Came The Wind

The golden, brittle leaf brushed over the top of her shoe, resting  in mid air for a moment. Another gust blew, picking up the leaf and spiraling it away, under a sky filled with darkened clouds. Alice shivered in her coat, the hem overlapping her knee high skirt. She bunched the top together, clutching it closed, having already pulled up the collar. She stared down at the marble and stone work that lay around her, the past staring back up at her. More leaves blew past her and the others, milling around for a moment, then taking off to skitter across the grounds.

The side comments seemed endless to Alice. A few suffered in silence, getting hugged, heads leaning against shoulders for support, comfort. Alice drifted from one group to another, paying attention to the tone of the voices more than the actual words. The elder set, the few who could barely walk, stayed by the cars. They huddled near the aunt who always needed to be the center of attention, her husky voice talking about anything but what lay before them. A few tears, clutched tissues, and a dreary day filled them all.

The service done, the discussions turned to who was following whom, where they were going, who had to leave. Hugs and kisses were passed around, and the car doors opened, and then closed. One by one, the cars pulled away.

Alice looked on. As the last car left, a vortex of leaves swirled together in the spot left vacant, a mini tornado of golds and oranges and browns. Alice turned to watch the receding tail lights pass through the gates.

The leaves dropped to the ground.

Papers of Pain

Amidst the debris of clutter, among the years of things piled upon, chaotic shoving in of spaces, of things of little to no importance due to the distance of time, papers of pain were uncovered. A history unfolded in short passages, messages, of people passed on, most forgotten or unknown to the one riffling through the quagmire of emotions that the refuse brings.

Losing one’s parents is hard enough; uncovering aspects of them that you only thought you knew becomes the harder part to take in.

“Please forgive me…” began way too many letters, or messages in holiday/birthday cards, found among the leavings. Reading what he did was painful enough, so Bill only skimmed along, tossing, tossing, tossing…keeping a short pile that he knew he would confront at another time. Not now, not so soon, and maybe…maybe never.  Private thoughts that now are laid bare, never for his eyes in the first place. He thought: Do I have the right/need to know any of this?

Short words of “Love,…,” saying so little, punctuated by messages that left messages of hope and caring, of hurt, pain, and an end to suffering. Is that how they lived for so long, Bill thought, even as he knew the answer. He hoped to escape the yelling, the push and pull games, the neediness from such a young age, and he ran out as fast as he could when he was younger. He knew, though, he could not just abandon, for their world crashed down upon them, and with that crashing he became one of the broken pieces, held together with glue and tape, shattered enough, strong enough. At times.

And then…then, buried snatches of the other. There were the messages of love he now found. They were concealed among the many non-meaning platitudes. They were not long, snippets only, words of caring, of hope, of praise, of cleansing. Bill read these, everyone of them, in full, sometimes again and again. He weighed these few against the pile of pain, and while his own heart was heavy, his chest tight, his stomach roiling…he weighed the messages of love against those of suffering.

Shaking his head to clear the conflict inside, Bill put them all together in one bag, sealing it for now. They could lay still and silent, or battle amongst themselves in the bag.  He held his parents in his hands, their words, their wounds,  and their care and concern for each other. It was one weight, one mass, and he felt it was equal, balanced enough, as he carried it away with him.

Five a.m.

It’s five a.m.

Again,

and an instant awake.

Jumbled overlays of THINGS

Spill across the mind at whirlwind speeds

Heart begins to race

Stomach heaves

Focus, focus, focus…

and that just doesn’t happen

So you pop another one

first daily dose…

try to close your eyes

your mind

your racing heart

and that just doesn’t happen.

The darkness surrounds you

Is inside

deep inside

and it feels like there is no where to go.

Smiling Woman

She could no longer hear no evil

She could no longer see no evil

But speak evil…

Oh, yes…she could.

With her razor sharp tongue

And smug, upturned nose;

With bent spine, clawed hands jagged and rough

Her mouth could still speak the hurtful:

Kindness…not in her vocabulary.

Her taunts, her chides, her demeaning sneering snarls

Oh, they bit, they bite, they take chunks out of you!

There is no chance that she’ll see how she wounds

How it effects those in her path

No chance she’ll hear, or listen to, the “please…no more!”

Hers is a voice without pity, speaking evil…

Her cheeks bloom, rosy, when she finally smiles.

 

 

Imprint of a Bad Dream

Three a.m., and Rachel woke suddenly, feeling as if an arm had withdrawn, a body, light,  pressed against her. Her heart pounding, Rachel turned away from the wall and searched the darkness. She should be alone, had been alone, for a long time now. No arms draped around her, no heat generating body snuggled in such a familiar way, no touch, no caress, nothing. Laying on her back, the clock light the only illumination in the room, the only sounds the passing of a car, then others…Rachel was aware of being the sole occupant in her bed.

