire isn’t man-made

I burn

Because I am a dragon

A Phoenix

Or a witch

Or because I am a daughter of the fiery passion within my mother

And her mother

And every mother that came before her

Here’s what you don’t get:

So many walked before me

So many burned before me

That now

Oh now

(Would you believe it)

The fire has become our very being

And the flames will no longer consume us

Only caress us (like you never did)

Only l i c k us (like you never did)

Only love us (like you never did)

Only make us stronger (you know how this one goes, I think)

Here’s what you don’t get:

You never lit a fire in me

I inherited that fire from the women before me

And you

you are nothing but ashes to me now

__________________________________

It’s world poetry day and I read this poem at an event last night so I thought I’d share it here too :)

This was inspired in part by a line in a Popsong I disagreed with and in part by The Witch Doesn’t Burn in This One by Amanda Lovelace (read that btw it’s beautiful)

This poem was part of a piece I read called “letters” the other half is here.

#poetry #feminism #poem #feminist poetry #world poetry day

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sascerides · 6 years

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Smoke and Shadows - A short story

By now she’s used to it. It happens every day.

Liza steps out from behind a bookcase in the library. Takes her hand. Looks deep into her eyes. Whispers. So gently no one else will hear.

“I’m back, my darling. I’m back”.

Or.

Liza is suddenly sitting next to her on the park bench although she didn’t see her sit down. They sit there in silence. Holding hands. Finally.

Or.

Liza is there, right next to her when she turns over half-awake as the alarm goes of. She snoozes. Liza is gone when she wakes up again.

Or.

Liza was there, just a second ago, smiling from across the train tracks and now she is gone. She’s gone. That’s how it always goes. Now she’s gone.

It’s been like this for years. Eight years, five months and thirteen days to be precise.

Ever since they told her Liza was gone she’s been there. Not the real Liza. Not the hot and cold flesh and blood passion and dreams Liza. Not the Liza who cried herself to sleep in her arms when they were only sixteen years old. Not the Liza who kissed her secretly behind the tool shed on a warm September afternoon. Not the Liza who held her hand in the streets of Madrid and didn’t let go till they landed back home in a place that wouldn’t understand.

No.

Not that Liza.

This Liza is different. She’s fleeting and flickering and, more importantly, she is fake. She’s a memory or a hope or perhaps just a ghost haunting her mind.

No.

This Liza is something else.

The real Liza got on a plane to South America. The real Liza trekked through the country side and called her whispering on the phone of a hotel. The real Liza went away and she never came back and they didn’t tell her she was gone because they didn’t know what she meant to her. They still don’t.

She didn’t find out till she met Liza’s sister in the supermarket one day, weeks later. Lauren still looking haggard and torn.

“Are you okay” she asked.

“Oh, Mag” Laurens voice still rings in her ears. After all these years. “Oh Mag, I just still can’t believe it you know”.

“Believe what?” her heart started sinking that moment, and in truth it still is. It’s sinking deep deep deep into a sea that seems to have no end.

“She’s gone Mag. Did nobody tell you? She’s gone. She isn’t coming back”.

She found herself consoling Lauren back then. What else can you do. Her sister was gone. She hugged Lauren right there underneath the sharp super market lights as the world closed in around her and no one knew the depth of her grief.

They had a funeral but she didn’t go. Liza wasn’t going to be there so why should she. They didn’t even have a body to put in the cold dark ground. The body was somewhere at the bottom of a waterfall. Or deep in the rainforest. Or in the gutter of a city she was never going to find. It didn’t matter, really. She was gone. She is gone.

This new Liza is nothing like the real one. The real Liza was warm and she was colourful. She was thrift shop scarfs and she was singing at the top of her lungs. She was laughter and tears and shouting at the thunder when it rolled in over the fields. She was ravenous.

From the moment they first met, all those many years ago, Mag knew Liza was more than just Liza. She was a raging forest fire posing as a teenage girl. She was always more flames than she was woman and when she faded into smoke she left only ashes in her wake.

Mag would rather have burned up in her heat than be left to choke in the smoke.

The new Liza is cruel.

She is a gust of wind on a pleasant afternoon. She is the constant reminder of a happiness that could never have been anyway. She is whispering in her ear only to whither away at the touch of her fingertips. She is smoke and shadows and shivers in the night.

She is sorrow personified.

And she isn’t here. Not really. Not enough. Never enough. Never enough in the same way that the real Liza was almost too much.

In truth, she’d known. She knew the moment Liza stepped on the plane that she wasn’t coming back. She knew Liza never planned to come back. She didn’t say it. She didn’t say anything and yet she did.

It was a Saturday night. They were drunk and young and so very much alive. Crawling to the top of the big silo at the edge of town to enjoy the view. The view of the fields and the town. Of the subtle blue at the edge of the world. Of the hint that there was more to the world than this sleepy town of corn and judgement and alcohol dependencies.

Liza was drunk. She was excited and happy and sad at the same time. She was singing softly dancing at the edge. Her laughter ringing out over the fields as she gently held onto Mag’s hand. Mag watching with her heart in her throat and her head so full of alcohol and happiness she never wanted to come down.

It all happened so fast. A shooting star. And Liza stopping to point. Her feet on the edge of the silo. Halfway through Dancing Queen. And then, her foot slipping and her laughter turning to a scream. Mag’s hand grabbing her arm and pulling her back. They embraced and they kissed and Liza held her so tight Mag could hear her heartbeat running wild.

It wasn’t that. It wasn’t the fall or the scream or the kiss. It was the whisper. It was Liza’s mouth next to her ear the words clinging on to her breath.

“You saved my life” she said.

But her voice was not gratitude. It was an accusation.

That’s how she knew. And that’s how she wasn’t surprised when she was told. She’d been grieving for weeks by the time Liza disappeared.

Liza drove into town and bought a plane ticket on Monday morning. Within a fortnight she was gone. Just gone.

The new Liza. The fake Liza. Shadow Liza or sorrow Liza. The Liza in her mind showed up right there in the supermarket. She was walking down the frozen food aisle. Not looking for anything in particular. In truth. She was lost. She’d been wandering the aisles of ice cream and frozen french fries and tofurkey boxes for half an hour and the store clerks would have said something if if wasn’t for her eyes. Staring blindly in front of her. Just one foot in front of the other. Then one step back again. Blindly searching for someone she wasn’t going to find. At least not here. Not beneath these cold lamps and watching eyes.

Except she did.

The first time it was so real she fell for it. Perhaps it was that she wanted to believe. Perhaps her memory of Liza was just that good. That sharp.

Liza was holding a bag of frozen potatoes wedges. Of all things. Her hair was wet, dripping on the vinyl floors. Her eyes were wild and tired and ready to scream but that was no different from the way she’d seen her last. And she just stood there. Dripping. Staring. A smile creeping over her lips.

Mag stepped forward. Slowly. She wanted to run. She wanted to kiss her and hold her and tell her never to leave again. But she’d gotten so used to not doing that in public she simply walked towards her slowly. Smiling.

“You’re here” she whispered. “You’re not gone at all”

And then she was. Gone.

Gone.

It’s been eight years, five months and thirteen days. And the real Liza is still gone. And the fake Liza is still there. Lurking at the edge of her mind. Standing at the end of her bed when she wakes in the night drenched in sweat with a scream in her throat. Almost. Almost holding her hand as she walks down the street. But never really. Never proper. At least that bit is like the real Liza, anyway.

She tried leaving the town. Getting away from the streets and the fields they used to walk. Away from the walls in which she cried for her loss. Away from the forest they used to sneak into so they could be alone and away from listening ears. Far, far away from the piercing lights of the super market.

It didn’t work.

She moved to a city full of noise and people and distractions. Full of women and men to fill her time. Full of bars with a seemingly endless supply of tequila and all-night shops that never ran out of cigarettes. She moved from party to party to drown out the sounds. Techno music banging in her ears so loud she could barely hear Liza’s laughter hiding inside her own.

It didn’t work.

She tried drowning herself in studies. Spending hours in the quiet halls of the library perusing books to keep her mind occupied. She tried reading and learning and working every waking hour of her day so maybe, maybe she could finally sleep at night. She tried filling her mind with so much knowledge there would be no room for Liza inside her brain.

It did not work.

It’s been eight years, five months and thirteen days and by now she is so used to it she ignores it. Liza’s whisper in her ear during lectures. Liza’s finger tracing the line of her jaw as she sits alone in half empty bars drinking stout. Liza waving at her from across the street. Liza smiling at her from her own reflection in the bathroom mirror as she steadies herself on the sink. The echo of Liza is a constant in her life and she doesn’t even care anymore.

By now she is used to it. It happens every day.

She steps of the bus and although Liza isn’t there she can hear her. Softly humming Dancing Queen over the roar of engines passing by. Liza’s silky voice teasing her ears and biting her mind. Pulling her. It is a cruel shadow of a memory tagging on her mind. She clenches her fists. She bites her lip and she walks on.

Liza is loud today. Closer, somehow. She is playing with her hair. She is blowing into her ear. She is standing, drenched and haggard and smiling that cruel, playful smile. Just standing there in the sidewalk. Only disappearing the moment Mag walks into her. Mag walks on.

“Why are you ignoring me?” Liza sings. Dancing around her, pulling at her sleeve. Crying crocodile tears. Wrenching amazon river water from her long, black hair.

Mag clenches her jaw. She wants to speak. She wants to scream. She wants to pull Liza closer and kiss her and hold her and never let go. But she doesn’t. She breathes in through the nose and she lights as cigarette and she walks on.

Liza stands in front of her and screams. Her eyes are red and tired and she seems younger today than when she left all those years ago. This Liza is sixteen years old again, entombed in Mag’s memory and she is screaming at the top of her lungs:

“WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME?”

Mag stops. She sighs. She closes her eyes and opens them again. Liza is still there. She cannot ignore her anymore.

“You’re not real” She finally says. It is barely a whisper.

But she says it.

And Liza disappears.

She fades back into a hum at the back of her mind. She fades into smoke and blows away across the street. She slinks back into a shadow, creeping behind a clear blue sky.

Mag smokes her cigarette and she walks on.

She walks around the corner and towards her house and Liza is sitting on her stairs. This Liza is older. She is thin and tired and Mag has never seen her this old. She has always been perfectly preserved as the 22 year old Liza who disappeared, but this Liza has aged. She has grown up. She is worn.

It doesn’t matter. Mag isn’t surprised her mind would do this to her. She walks on up the stairs.

“Mag” Liza says and Mag ignores her, like she always does. She puts her keys in the door and she expects Liza will be on the other side of them already. Like she always is.

“Mag. I’m sorry”

Mag can feel cold touch of Liza’s finger on her jaw. The whisper of a memory crawling over her skin. She knows if she turns around Liza will be gone. Gone. Gone again.

“You’re… not… real” She whispers under her breath, not looking back. “Please. Just leave me alone. Just leave. Again”

Liza is quiet now. Not even humming at the back of her mind. No whisper, no touch, no shadow. Just silence.

She opens the door and steps inside. And Liza’s voice is back. Of course it is.

“Mag. Please” She says and she grabs her hand from behind.

But this touch is not cold. It is not a shadow caressing her skin. It is not smoke floating away on the wind.

This hand is warm and it is firm and it is holding on to her.

“Mag. I’m sorry I left” Liza says, and as Mag turns around she is still there.

“I’m back, my darling. I’m back”.

Thanks for reading :) Sorry for making this one sad (not sorry).

If you enjoyed - there’s more stories here.

#short story #story #gay stories #sad story #sorrow #tw alcoholism #tw death #hallucination #gay #I wrote this

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sascerides · 6 years

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The Stranger - A short short story

She’s a stranger to the mountain and the mountain is a stranger to her. Silently whispering, beckoning to her in the soft morning wind. softly, softly. A mist creeping over its stones.

She stands there and she has never been closer than this. She has never gone further than this and perhaps she never will. She hasn’t decided yet.

The Stranger they call it. Old and tired and shrouded in mist. She has lived in its shadow since birth. This mountain is not like the hills around it. It is not like the fells from which it rose in a time before time. It is not like the forests or the streams or the laughing singing waterfall emerging from its side.

There are stories. Of The Stranger. Of the mountain and its mists rising high above the valley and the town.

He is a giant who died there in a time before men walked the earth. Crouched over with his head disappearing into the clouds.

or,

It is the roof of the hall of the old ones. The mountain king keeping feasts still. Somewhere deep below.

or,

She is the mother goddess resting after giving birth to the world. The mist growing denser with every breath she takes in her sleep.

Softly, softly. Slumbering.

They say people disappear up there. In the mist. People wander in there in the creeping darkness of autumn afternoons. In the early summer mornings sauntering home from their errands of the night. They say they hear singing from in there.

Softly, softly calling them closer into the grey. Softly, softly bringing them deeper into the hills. Softly, softly, don’t follow the sound.

She has heard the stories often enough. But she has never heard the singing. Not before now.

Softly, softly, can you hear the song. Softly, softly, singing to you.

They say people disappear up there. They wander into the mist by mistake or on purpose and they never return. They say people disappear up there and when they emerge again they are strangers.

They say if you step into the mist you will never return quite the same. You will leave a part of yourself up there and The Stranger will never let go of it. The Stranger takes what he is owed and he keeps it.

She is a stranger to the mountain and yet she knows it well enough. She knows the stories and the song. She knows the danger that lurks in there. She knows if she goes any further she will never return. She will never be the same again. She will leave a part of herself in the mist.

And if she returns to her town, she will return a stranger.

She is a stranger to the mountain and yet.

Yet she takes a deep breath. Yet she takes another look over her shoulder at the sleepy town below. Yet, she listens to the song calling her closer.

Softly, softly come join me in the mist. Softly, softly step closer, closer to the song. Softly, Softly just follow the sound.

And she takes another step.

Into the cold embrace of The Stranger.

Thx for reading :)

This was just a lil microfiction inspired by some of the stories and legends I grew up with of the hidden people and the Danish word “Bjergtaget”.

More stories here.

#story #short short story #Magic #myths #mountain

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sascerides · 6 years

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Seagulls - A short story

The bar is thick with smoke and voices. The lighting is deliberately bad and the walls look like someone tore off the wall paper in a fit of rage. It looks like a hundred other Berlin bars. I’m not sure which one of them I’m in, and I’m not entirely sure how I got here. It doesn’t matter.

I’m lost. That’s it. Just lost. And there’s no point trying to figure out a way out of here.

There’s a beer on the bar and I am drinking it. Sitting slumped over in a bar stool that wasn’t made to be comfortable. Its a busy night. And yet. It’s a quiet night. Time seems to have paused in here. Here in the dim of cigarette smoke and half shouted words that were never meant to leave this room.

I am here in lack of a better place to be and so is everyone else in here.

I didn’t see her sit down next to me. She’s just there. She seems too old for this place. How old, I cannot say. Something about her is hard to put my finger on. She’s drinking whiskey. She’s staring at the air in front of her with grey eyes. She’s smiling. Or frowning. Or lost deep in thoughts of a place that isn’t here.

Even though she is sitting right next to me, I can barely see her. The bar is smoky but not this smoky. Not smoky enough for her to be a haze. It’s not smoky enough for her to disappear in a morning mist that just happened to materialise in a bar on a Saturday night. It’s not late enough for these kind of shenanigans of reality but something about her isn’t quite real.

She’s waves crashing at the sea. Washing over your feet when you’re lost in thought staring at the horizon. She’s the wind in her hair. Salty air in her lungs. She’s the ocean mist creeping over the cliffs in the morning. She’s not quite here and yet. Of course she is.

It’s as if she’s flickering, glitching, shimmering in the smoke. It might be the dimness of the bar. It might be the alcohol. Perhaps it’s just me. After all. I am lost tonight.

Either way, I don’t catch myself staring at her till she turns her head and fixes her eyes on me. They’re not grey now. They’re piercing blue. Sharp. Staring straight at me.

“You’re sad.”

It’s not a question.

I don’t answer it.

She pours me a whiskey.

I down it.

That’s how we meet.

This might be the alcohol thinking, but something about her is off. Or rather. Something around her is off. As if she’s the centre of the universe but the universe has been pushed out of place. As if she’s the only thing in this bar meant to be. Try as I might I cannot stop looking at her. Listening to her. And yet, I can’t see her properly.

It’s as if she’s the only person in this bar who’s really truly here and at the same time she might just flicker out of existence in the blink of an eye.

She doesn’t.

“Why are you sad?” She asks me in and accent I can’t quite place.

I shrug. “Does it matter?”

“If it doesn’t matter, why do you let it make you sad?“

I don’t have an answer to that. She doesn’t seem to care. She just lights a cigarette and starts smoking it.

She’s in black. Grey hair tied up in a bun that seem to be little more than a knot on top of her head. Her arms covered in tattoos. Seaweed crawling up her wrists. Fish along her collar bone. A great white shark disappearing under the sleeves of her t-shirt.

And seagulls. Dozens of seagulls. Everywhere. In the flickering candle light and the smoke of her cigarette I can almost convince myself they’re flapping their wings. Milling around her skin as over a fisherman’s boat. But of course they aren’t.

“You a sailor?” I ask. She sips her drink.

“There’s no sea around here” She says. Matter-of-factly. As if she’s not sure I’d know.

“What’s with the seagulls?”

She takes a long draw of her cigarette. Turns half in her seat to face me. As she moves I’m almost sure I saw the great white on her arm dash its tail. But of course I didn’t.

“What’s with the seagulls” she mumbles. “I’ll tell you what’s with the seagulls”.

She pours me another whiskey.

“I’m not from around here” She begins. “I’m from the sea. A small town. It doesn’t matter where. You wouldn’t know it. Not worth a visit.

“When I was 17. 16 maybe. Who cares now? I decided I wanted to be the first woman to cross the Atlantic alone in a boat. Seemed simple enough.”

I’m not sure where this will go. But I’m curious. So I say nothing. I just sip my whiskey and listen as she starts her story. Her eyes drifting from me to somewhere that isn’t in this bar. Something that isn’t in this time. Perhaps not even this universe. They turn hazy and grey and her face smooths out. In this light I almost could have sworn I watched her grow younger in front of my eyes. But of course I didn’t.

“I stole a boat. Packed a bag. Sailed away. It seemed like a good idea at the time” She says.

“Went alright for a week or so. I waved goodbye to land at Nantucket. The locals gave me enough food to last the trip and didn’t ask any questions. I guess they get enough adventurous 16 year olds around those parts.”

She lights another cigarette.

“Ever been to Nantucket?” She asks

I shake my head. I’m not entirely sure where Nantucket is.

“They get storms” She tells me. “they get storms around there like you wouldn’t believe. I didn’t believe. Not until I was in one. Lightning flashing all around my boat. Hail falling so big I was sure it would knock me unconscious. The waves pushing my boat around like a toy in a baby’s bathtub.”

Her face grows dark as she speaks. As if even the memory of the storm is enough to cloud over the bar. The room feels colder somehow. Cold and clammy and dark all at once. Then, her eyes clears and she smiles at me.

“Anyway. I survived. Just barely” she says.

“There’s a moment in every storm” she tells me “A moment where it all stands stills. Where everything stops for just one second and you know it is never going to get worse than it is at that one moment. Your heart skips a beat.” She sighs.