Why, then, did she still feel like she’s still being held?

Tossing and turning, the night crawls by. Her pulse rate takes its time in returning to a relative state of normal, chest finally relaxing where she no longer feels like her rib cage would expand to bursting. Sleep comes, but is interrupted often by a quick wake up, startled, flipping over, wrapping her sheet around her, kicking off the blanket, putting the blanket back on. Three and a half hours pass this way.

Rachel slams the alarm button, and the clattering noise stops and leaves her hearing her own ragged, panting breath. The left eye hurts, the right one not much better. She rubs them with the palms of her hands, and they tear when she blinks them open again. Massaging her temples, Rachel puts her feet in her slippers and gets up off the bed. It takes a second to balance herself.

Her morning rituals go without a hitch. Rachel is on auto-pilot, showering, dressing and completing all her needs in the correct order, as she’s done for so many years, and while this stabilizes her, at the back of her mind she can not get over the feeling of the arm, the hand, the fingers splayed upon her back. “A dream” she says to herself. “A nightmare.” Shrugging it off, Rachel leaves to, as she sees it, truly begin her day.

It is one disaster after another. Stress piled on top of anxiety on top of belittlement, with a dash of confusion, worry and angst blended in to the mix. The car that cuts her off; the boss reaming her out; the phone call not returned; the splatter of grease from her lunch on her suit; the call that interrupts; her mother; the co-worker; the bill that she thought she paid; the smile not returned; the feeling that she still has not shaken off the nightmare grope, what it meant, why it still is touching her.

She feels as if she carries around an imprint of the appendage from the night, that it is affecting her day by rippling out to those around her. Rachel sees a grasping, a clutching that cuts off anything from running smoothly, the same old same old to the unexpected. It tightens and pulls, runs strangle holds over thought processes, thumps speeds bumps into her path. She was physically exhausted from lack of sleep already; Rachel felt, by end of her work day, completely beaten up, drained of energy, worn out, worthless.

Her briefcase, shoes, stained suit, shirt, stockings, bra and panties are scattered from the front door of her apartment to the bathroom. That was not like the normal Rachel, the put together Rachel, the almost OCD Rachel, the orderly, neat and clean obsessed Rachel. That Rachel had a phantom arm around her throat, constricting her every movement.

The shower head pumps out steaming hot water, the mirror fogs up in seconds. Soon her white skin is pink, turning to red, and it gets to the point where she almost screams that she feels the limb dissolve, melting away in the heat, running down the drain with the too hot water. Rachel presses herself against the tiles, cold on her back, fiery blast assaulting her front. Closing her eyes, she stands there until the pain finally reaches her, and she stumbles to turn off the left faucet, letting icy water race down her torso, genitalia  and legs.

Eleven p.m., and Rachel has finally made her way to her bed. Before this it was  mindless TV watching on the couch, huddled in her pj’s and terry cloth robe, nursing a beer along the way while she downed a few shots of Tequila. Her normal to bed time went by an hour ago, and she knew she could not put it off any longer. Two days of little to no sleep would do her no good, nor would two days in a row of being batted around by others, and herself.

Lying on her back, eyes wide open, Rachel checked the darkness, looking for any sign of movement. Nothing. She closed her eyes, re-shifted, opened her eyes, tried to focus, closed them, shifted again, and again, pulled the top sheet and cover up to her neck, swaddled her feet, curved into a semi fetal position, and finally…finally….finally…

Three a.m., and it was more careful this time, not wanting to wake her, to distress her, to cause her any pain. It floated its caress around her,  a diaphanous embrace of the night.

Wind, Over Dirt

Feet are planted on the sodden earth. The milling around, jockeying for positions, too close, not far enough, has ended. Heads are bowed, hands are clasped or reach out to touch another. All are quiet, now, but that silence is shaken by the wind that picks up speed, sending hair and head coverings aloft. A multitude of hands pat things back in place, murmurings of comments are made and subside, back to the quiet of the morning.

The cantor speaks, and there spills out an evocation of the life they have all come to honor. There are drawn faces, lowered eyes, huddled bodies, all straining in listening to the words that belay what has been lost. And tears…there are tears, wiped up with crumpled tissues, or left to drip down, from eye to cheek, cheek to chin, chin to hang there, until they fall on the ground.

It is not the only moisture falling. Rain, which had passed by earlier, returns. A few drops  splatter down on the mourners, or miss,  taken by the grass. The drops from the sky turn to a drizzle; from drizzle, to a steady stream. Umbrellas are handed out by the cemetery man. Not everyone takes one. The cantor is protected, as is the widow and one of her children. The son lets the proceeding be, rain or shine, standing alone.

The prayers are done. The dirt is placed on the casket, shovel by shovel full. The ceremony is complete.

Hugs are given, sorrowed words are spoken, and all disperse back to their lives, away from the newly packed ground.