“the world skips a beat” She says, shaking her head as she smokes. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“I don’t think I could, no”

“The world was illuminated by a lightening strike. I was in my boat. And the waves… The waves were the size of sky scrapers. And then, everything freezes. For just one second. I look up and I see this, this monster of a wave about to crush my boat. It’s a wall of deep dark water just waiting to swallow me whole. I tell you, I saw whales moving in there. And I know what’s happening mind you. I grew up by the sea. But what can I do. What can you do then?”

“I… don’t know?”

“There’s nothing you can do child” She says, the fingers on her left hand tracing the shapes of the sea weed around her right wrist. “Nothing to do but let the sea have you. Nothing to do but drown”.

“But… you didn’t drown?”

“No.” She says. almost remorseful. “No, I guess I didn’t

“I woke up the next morning, the sun baking overhead. Miraculously, I was still in the boat and the boat was still on the sea, not underneath it.

"There wasn’t much of her left. No mast. No way for me to steer. No oars. I mean, it wasn’t much of a boat to begin with, but now. She was barely a hull drifting through the sea with me in it.

“And let me tell you. The sea is vast. You never really understand vastness until you’ve floated helplessly on the sea for more days than…” She trails off. Staring into the distance. Its as if she’s trying to remember something.

I’m beginning to wonder exactly why I’m still listening to the story. I reach down for my phone. Just to check the time. To make an excuse. To get home. From where ever I am.

She reaches over. Her finger on my wrist. Just for one second. And suddenly I can’t remember any other place than this.

“Do you know what the presence of seagulls mean?” She asks me.

“That sea is near?”

“No.” She says. Shaking her head ever so slightly. Sighing.

“It means land is near. It means there’s hope.”

“Oh… ”

“And if you’re drifting helplessly in the middle of the Atlantic in a torn apart fishing boat. That’s mocking” She says.

“The seagulls sailed over my head. Droves of them. For days they dived and soared above me screaming out their promise of a land I couldn’t get to. It drove me mad. That… or the salt water”.

She empties her glass. Fills it. Fills mine too. As she locks eyes with me I could have sworn I feel something weighing me down. Tying me to the bar stool. I could have sworn she placed me under a spell with that gaze. But of course she didn’t.

“The thing about the sea” She tells me “Isn’t the vastness. It’s not the storms or the quiet. It’s not the sky stretching out as far as you can see or the fact that it’s the only place you’ll see a proper horizon.

“It’s the solitude. That’s what will kill you in the end.”

Her finger runs along her arm. Gently. I could have sworn, that just for a moment, I saw the flock of tattooed seagulls flying over her skin following the trail of her fingertip across the waves of her muscles. But of course I didn’t.

“The seagulls were my only company” she says. “Their screeches kept the silence at bay. Kept me awake. I suppose… I suppose they kept me alive. They accepted me as one of their own you know.

“Seagulls are more compassionate than most people realise. After a while I think they started to care for me. Helpless as I was. They’d bring me fish. Raw but, you know. A fish is a fish right?”

I don’t reply. She’s not waiting for an answer.

“They couldn’t bring me water so I just drank from the sea. After all. Water was all around me. And after a couple of days on raw fish and sea water, their screeches started to make sense”

I sip my whiskey to keep in a snide remark.

“I know what you’re thinking” she says. “Perhaps you’re right. But does it matter if I’m mad? I’m here now am I not? I made it through.”

She opens her bag, pulls out a sharpie. Not what I expected but I’m done asking questions. “Here” she says. “Give me your arm.” I stretch out my left arm, what harm could it be.

“They told me a secret” She says, so quiet no one else will be able to hear. “The seagulls”.

She leans in close, whispering.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re headed” she whispers “It doesn’t matter if you’re lost.

“People get lost all the time”.

She smiles. Leans over and draws a perfect tiny seagull on my arm. “There” she says. “They’ll know you as a friend if you ever get lost. You may need it.”

It seems mad. In this smoke filled bar with its dirty lamps and its empty glasses. In this vast city full of people and houses and miles and miles from the sea. But her words hold weight and in this moment I am unable to question them. She takes hold of my hand, locks my eyes to hers.

“People get lost all the time” She says again. And then. She closes her eyes and mine with them.

the world is vast and dark and cold. the air is thick and heavy and filling my lungs weighing me down. I want to scream but I know no one will hear me. the salt water air hugging my limps as the sun disappears from somewhere far above. the darkness below pulling me further and further into the depth. then. a sudden burst of air filling my lungs as I gasp at the waves pushing my body around. above me the incessant screeches of seagulls pulling me back into consciousness. I turn my head around. I spin my body faster and faster but all I can sea is the sea. the vast expanse of sky and water never giving way to any land. I am lost. but I’m alive.

I gasp.

And I pull in the warm smoky air of the bar. Her dark grey eyes are on my face, scanning it for clues. Her face looks so old in this light. Old and sad. Lost.

“People get lost all the time”. She tells me.

It seems unreal that the bar is still here. That the air is breathable and that it tastes like smoke and perfume and nothing like salt water at all. That the hum of voices is still buzzing on, somewhere in the back of my head. That there’s a whiskey in my hand and a bar stool beneath me. That the world is solid form.

I glance over at her, casually lighting yet another cigarette. I could have sworn she did that to me. But of course she didn’t.

“How did you survive” I ask.

She smiles. Draws on her cigarette.

“Olga saved me”

“Olga?”

“Now, that’s a woman for you.” She says. her eyes drifting off to somewhere in the distance again. To Olga no doubt.

She holds out both hands in front of her. The cigarette balancing between two fingers. Moving her palms up and down. Carving the curves of a woman out of the thick air in front of her. “She was…. “ she mumbles “She was quite something

“Olga lived on her boat. Just. Drifting.” She explains "She’d escaped Soviet Russia - some kind of disagreement, I never asked, and now she just, sailed.”

She sits for a while, just smoking her cigarette, staring at the candle. I could have sworn I saw Olga dancing through the smoke coming from her cigarette. Her skirts swirling in a Russian snowstorm following her as she ran. Closing my eyes for just a second I can see her at the helm of her ship. Wrapped in a bear skin coat, the salt water caressing her cheeks. I could have sworn she was in the room with us for a second. But of course she wasn’t.

“She nursed me back to health” She says. “And she loved me

“Taught me how to navigate. Taught me where to go when you don’t know where you’re headed. Taught me how to make love…”

She sighs. She isn’t here with me. She’s on a boat somewhere in the Atlantic with a woman made of salt water and memories.

“Anyway” she says. Pulling herself back to the present. Dropping anchor in her whiskey glass as she empties it into her throat. “She dropped me off back in Nantucket. Haven’t seen her since”.

We sit in silence.

She smokes her cigarette.

I drink my whiskey.

As it runs down my throat I can almost taste the vast expanse of the Atlantic sea, so very far from here and yet, it sways and moves between us.

Breaking the silence feels like heresy. But I do it anyway. I have to know.

“Is any of that true?” I ask and I can taste the disrespect in my own words. That I even dare ask.

The room stands still, waves waiting to crash as I wait for an answer.

“Does it matter if it’s true?” she asks. “You wanted to know what’s with the seagulls. I told you”.

She empties her whiskey. “I’ll tell you what matters” She says.

“You’re not sad anymore. You’re just a little lost”

She stands up, killing her cigarette on the top of the bar. Her hand gently touching my shoulder as she walks past me and out of the bar.

For a second I could have sworn I saw the seagull she left on my wrist flapping its wings trying to join her as she disappeared into the night. But of course I didn’t. It couldn’t be.

I know I’ll see never see her again. But it doesn’t matter. She told me herself.

People get lost all the time.

Sometimes people ask me why I have a sea gull tattoo. This isn’t the true story of why. But it’s the story I’m gonna stick with next time somebody asks.

I have more stories here.

Thx for reading :)

#short story #fiction #sea #tattoos #magic realism #story #I wrote this

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sascerides · 6 years

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The Lady in the River - A Short Story

Dear Sister.

I hope my letter reaches you alright, I wasn’t sure about the address. I don’t know why I’m even sending you a real life letter. Maybe I won’t send it after all. I just wanted to tell you about someone. Someone I met over Christmas. Someone… a little special.

I know you’ll think I’ve gone mad. But before you pass judgement. Just know, before I start my tale, that Berlin is more crazy, than even I could think up. This city is ripe and ready to burst with all the madness and magic that lurks beneath it’s streets. You may not see it, but it’s there. And I met someone over Christmas. Someone mad and magic and much more Berlin that I will ever be.

Everyone has their Christmas stories. You know most of mine. There’s the Christmas you and I spent together in that cottage by the sea with mum and dad. There’s the first christmas I spent alone with mum, while you were with dad, after the divorce. And then. Then, there’s the Christmas I spent with the river monster that lives in the Spree.

I spent Christmas with the river monster who lives in the Spree. Or, at least I think I did.

But this is how the story ends, not where it begins.

The story begins in August. It begins on a warm summer afternoon sitting on a bridge in Kreuzberg drinking a beer as the sun slowly crawled towards the horizon. Leaning our backs on the railing while droves of half-drunk half-high Berliners sailed past on their bikes. This is where it began.

We sat there. A woman and I. She was from Paris. Or, she said she was from Paris. I knew her accent was fake and, when later she whispered in my ear between my sheets, her whispers were in German. I don’t know her name, but her name does not matter. She isn’t important to the story right now. The important thing is, she brought me to the bridge and we sat there.

We drank beer after beer and the canal beneath our feet kept flowing by. And the more beers I drank the more real her French accent seemed. The more beers i drank the more I felt that I belonged in this city. That the city was mine. That I had not arrived on a plane only two days before and was still slightly jet lagged. We sat there and this is how it began.

As the sun crept behind the buildings and the shadows got long we were joined by a local. He didn’t speak. He just stood. He was old, too old to be casually hanging out on a bridge on an August night. I don’t know if he was homeless or mad or Jesus come again. You’d understand if you’d been to Berlin, it’s hard to tell here. Sometimes it’s just a fashion statement, sometimes it’s something entirely else. But he was there. Wearing a knee-length, pink, faux fur coat. Can you picture that? In one hand he was holding one of those old midwifes' bags and in the other a curry-wurst. A true Berliner is what he was.

This man stood on the bridge for a while and stared at the canal flowing past beneath his feet. He picked up an empty beer can and threw it in the water, ran to the other side of the bridge and watched it reappear on the other side. He got down on all four and listened to the river through the asphalt. But this wasn’t the weirdest thing he did.

The man in the pink coat stood up, he walked to the edge of the bridge and he picked up a bit of his curry wurst gently between two fingers. Dropped it in to the water. Plop it went. And there went another.

Plop. Plop. Plop.

Until the entire curry wurst was gone.

By this point, we had stopped talking and were just watching him go through his little ritual. The bridge was empty but for us. Us and him and what ever he was communing with in the river. What ever it was, it wanted more. Because he opened up his bag and took out a bottle of Radler. Opened it with his teeth and emptied it into the river. Down it went. The scent of lemon and beer drifting up towards us as it disappeared into the stream.

Now, remember, I was tipsy by this point. Tipsy and jet-lagged. So, of course, I had to interact with this guy. I had to know what he was doing. Pouring a perfectly good meal and drink into the river. I hardly think the local ducks appreciate a lukewarm Radler, so there had to be an explanation. I got up. Swayed a bit. And walked over to him.

“Sir.” I said, praying that he spoke English. Trying not to sound too American. “Are you quite alright?”

The man turned around and looked at me. His eyes were wild and wide and somewhat nervous. He didn’t speak, he just held up one finger as if telling me to wait. Then, he rummaged through his bag, frantically searching for something. Finding it, and pulling out a tiny flask of purple glitter, stopped with a cork. He walked back to the edge. Leaned over the railing so far I was a little afraid he was going to fall. He undid the cork, pouring the glitter into the stream. It floated on the wind for a second then disappeared from view.

The man stood there for a bit. Whispering in German, then, he turned back to me. His face was calmer now. As if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

“It’s for the river monster” he said “She grants your wishes”

“The river monster?” I asked “What? Like Nessie?”

“No! No! Not Lake monster! It’s a river. A river. Are you tourist?”

“I’m new”

He smiled. Then, gently, ever so gently, put his hand on my arm. If I’d been sober I probably would have been a little freaked out. But I wasn’t.

“She lives in the river, new one. You give her the three magic ingredients. Curry Wurst. A drink. Glitter. She will grant your wish. She is there”

“Right” I said, but something in me listened. Perhaps because of the alcohol. Perhaps because of the jet lag. Something in me thought it sounded reasonable. The man, apparently, decided this answer was good enough, because he just stumbled off in his pink coat.

Right before he disappeared from view he stopped. Turned around and pointed at me.

“Remember! Remember new one, you may need it!” He shouted. And then he was gone.

Now. I know what you’re thinking. You’re probably already typing out an email to me. “Becca, For fox sake.” you’re typing “A man in a pink coat tells you there’s a wish granting lady river monster living in the Spree and you believe him. I never should have let you leave”. Well. You may be right. But then, you were always the clever one.

Anyway. That was in August. That was how it began. Now, as it happened, and as I’m sure mum told you. I got a room near Schlesisches Tor. I know you don’t know where that is, but if you Google Map it, you’ll see it’s by the river. All you need to know is, that as the autumn passed. I often found myself walking over the Oberbaumbrücke for one reason or another. To get food. To go to work. To meet a woman. You know how it is. Or, well. I’m sure you can imagine.

I’d walk over the bridge and on most days, I’d just be enjoying the view. Thinking about dinner. Trying to avoid walking into people. But. But on some days. On some days I’d remember the man in the pink coat and the glitter floating over the canal as a girl who wasn’t French laughed in the background.

As the season grew darker I more and more often found myself on the bridge after dark.

In the shadows of approaching winter, lit by the lights of the city. The river looks different than it does through a haze of alcohol on an August afternoon. It moves differently. And sometimes. Sometimes. I thought I saw a shadow. A ripple. A movement under the surface. A bit of curry wurst bobbing on the surface only to disappear into the depths. Perhaps I was going mad. Perhaps it was just Berlin. Perhaps that is just how rivers behave. We never did live by a river as kids.

Well. One dark thursday afternoon in late October I was walking down the street. I could feel the wind pulling at my coat and at my mind. I missed the summer afternoons. I missed the sun in dad’s backyard. I missed the warm winds of home. This afternoon felt darker than all the ones that came before it, and perhaps it really was. I was walking over the bridge, and in my sadness and my fatigue. I had bought myself a currywurst. Because, lets be real, in this city you don’t cook on tired thursdays when all you want to do is sleep off whatever Wednesday night left in you.

I walked over the bridge and I remembered the man in the pink coat. “Remember” he’d told me “You may need it”. And then, I stopped.

I stood there for a bit, staring at the river. Black and deep flowing past beneath me. “Perhaps I need it now” I whispered to myself and then I dropped a bit of curry wurst into the river.

Now, stay with me. You think I’m mad but please, keep reading sister. I swear. I swear I heard a gulp. I peered over the edge of the bridge and in the water I saw something. A shadow. A shimmer. A ripple. Something moved. I’m sure of it. To this day I’m sure something moved.

As the winter approached and the city grew darker I got in the habit of walking over the Oberbaumbrücke and dropping a chunk of curry wurst into the spree. I didn’t put much stock into it. It just became a sort of tradition. You know how I am with traditions.

On the days when I was lonely and sad. On days when I would have called you if my pride didn’t forbid it. On days when the city seemed dark and cold and the river was wide and black and beckoning below my feet. I would reach out a hand and “plop”. Down went my curry wurst.

I never told you this, I know you were busy with the baby, and I didn’t want to disturb. But December was hard for me. Christmas was approaching and all through the city markets appeared. Christmas lights sprung up and the people around me got happier and more cheerful. All the while I sank into darkness. There were days when I felt fine. But there were more days when I felt nothing at all. And on most days, my insides felt like the waters of the spree. Deep and black and flowing to some unknown end. With no apparent purpose.

I was walking asleep, smiling asleep, working asleep. And yet, I barely slept. In my mind. On some days I was on the California beaches watching the kids play in the sand. On some days I was on the bottom of the spree far away from all the noises and the stress of the city. On those days I liked walking along the canal and dropping in a bit of curry wurst. A splash of juice. Sometimes a fry. I would do that and I would stare at the black water moving past me steadily flowing with no care for me.

I would whisper quietly under my breath “I wish someone will come spend Christmas with me”. “I wish someone will call me or send me a letter or show some concern for me”. “I wish I won’t be lonely”. And even though the waters flowed past and made no hint to hear it still made me feel better. It made me feel heard. It made me feel loved. I can’t explain it to you. I know you’re shaking your head right now. Just trust me on this. It helped.

Now, there’s a thing you won’t know about this city from the pictures. There’s a thing you won’t know from visiting. From living here for a week or a month or a summer. You will only see the surface. The memorials and the cobble stones. The bars and the shops and the parties. The young people in their black outfits high on this and gone on that. You will see the sun shining down through the yards and the shop windows lighting up the streets. But you won’t see what lurks beneath the surface.

The thing about this city is that most of the people in it are running away. They are all lonely and scared and in search of something. They are here distracting themselves with alcohol and glitter. With weed and designer drugs. With hashtags and smiling selfies and their amount of Facebook friends growing steady day by day. But come monday morning when they all sober up. They’re all lying in their beds in the darkness trying to find a reason to breathe. I know this. I know this because I am here. It might be that Berliners will tell you it’s not true. But some of them. Some of them know what I mean.

Knowing this. Perhaps it isn’t so strange that an urban legend would grow from the canals of this city. That a whisper would float on down the stream and crawl along the cobblestones at night. A whisper of a river monster. Of a witch or a siren or a river spirit of sorts. Of a lady in the river. A lady who will grant you your wish.

“Remember, new one. Remember you might need it”.

That’s what the man in the pink coat told me. And standing there, leaning over the railings of Oberbaumbrücke on a December night, half drunk. I needed it. I needed to believe someone was listening. That someone would hear. That someone would grant my wish. My wish of a hug. Of a kiss. Of a strangers hand through the Christmas. I needed to believe in the legend of a river monster that would grant my wish. At the cost of a curry wurst, a bit of my drink and a sprinkle of glitter. For a wish. I could spare that.

So you know now how it began. You know of the beers and the bridge. Of the girl with the fake French accent and the man with the fake fur and the story. You know of the long summer afternoons and of the darkness that crept into the city and swallowed it whole. And that may all sound believable. But when you read the end, you will shake your head and call mum. You will say “Becca went to Berlin and now she’s out of her mind” “She’s imaging things” “She’s gone mad there. Mad and gay!”. But I promise you I haven’t. Well. Maybe a little bit. But this city is crazy and I am no crazier than the city herself.

I was standing there on Christmas eve. Somewhere along the Landwehrkanal. I would not be able to tell you where. For lack of a better thing to do I’d been prowling the Christmas markets with friends drinking Glühwein all day. I’ll admit, I was trying to achieve that warm, tired drunk. The one where you can just close your eyes and sleep. I wasn’t successful.

Instead I found myself at something that looked like the Maybachufer but may not have been. Drunkenly leaning on the railing, half falling in. Everyone else had gone home. To their boyfriends or their mothers or their Ex’s second cousin. To someone who cared. To someone they cared for more than they cared for me.

I took a bite of a lukewarm curry wurst, threw a bit into the stream, took another bite for myself and so on. I basically shared my curry wurst with the canal. I poured in my entire bottle of beer. I figured I didn’t need more alcohol.

“You there river monster?” I said. Mostly to myself. Mostly to the night. Partly to the monster, although I wouldn’t have admitted it, if you’d asked. Then, I remembered the small bottle of glitter in my bag. A friend had given it to me as a joke, weeks ago. I rummaged through my rucksack and pulled out the bottle. Pulled off the cork with my teeth and emptied the bottle into the stream.

In the darkness I could not see if the glitter floated on the stream. If it blew away in the wind. If it sank into the black water flowing by. I just let it flow and stood there in my haze, staring in to the night.

“I wish” I said. Trying to remember the words in German, but ultimately giving up. “I wish for someone to spend Christmas with”.

I stood there on the edge of the river. And then I sat down on the cold ground with my legs dangling over the edge. Leaning my forehead on the railing I think I may have fallen asleep for a second.

It was silent. Nothing was happening. Of course. So I just stayed, for lack of a better place to go.

I heard a splash but I saw nothing and beneath me the river kept flowing on. Gently touching the stone walls that kept it in.

Then, someone touched my shoulder. Gently. I turned to look and saw a familiar face. I couldn’t quite put my finger on her, but I knew her face. There’s been so many girls. There are so many girls in this city. But this one I knew.

“You look lonely” She said, and at first I didn’t recognise her voice, although I had heard it before.

“I am” I said. “You too?”

She smiled. Stretched out her hand and helped me up. Her skin was glistening in the street lights. As if she was wet, or as if she had been crying. Perhaps it was just glitter on her face.

“Oui” She said and that’s when I recognised her. Without the French accent she had seemed a different person but perhaps that was on purpose all along.

“Come… “ She said "The rivers edge is not a good place at this time of night”.

The Fake Parisienne is who she was, but I guess you figured that out by now. You don’t need to know what we did. I guess you can figure that out by now and it doesn’t really matter all that much.

What matters is she took my hand and she led me through the city streets. She led me to somewhere warm and she bought me dinner. She kissed my forehead with her soft, wet lips and she embraced me in the night.

I like to pretend I live an exciting life but, to be honest, I think we just slept. Or I did. I was so tired by then, tired and drunk and sad. I think I just slept in her arms. She held me and I never slept that well. It was as if I slept on a boat. She rocked me back and forth gently, ever so gently. Her arms around me and her legs touching my skin. In my drunken sleep I could have sworn they were tentacles but now I wouldn't be so sure.

She woke me up in the morning and she had made me gifts.

“You Americans, you do it like this no?” She asked. Sitting on the floor of my WG room. Her hair was wet, but I didn’t hear her shower. It doesn’t matter if she showered. I’m just trying to describe what she looked like. I know you don’t like women. Not in that way. But, she was beautiful. Her wet hair and her wet skin. Her big green eyes and her lips… Her bare legs. Well. You get the point.

She was just sitting on my floor in a pile of gifts I don’t know where came from. I really don’t know how she did it. They weren’t anything special. A box of matches. A pair of socks. A bottle of water. But they were gifts and that mattered. I don’t even know how she found me by the river or why she even cared.

I don’t believe in Christmas miracles. But she was one.

“But Becca” you’re probably thinking. “That’s just a pretty German girl pretending to be French” You’re thinking “Didn’t you say she was the river monster?”.

I did. I did say that. And. I don’t know if she was. What I do know is this.

She took me with her out of the flat on Christmas day. We walked along the river and we held hands. She wore gloves and they were wet, even though it wasn’t raining. I didn’t question it at the time, but there’s something about that. I can’t quite tell what.

She walked with me along the canal and over the bridges and then she bought me a curry wurst and she walked out to the middle of Admiralbrucke and she stopped there.

“Thank you” she said “Or should I say… Merci”

“Thank you for what?” I asked. I was completely perplexed. And maybe a little bit in love. I’m not sure.

“Thank you for all the Curry Wurst” She said. As if it was the most obvious thing in the world “And the glitter”

I was going to say something. But I didn’t know what to say so I just stood there. Staring at her. Staring at those beautiful green eyes of hers. At her wet gloves and her wet hair. Her hair was still wet. She must have been freezing.

She took a step forward, put her wet hands on my arms and kissed me. Well. I kissed her back. We kissed. And then, just like that, she was gone. She was gone and I found myself standing in a puddle on the middle of the Admiralbrücke on Christmas Day as snow began to fall.

I watched the water in the puddle flow gently over the edge and fall into the river. I watched the river flow on beneath my feet as it did back on that one afternoon in August. I watched as the snow covered the bridge and the sky grew dark and the evening crept in.

I stood there and watched. Alone. She was gone. Just. Gone. Aside from my curry wurst, I didn’t even have proof that she’d ever really been there.

I must have stood there for an hour. I was getting cold, but what could I do? I couldn’t just leave, could I? I was too confused. Too startled. Too alone.

Then, someone behind me was laughing. I turned around and there was the man in the pink coat. The one I saw in the summer, remember him?

He looked at me and he smiled. Still wearing the same coat.

“She’s not coming back” he said.

“She’s a busy lady you know.” He said. "And…” He stopped himself. Grinning. He was clearly very pleased with himself.

“What?” I said. Well. I probably shouted. “ and WHAT, man?”

“You got your wish, didn’t you?” and then, he just walked off.

So did I. And I never did see her again.

So. Sister. That’s the story. You can disbelieve it if you will. You can say I’ve gone mad. Or that I’m just making stuff up to get your attention. That might be. But in this city. I can’t tell you what’s real.

This city is madness.

Anyway. How was your Christmas?

Thank you for reading. If you want more. You can find more of my stories here.

This story was the last story of my 12 stories project in 2017. This year I’ve been inspired very much by the city of Berlin so with the last story I wanted to try and do the city justice. I’m not sure that’s even possible, but either way, I had fun.

You can read more about my 12 stories project here. Again. Thanks for reading. Feel free to share, comment, whatever floats your boat - it’s all appreciated.

The lady in the river may return next year. I’m still undecided about that. What I know for sure, is that there will be more stories.

#short story #story #magic realism #berlin #queer stories #letter #words words words #I wrote this

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sascerides · 6 years

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The Toy Shop - A Short Story

The toy shop is more an entity than it is a place. It's an ancient consciousness full of memories and whispers and dreams.

The toy shop is a living breathing creature made of music boxes and pretty little porcelain tea cups for the pretty little hands of porcelain dolls.

In the long summer afternoons its windows is a beckoning show of colourful delights. Bringing you closer, closer, in through the door, and perhaps you might as well stay now. There’s always a summer shower coming isn’t there?

In the dark November afternoons the lantern outside is the light of a bio-luminescent angler fish slowly dangling somewhere far away in the deep dark sea. Luring you into its jaws.

In the early hours of the spring while frost still clings to the stems of snowdrops and the soles of boots it’s door is open. The light from inside flooding out into the yard pulling you in by a string. Making you dance on your toes like a marionette into its warmth.

The toy shop has always been there. Some will tell you the city grew around it. Some will say it was never build, it simply appeared one day. Some that the toy shop is part of the very fabric of time and existence. Some will swear it wasn’t there yesterday.

But the toy shop is there. And so is old Mr Jakobs. He is there.

I will tell you the story I have been told. Perhaps not the story of the toy shop or of old Mr Jakobs. But perhaps still, the story of both.

The toy shop is hidden inside a yard and it seems a wonder anyone ever finds it but they do. They always do. And they never leave emptyhanded.

Mr Jakobs stands behind the counter day after day. Year after year. Neatly wrapping children’s books and teddy bears and intricately carved tiny writing desks for tiny authors in the offices and drawing rooms of dolls houses. Mr Jakobs puts a bow on everything. A bow on every parcel, a bow on every word he says. He bows for every customer who steps through his doors no matter how young or old they might be.

Most of the people in this city have been to the shop. On one occasion or the other. They have all been and they all remember. They went and they left again.

For Billy Stevenson it was different. Billy Stevenson stepped into the toy shop one day and he never really left it again. This is the story he has told me, many a night drinking tea in the backroom, he has recounted it. I cannot tell you if the story is true, but I will tell it the way Billie does and let you decide the truth of it yourself.

It’s been so many years now he barely remembers the first time. 7 years old, or was he 6? What he does recall is a somewhat younger, somewhat more innocent version of his current self drifting into the toy shop with his mother by his hand. Pointing at the small model airplanes. Lifting a teddy bear and hugging it. His mother placing her hand gently on the back of the bears neck moving its head “Hello Billy!“ she'd said “I think you’re my new best friend!”.

What he does recall is old Mr Jakobs chuckling from behind the counter. Putting down the music box he was building and wiping his hands on his stained leather apron to prepare for wrapping yet another new favourite toy.

It’s been so many years now he barely remembers. And he barely remembers that one fateful time he entered the shop again as a grown up.

1974 or 1975 he does not know anymore. He changes the year every time he tels me the story. He knows that it was winter. He tells me the darkness had crept into to the city from the fields and the suburbs and the Christmas lights were not yet keeping the shadows at bay. In this season, autumnal winds and the sneaking fangs of deep dark misery had open hunting grounds in the streets.

Billy was working in an office back then. In a grey cubicle on the grey third floor of a big square grey building. He barely remembers what he did anymore. Something with numbers, he says. Something with bottom lines and figures that were always too low. The same numbers day in and day out. Always a 6 am alarm a 7am coffee at the station. Always standing on his toes trying not to breathe in the air of yet another overfilled train. Always walking to his cubicle in a haze. Nodding to colleagues he could not tell apart. They all looked the same in their suits anyway and he did not care for them.

November 1975 that was it. Or there about at least. One grey Wednesday evening walking from the station to his flat. Fighting his way through the biting cold. His brain so tired he wanted to sit down on the street and sleep. The only thing keeping him going was the freshly baked pie in the paper bag he clutched with gloved fingers. He was going to eat it alone. Like he always did. Staring into a screen with more terrible news. Like he always did.

That was when he saw it. He might not remember now what year it was or what kind of pie it was or what made him stop but he does remember that lantern.

Slowly swaying in the wind. Like a siren dancing in the sea mist over the cliffs. That light beaconing him closer. Closer. Just a little closer into the yard. The sign of Jakobs’ Toy Shop creaking in the numbing November wind.

Billy did not stop to think. He just allowed the light to lure him in. Walking closer. Closer. Just a little closer yet. Until his nose was almost touching the door. Behind the windows, Mr Jakobs was making a music box. Not a day older than when Billy saw him last, some 30 years ago. He was just sitting there. Glasses on his nose. Deeply lost in the tiny wheels and bolts of the tiny melody he was creating.

Billy would not be able to tell you now how long he stood there. Long enough for his nose to run. Long enough for the pie to grow cold. Long enough for Mr Jakobs to lift his gaze. Smile at him and lift a hand in greeting. A greeting as if he was meeting an old friend. As if he had been expecting him. Billy only nodded, turned around and walked away.

The next day, the first snow was in the air as Billy walked from the station. He was cold to the bone. His pie only heating one hand but at least that one hand could still feel something. That night, he wasn’t even surprised when he found himself wandering into the yard of Jakobs’ Toy Shop again.

Snow flakes gathering on the sign. Mr Jakobs standing in the door smiling as he walked in to the yard.

“It’s good to see you again Mr Stevenson”

“You know my name?”

“Of course I do. I remember you. You bought a bear”

“I…” Billy did not know what to say. What do you say to that sort of thing. He barely remembered the bear himself.

“I understand. You have to go. Eat your pie” Mr Jakobs said. Smiling as he walked back inside. “You should come back soon”.

On Friday evening Billy’s feet were cold. His throat was dry and his head was full of numbers. He walked on routine from the pie shop to his flat. His feet knowing the way and his brain barely on auto pilot. When he found himself in Mr Jakobs’ yard again he almost didn't know the way out of there.

Mr Jakobs was inside again. Outside, he had hung a hand written sign.

"Help wanted” was all it read.

Billy stepped inside. The warmth of the shop caressing his face in a gentle embrace. The smell of incense tickling his nose. The sounds of cuckoo clocks and laughing dolls and music boxes dancing in his ears.

Mr Jakobs stood up from his work. Stepped out from behind the counter and looked at Billy for a long time.

Then. He smiled.

“Yes” he said, sounding awfully pleased with himself. “Yes. You will do just fine I believe”.

On Monday Billy Stevenson quit his job and he never returned to a cubicle again.

The days in the toyshop were different and yet, they were all the same. He woke in the mornings and he tied his shoes and he walked down the street and in through the door. No matter how early he came he found Mr Jakobs already working. Gratefully accepting the coffee Billy brewed him and barely looking up from his work.

Billy swept the floors. He cleaned the shelves and the windows. He polished the bell above the door. He brewed more coffee and he carried boxes up and down the steep basement stairs where Mr Jakobs’ old knees would no longer go.

Billy walked to the pie shop and got them pies for lunch. He opened the door for ladies and children alike. He wrapped presents and filled bags. He climbed Mr Jakobs old wooden ladder to bring down pretty porcelain dolls from the top shelves high above the reach of greedy children’s fingers.

In the evenings he put on his coat and he said goodnight to Old Mr Jakobs and walked home through the dark. No matter how late he left, he always left Old Mr Jakobs still bent over his work.

The days in the toy shop turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. Billy got up and he worked and he went home and he slept. Before he knew it the city air again grew thick with the weight of November. Walking home in the evening Billy walked past the tired faces of the people he used to be. He saw the stench of office still clinging to their coats and the figures that were always too low still rumbling around in their brains. He tipped his hat at them and before he slept he said a prayer as thanks that this was not him any more.

As time went on, Old Mr Jakobs allowed him to do more and more. He mixed paint for toy cars and he cut up fabric for the dresses of dolls. He polished the gears for the tiny miniature music boxes that the toy shop was known for. Shelf after shelf was full of them and Old Mr Jakobs made them day in and day out, but he never allowed Billy to help.

Billy painted the furniture for dolls houses. He sowed carpets and dresses and tiny leather boots. Eventually, he sowed cushions for dolls sofas and he painted miniatures of masterpieces for their walls. He stuffed teddy bears and he build race cars for the eager hands of children.

The days in the toy shop turned into years and, before Billy realised, grey hairs appeared on top of his head. Before Billy realised the years turned into a decade and still he tipped his hat at the office workers he met on his way home every night.

It was twenty years in, maybe more. When Billy for the first time went back to the store after hours. He doesn’t remember now what it was. He had forgotten his wallet, or his umbrella, or a doll he wanted to work on in the evening. It doesn’t matter now, he says. What matters is he went back and he wasn’t meant to do just that.

Walking into the yard he saw the light inside still on. The windows fogged over in the winter cold and the curtains drawn but the lights were on. Billy had gone home over an hour ago, but clearly Old Mr Jakobs was still at his work.

Billy could see him moving in there. His shadow going across the room and back again. He could hear the gramophone playing.

The moment his hand was on the handle Billy knew he wasn’t meant to go in. Even now he can't explain the feeling to me, he just knew. He was not welcome here. He backed away, walked down the steps and through the yard. The music still playing behind him. Then, something made him turn around.

He cupped his hands and stood on his toes to look in through the window. Through a crack in the curtain he saw Mr Jakobs. Sitting at his desk, like always. On every shelf and every free inch of floor space. On the window sills and the book cases. On top of piles of books were toys lined up. Everything looked exactly like it always did. And yet. Billy couldn’t put his finger on it, but something was different. Something wasn’t like he left it.

Five dolls houses were standing open. Their tiny inhabitants all lined up with their feet dangling over the edges. They were not, as usual, about their business. Frozen in the act of watching their tiny television. Of lifting their tiny kettle to the tiny stove where it would never ever boil. Not a single one of them was lying in bed or lounging on a tiny chaise lounge. Not a single tiny tea party frozen in place. Just row after row of miniature people, staring into the room from their houses carved in half from roof to cellar.

The bears too, where all facing the room. Usually, at least some of them would be in a pile. But not tonight. Tonight, Mr Jakobs had lined them all up. As if they were ready to watch a play. Those who were usually watched from the window by the greedy eyes of children. Now, they were the spectators, but for what show? For what purpose?

On the floor in front of them were rows and rows and rows of tin soldiers. All standing ready to march. Their drummers and their horn blowers ready to play. Their guns ready to shoot.

Everything was frozen in place. Mr Jakobs at his table with a book in front of him. The toy soldiers poised and ready for war. The porcelain dolls with their empty eyes and the figurines of lions and zebras and elephants momentarily not chasing each other. Just staring. Staring in to the room with the black dots Billy had given them for eyes with his very own paint brush. Staring. Waiting. But waiting for what?

It was as if Billy had caught them all at a pivotal moment. In the silence before the storm. At the last breath before the opera singer takes the stage. At the moment the ballerina finds her pose. Ready to dance onto an empty scene before the audience, all holding their breath. This moment that Mr Jakobs and the toys shared. And Billy was watching them.

He doesn’t remember now what happened. He has dreamed it so many times he no longer knows which part was the truth. Or it any of it ever really was.

In the dreams Mr Jakobs opens up his book and he mumbles something. In the dreams Billy can hear him but he does not know this language. In reality, the frost covered windows would have shut in the words but that does not matter now.

In the dreams a rabbit springs from the pages. Or a kitten. Or perhaps it is a deer. It’s not a sudden thing. It’s not a ripping of the pages or a magic trick that makes you drop your jaw. It just. Happens. And in the dreams it seems like most natural thing that could be.

It hops across the floor. Hop. Hop. Hop. It goes and a tiny tin soldier drumming boy is cheering it on with his sticks. Then, the monkeys join in the spectacle. Hopping up and down in a cling clang mayhem of hi-hats banging together. They’re out of tune and out of pace but no one seems to care. Why should they? They’re all toys and none of it is real anyway, is it?

In the dreams Mr Jakobs is dancing across the room, suddenly younger than he has been for what seems like hundreds of years. He might as well be floating and perhaps he really is. Floating past the dolls houses where the dolls clap their miniature hands together in a miniature joy. The lions are roaring and it seems half mockery half cheer with their wooden teeth that Billy carved himself. He who never knew he was capable of creating a roar.

He doesn’t know now it it happened. If he was tired from the Christmas chaos in the shop all day. If he had drunk that night or if he simply imagined it because. Well. Even Billy can admit now. There is such a thing as spending too much time in a toy shop.

He doesn’t know now how it ended, but the dreams always go the same way. They always end when the music stops. When the monkeys freeze and fall back on the floor, clattering as the hi hats fall from their hands. It always ends when Mr Jakobs slowly turns around to face the window. It always ends with Billy running from the yard with no regard for the footprints he will leave behind in the snow.

It wasn’t just that he saw. Or what he saw. All that didn’t surprise him in the end. After all these years he had become used to Mr Jakobs. He spent his days surrounded by the toys. By this point it seemed obvious to him that they were alive. That they were more than toys. That Mr Jakobs didn’t just make them. He was their god.

What bothered him wasn’t the thing itself. It was the fact that he had witnessed it. The fact that he had spied on this intimate moment. On a thing that wasn’t meant to be his.

On the next morning, Billy did not want to go to work. For the first time in twenty years he did not want to leave his bed.

It was embarrassment, really. Shame. He could not look Mr Jakobs in the eye and keep his face.

When he came in the next morning the shop was decorated on every inch. Not decorated for christmas because Mr Jakobs didn’t care for Jesus or his birth. But decorated for the light. For the winter darkness on a slow retreat. For the Christmas shoppers stopping by. Pausing in their hurried frenzy. On every shelf hung fairy lights and every dolls house had a christmas tree in the living room. Tiny baubles hung from the guns of tiny tanks and every bear had a bow around his neck.

Mr Jakobs was at his work when Billy entered and he did not look up. Billy, said nothing and just went about his work.

Even with the music playing the silence was deafening. Billy worked on a toy train in silence. He wrapped presents for two dozen kids bought by half a dozen mums and half a dozen dads all packed up in scarves and with a haunted, desperate look upon their faces. It was the season of celebrations and they all looked tired of it.

They came into the shop and they brought their dreariness with them. Billy could smell it in the air and he felt it too. The stress. The heaviness. The silence between him and Mr Jakobs.

Mr Jakobs would normally chat away as if he was a wind-up toy but today. Today he did not say a word.

He did not say a word. Until the very end of the evening when Billy was putting on his coat and scarf and getting ready to leave. He was leaving to see his mother, to celebrate Christmas with her tired smiles and ailing health and he would not see the shop for days.

He had one glove on and one foot out the door when Mr Jakobs stood up.

“William?” He said. The silence crashing on the floor in a million shiny pieces.

“Yes? Mr Jakobs?”

“Can you stay a little longer tonight?” He asked. And his voice seemed old all of a sudden. Old and frail and tired. "I want to teach you something. I think you know enough now”.

Billy stepped behind the counter and he sat down with Mr Jakobs.

And that was the first time Mr Jakobs allowed him to make a music box.

It’s magic, Billy says. Making music boxes. Its not just about gears and pins and tones. It’s about the love you put into it. The precision and the time. The smiles you hide inside the boxes so that they will infect the faces of children who open them.

To Mr Jakobs the building of a music box was a ritual. A rite of passage. He meticulously built every single one himself. From jewellery boxes with spinning ballerinas to complicated boxes with drums and bells hidden inside the mechanism to the tiny miniature boxes with a handle for rotating. Mr Jakobs would always have one of these hidden in the pocket of his apron. Vivaldi’s Winter or Clementime or Silent night. He would pull it out of the ears of unsuspecting children and teach them how to turn the handle. Watch their faces light up when they recognised the tune.

The whole shop was littered with them. More than anything, Mr Jakobs loved music boxes. But never before had he allowed Billy to build one.

They spent the night in the shop. The longest night of the year, the two of them sat bent over their work. Screwing screws and turning handles. Moving pegs and fixing gears, until finally. When the first morning light crept in through the windows, Billy knew how to create a music box himself. He knew the magic behind it. He knew how to summon a song and summon a smile to a face. He knew and he would never ever forget it.

It was on the first day after the holidays that things changed. The first day when Billy came back after the Christmas mayhem of dinner at his mother's place. That was the day that changed everything about the toy shop, and yet changed nothing at all.

The old gramophone was playing Vivaldi’s winter. Old Mr Jakobs was humming along. Sitting behind the counter working on a music box. His old tired hands stiffly turning the screws. Billy was painting a tea cup for a dolls house. Meticulously adding one petal after the other to tiny flowers on the tiny cup that would be held by a tiny hand of his own design.

This, in it self, was not so special. After all, the two men had been like this many afternoons before. Many more than either of them had ever bothered to count. What was different was when the music stopped. Normally. Old Mr Jakobs would get up, right away. Change the record and sit down again. But today he did not. He put down his music box. He stood up and he looked at Billy.

“William my boy. Come over here, would you?”.

Billy was not a boy anymore. Had not been one for many years. But that did not matter. Old Mr Jakobs was asking for him in his frail old voice. Gently ringing through the shop. Old Mr Jakobs was calling and he came. The same way he had done time and time again over the years.

Mr Jakobs stood there. Smiling his old, tired smile. Eyes half closed in silence as if he had half fallen asleep on his feet. His mind far away in some fairytale land Billy would never get to see.

Then. He opened his eyes and he looked at Billy.

“You’re not so young anymore”

“No, Mr Jakobs. I’m not”

“Hmm” Mr Jakobs said. Drifting into silence again. As if he had forgotten what he wanted to say. His hands fiddling with the bow on his apron. The stiff fingers trembling slightly as he undid the knot.

"I think” He said. Pausing. Thinking. “you are ready”

“Ready for what? Mr Jakobs”

“No” Mr Jakobs said. “I’m sorry.”

Pausing again. He seemed to be searching for the words.

"I meant to say”

Searching for a sentence he had put away somewhere far away in the attic of his mind

"I am ready”.

“What are you ready for. Mr. Jakobs?”

“I am ready”

Mr Jakobs lifted his apron over his head. Carefully folding it, as if he was folding a flag.

“I am ready to go”.

He handed Billy the apron and picked up the miniature music box in one hand, allowing it to play. Vivaldi’s Winter springing from the miniature in his palm. Without the apron he just looked like a man. Like a tired old man with a music box.

Billy wanted to speak but he had no words. He could feel his eyes watering. Crying, after all these years. For a moment he was the young boy again, drifting into the store with his mum by his hand.

He did not realise he had closed his eyes, but when he opened them again he was holding a music box in his right hand and an apron in his left.

The song had ended and Old Mr Jakobs. Old Mr Jakobs was gone.

He never went looking for him. Not once. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do.

He simply put on the apron and sat down to make another music box. He started with Vivaldi’s spring and he kept making them.

He kept painting tea cups and he kept putting smiles on the faces of dolls and children alike. He furnished tiny chairs for stuffed animals and tiny swords for the tiny hands of toy soldiers. He wound up toy cars to watch them roll over the counter. Time went on and he grew older.

His hands grew more wrinkly and his skin grew thinner. His fingers grew stiffer and his back got more and more bent. Every time he stood up from his chair behind the counter, the way seemed a little longer.

Day after day. Year after year. He sat at his desk working. Screwing screws in miniature music boxes. Creating symphonies and lullabies and tiny cling-clang versions of the songs from his youth. Painting flowers on tea cups and sowing buttons on sweaters for teddy bears, so they would not freeze in the winter.

While the spring crept in through the windows and settled calmly on his shelves. While the dust danced in the warm summer sun. While the leaves fell in the yard outside and the doorstep was covered with snow. While gloved hands picked up teddy bears and sun tanned arms hugged them for the first time. He sat there and he worked.

They say the toy shop has been there forever and they say he has always been in it. Of course he knows this isn’t true but by now, he is the only one who remembers.

And this is the story Billy has told me himself. I do not know how the story ends but I know the next part better than anyone. I still remember it as if it was yesterday. I still relive it in the night.

This is how it goes.

One day, Billy picks up his paintbrush and he paints a sign. He opens the door to the cold and he leaves the sign outside on the rain-wet window sill.

“Help wanted”

It is a grey November day and the air is thick with smog and misery. It is the same kind of heavy air he breathed that one fateful day so many years ago.

The sign is out there for only an hour before it is brought in from the cold November rain by a young woman with a tired face and a grey pencil skirt.

This woman works in an office. Billy doesn’t have to ask her to know. He knows this look. He knows those eyes that tired smile, the way she holds herself.

She works in an office. Something with numbers. Something with bottom lines and figures that are always too low. The same numbers day in and day out. She works in an office and she is ready to escape it now.

Billy puts down the doll he was painting and he stands up, stretching out his back. He cleans his hands on his apron and he stretches out his hand.

He smiles and he mumbles to himself the same words he heard all those years ago “yes” he mumbles. “Yes. You will do just fine”.

“I’m sorry?” the woman says, a nervous smile flitting over her face “I didn’t quite hear you there"

“Nice to meet you” Billie says taking her hand “I'm William. William Jakobs. Welcome to the toy shop”.

“Thank you” I say “Thank you very much”.

And that is how it all began for me.

Thank you for reading. If you want more. You can find more of my stories here.

This story was part of my 12 stories project. For this one I wanted to go for something fairytale like, because it’s Christmas. Maybe a little inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen stories I grew up with. But mostly inspired by one of my favourite shops here in Berlin.

You can read more about my 12 stories project here. Again. Thanks for reading. Feel free to share, comment, whatever floats your boat - it’s all appreciated.

#short story #magic realism #magic short story #fairytale #story #I wrote this #words words words #toys #toyshop

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sascerides · 6 years

Text

Autumn - A short story

Summer wakes her with a kiss. The kiss is cold like morning dew but Summer’s heart is warm. She knows this. She knows because they have danced this same dance together. Year after year after year. Longer than either of them can remember. Summer wakes her with a kiss and she opens her eyes to Summer’s face. Her red lips. Her sun-bleached hair. The wrinkles at her eyes when she laughs and takes her hand.

Summer wakes her with a kiss as the late morning sun shines through dirty windows. Coffee is brewing somewhere. The cat is still asleep. Rolled up in a ball of black fur. Soon, he will open his orange eyes and they will walk together.

Summer’s cat is ancient by now. A fat old tomcat stretching in the morning sun. She cannot tell if Summer has the same cat every year, or if she picks up a new ginger stray at every maypole. But here he is, year after year. Stretching his body and trotting after them as they walk down the street. Her own, young black cat is full of energy still. He disappears for hours catching mice and birds in the long afternoons. But he is always there, always close, following her steps wherever she goes.

Summer wakes her with a kiss and takes her hand. And for a while they walk through the city together. Summer, always barefoot, getting goosebumps in her sundress when they embrace on train platforms and while sipping coffee on park benches watching the ducks. The late summer breeze turning colder day by day.

Summer wears her hair loose and her smile bright and her kisses taste like strawberries. In her youth she is roses and sunshine and the soft, blue waves. She is the long grass swaying in the wind and the tips of the willow’s branches playing with the river. Even when she is old and tired and fading away she shines still golden with her laughter. She lounges on long afternoons rocking slowly back and forth in her yellow rocking chair as clouds move over the blue skies. Even when her face is tanned and weathered and worn and her smiles make crinkles in her skin. Even then, she still sings softly under her breath. Her voice carrying like a stream through mountains as she picks flowers for her hair. And everywhere Summer goes, so does her cat. He is slow and warm and steady. He will lick your finger and roll on his back so you can scratch his fluffy tummy. But just like Summer he will change his mind within a heartbeat and hiss at you.

Summer has a temper. She will love you and she will smile but she will shout and cry and scream. She is the thunder in the night and the clouds bursting rain upon the fields. She is the forest roaring in an August storm. She will drown you if you let her but she will always dry you again.

Summer is easy to love and she likes i that way. She is a giver and a carer and she wants to be adored, but she is not one to laugh at.

Summer wakes her with a kiss, cold as morning dew. She wakes her with a kiss and takes her hand, and for a while they dance together as the apples ripen and the wheat is harvested. As the sea caresses the beach and coats begin to colour the streets.

For a while they dance together but Summer is weary and old. Her bones are growing cold and her fingers growing stiff. She watches the sun set earlier and earlier as the days pass and one day she smiles a sad, tired smile and she lays herself down to sleep.

Summer wakes her with a kiss but soon she is alone again.

She doesn’t need a name. When people ask her she will make something up, but they seldom do. She could have called herself Autumn, Autumno, Anonna or even Phthinoporon. Here they call her Herbst but that does not matter. In other places they know her as Sügis or Fómhar or Höst. It does not matter because she has been here longer than them and she knows who she is. She does not need a name. She has many names and none and their words are only fleeting.

She prefers to go unnoticed. She dresses in browns and reds and yellows, she wears her boots with flat soles and her lips with no colour. She lets her hair grow wild, catching autumn leaves in her thick, black curls as they hug the shoulders of her coat.

Summer likes to be adored and Winter wants to be admired. Spring wants to be awaited and longed for and praised at her arrival. But her. She prefers a quiet existence.

She is books in cafes and warm drinks enjoyed outside. She is the autumn breeze running through the streets. In her youth she is fast and fierce and fearless. She is the storms ripping up ancient trees and the rain hammering on windows. But she is also the warm, golden autumn sun. Dancing across the city squares and reflecting in the painted windows of churches. She is a soft breeze in the trees and the drizzle of a quiet rain.

When she begins her work the city is a contrast of grey concrete and green trees. By the time she is done it will be dark trees and grey concrete. It will be cold winds and warm boots but that is for the one who comes after her. In her time, she is golden and she paints the city to match. She is the golden light of the sun reflecting on shop windows. She is long, warm afternoons and the people drinking coffee on street cafés saying that perhaps summer hasn’t quite left them yet. She is early nights and dark ones and she is the flowers wilting. She crowns every tree with a halo of gold and she turns the parks into a rainbow of green, gold and red. Hers is the golden hour and she stretches it to last for a month.

She wakes up young in September. Her skin is smooth and her steps are light. Her eyes are bright and her laughter is in the wings of geese flying south high above the city. In her youth she is distracted. Wandering here and there. Leaning close to Summer in the passing breeze and kissing her cheek with soft lips.

In the beginning she is slow and inconsistent. She brings a bit of cold and she brings an early night. She touches leaves when she fancies and watches them turn gold at her touch. She lets the sunflowers wither and the winds pick up. She breathes in the salt sea air and blows it out of her mouth like a storm. They watch her wind flow down the streets picking up leaves and making them dance. It makes Summer laugh and that is why she does it.

Then, Summer leaves her and she is alone. She is older and stronger and larger somehow. Her skin is thick and her hands are rough. She seizes the clouds with her fists and she turns them dark and broody. She spreads out her arms and spins around her self again and again and again whirling up a wind and sends it down the city streets. She laughs to herself when the people close their coats and huddle from the rain. She sings strong and fast and loud as her breath blows the rain against the windows and turns their umbrellas inside out. By the end, she is tired. Her hands are wrinkled and rough and her skin is thin like paper. When she sees her face in the puddles she create, she hardly knows who she is. The cat too, is growing older, greyer. He is slower somehow. Walking in her footsteps on his soft, soundless paws. She knows it is like this every year and it does not matter. Next year she will wake up again. Fresh as the morning dew with Summer by her side.

This is the way it has been for years and years without end. She does not remember the first time nor will there ever be a last. This is the way it has always been, but these days something is different.

These days Summer is briefer and angrier and dryer. She sets forests on fire and she whips up storms against the coasts. These days Winter is longer and fiercer and clings on to the land like a plague. The two are always fighting and screaming and crying. These days Spring can hardly carve out of month for herself. Spring who was always shy and timid and kind who now wakes up too early and only for her flower buds to freeze and die. These days. These past years.

Something is different.

She can taste it in the air and see it in the skies. She sees the scars of smoke the planes leave on her clear October skies. She sees the smog from cars obscuring the warm autumn sun. She sees the plastic among the leaves and the oil slushing in the waves against the cliffs. She stands on a street corner and watches the cars drive buy. The smoke from their exhaust pipes puffing out and upwards in clouds. She watches the humans with their eyes down and their headphones in. She watches them not seeing anything.

In her youth, years ago, these streets were fields. She would sweep in golden and bountiful. The skies were wide and blue and she would bless the crops with her fingertips as she passed. The people would dance and sing and drink in her honour and she would join them. She remembers dancing in barns with flowers in her hair. Her long black curls falling soft around her shoulders. Back then, things were different.

Now the people do not see. They do not care. They move in flocks and they keep their eyes down. They fight and shout and kill and cry while their planet crumbles around them. While their planet burns and drowns and freezes over, they walk on. She stands there. Silently watching as night falls and sun rises. She stands. Clenched fists and tired eyes and she feels the anger growing inside her. It whirls around her like a hurricane. At first, it is only on the inside. Then, it starts picking up leaves. She forgets herself and let’s it spread. Wind howling around her. Clouds gathering over her head dark and thick and angry. Rain falling hard on her shoulders and her hair. The cat hisses and hides under her coat, his fur already wet with rain. Her anger so hot and busy she does not care that people are turning to look. Ripping their gazes from their phones to watch at she gathers a storm around her.

“Let them watch” she thinks. “Let them see my anger”. “Let them feel my rage” she mutters under her breath as she sends a whirlwind down the street, letting the clouds grow and rise until they embrace the whole city. Perhaps this will wake them up.

Her rage is swift and sudden. It sweeps over the city and she has no mercy left in her now. The trains stop running and the busses stand still on the roads. The people hurry from their offices and into their homes. She rips up trees in the parks and hurls them on the ground. She pushes over fences and signs and she sends them flying down the street. She darkens the skies and turns the roads into rivers.

She watches an umbrella being torn from the hands of a man in a suit. He puts his briefcase over his head and runs. Hiding from the rain and the storm. Hiding from her rage. She hears herself laughing as his umbrella tumbles down the street.

Perhaps this will remind him of how it used to be. Perhaps tonight he will tell his children how autumn used to be different. How she used to be kind and warm and generous. Perhaps. Perhaps he will remember she thinks. But humans forget things so easily.

The rain is hammering on the windows of shops and on the roofs of cars. She is standing there soaked to the bone in her anger and she feels the energy seeping out of her. She wakes up young in September and her skin is smooth and her laughter is warm. Now, she has no laughter left in her. Now she is tired and old and she feels the first frost biting at her bones.

She sighs and the rain is but a drizzle, running down the street. The storm is clinging to the air but it is quieter now. Perhaps the people will see. Perhaps they will remember. She does not know and by now she is too tired to care. Perhaps there is nothing she can do to make them see.

Afterwards the rumours will talk of how the storm started. Of how some people say they saw an old lady with an angry cat. Standing at a crossroads with her arms raised and anger written in her face. With wild eyes and fire in her veins. Some will say she summoned a storm and some will say she calmed it down. Some will have watched her stand there for days and know that she did both. But they will not understand. Some will say they watched her grow older as the storm passed over her heard. That they watched her eyes grow tired and her back bend. That they watch the energy flow out of her as the rain flowed down the streets.

Afterwards, people will say that this was the night winter arrived and they are not wrong.

When she wakes from her rage the sun is creeping over the horizon in a frozen mist. The world is bleak in this morning. Covered in frost. Pale and timid and hushed. Shivering under the cars and the hurried boot prints of dawn as she walks through the streets. She can smell the first snow in the air and she knows that she is close.

She walks slowly down the streets, as the last leaves let go of their branches. Her knees ache and her feet are cold. Her skin wrinkles and her fingers are stiff when she pulls on her gloves. She knows it is time.

She is close.

And then, she turns around a corner and she sees her standing there. Leaning against the wall of an alleyway. With her long, white coat and her black army boots, smoking a cigarette with her eyes to the sky. Her white Persian cat lounging over her shoulder like a collar. The first snow flakes melting in its fur. She is all youth and defiance now and she is happy to see her.

Winter embraces her, bends down and kisses her forehead, then her lips. They lock eyes and she knows she did her turn.

She can rest now.

Thank you for reading. If you want more. You can find more of my stories here.

This story was part of my 12 stories project and for this one I wanted to try something a little different. I tried to give this more of a feel of mythology or legend than my usual stories. Which is also why this doesn’t have any dialogue or a plot like I’d usually do. Hope it worked ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

You can read more about my 12 stories project here. Again. Thanks for reading. Feel free to share, comment, whatever floats your boat - it’s all appreciated.

Also. Fun Fact. This story was more or less entirely inspired by this picture of a cat.

#short story #autumn #magic short story #gay stories #story #words words words #I wrote this

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