A to Z: The Complete Swan Rise Series

Open House: Trespassers Welcome

Swan Rise Apartments went out like an exploding lamb; it came in like a sleeping lion… but the building, and its inhabitants, did not always remain so. They lived lives that were hungry, playful, sleepy, lusty, fearful, agitated and on the prowl; they reared their young, and did what they needed to survive in this vertical village.

Welcome to… Swan Rise Apartments

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…and so, the story unfolds. 26 interlocking stories set in the world of Swan Rise Apartments, all written for the A to Z Challenge that ran throughout April 2012.

You’ll find links to all the stories below; each one stands alone, but many have roots and connections in other chapters.  As a whole, it tells a story of the lives that swirl around apartment building life.

Each Sunday, I’ll re-post these links in case you missed any and for your ease in finding them.

The stories will remain up only for the month of May. As of June 1st, I will be taking all of the stories down from Tale Spinning so I can work on a larger second draft of the work. Some of the earlier pieces need fleshing out, and discoveries I made along the way need their roots dug deeply in the beginnings.

May 30th will be your last chance to read, and comment, on these stories. Hopefully, you’ll eventually hold an expanded version in your hands.

Comments are always welcome no matter when you read the story.

Week #1: A to G

All, Tumbling Down

Basement Boogie

Children in the Hall

Doggie Doings

Equivocation Elite

Fire(escape)

Ground, Breaking

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Week #2: H to M

Holidays, Haunts and Hearts

Imaginings of Love

Jung, @Heart

Kindred Spheres

Laundry Room Mafia

Mrs. Beatty

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Week #3: N to S

Not What They Seem

One Man’s Ceiling…

Pollination in the Parking Lot

Quack, Quack

Retraction of Gravity

Super, My Super

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Week #4: T to Z

Thieving Ways

Underneath It All

Vertically Challenged

Weather Man, Oh

Xanthippe

Yeah…Life Goes On…

Zenith: Arising

Impressions of Perfect Fifths

Marc Chagall

His hands played along the surface of the violin, tracing the patterns worn into the wood. Slight depressions,  imprintings of someone’s fingering, their palm, chin, sweat. Empty of catgut, Avram, the luthier, caressed and stroked the violin that was given unto his care for restoration. He closed his eyes, held the violin to his nose, and breathed in its history.

The drawing of the horsehair bow that had slid along the strings left intermittent grooves in the wood. They showed where a well loved piece was played,  how the violinist drew against the grain of the violin itself. Clumsy or a style, it was all the same to Avram: this was a well loved instrument, that was apparent, and it would become one again.

He noticed the nicks, the dimples in the varnish, the grain of the wood, the stains not readily perceived, but there. There was a very slight crack near the base of the right F-hole, the chinrest needing to be replaced, a refastening of the tailpiece and scroll. Sitting on his wooden stool, Avram kept the violin out of direct sunlight, a strain for his eyes but a blessing for the instrument.

The tuning pegs were worn down, without sheen. Avram could tell that the strings had been replaced, often, their lifespan given to the music: either no longer playing true, losing the desired tone, or snapping in the frenzy of the player.  That did not matter to Avram. He would eventually make a new marriage, adding the G first, then the D, followed by the A and E. He would attach them at the base, up the bridge, along the neck and finally connect them all to the pegbox. All would then be tuned, in harmony, restored.

This though, was still a ways to come. All in due time…

Eventually, time for music to be lifted out and carried, vibrating its musical message to others. Time for this violin to find new hands, a new lover, to be held towards and against the player, to communicate and be in tune once again.

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Author’s Note:

I was given a newspaper article by my SO about Violins of Hope, a project of restored violins that had a history of pain: they came from musicians who “experienced” the horrors of the Holocaust. There was a concert in Charlotte, NC in April 2012. The violins are now back in Israel.

This immediately got my writing gears in motion: I have plotted out titles of chapters, an outline, for what I will be working on next. I plan to get a first draft done of all this while it is still “hot” for me; then, in June, I’ll put this aside and start working on the second draft of the Swan Rise stories.

This was just to whet your whistle. I will NOT be posting any of my Violin stories on Tale Spinning after this: I want it to be marketable for an agent/publisher, if worthy. I WILL be looking for readers along the way, to form a small core group, maybe our own writers group, so if you’re interested, please EMAIL me (please don’t post it here: my email can be located on the right sidebar).

As to Tale Spinning: I’ll be dropping some pieces here and there throughout May, as the story comes to me or I find a fun prompt that inspires. Please check out my backlog of past pieces; there is a lot here, and if you’re new, well…then they’ll be new to you as well.

Remember: comments are always welcome.

Imaginings of Love (The #AtoZChallenge)

Welcome to the A to Z Challenge during the month of April

Welcome to… The Apartment Building

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Frank lived a quiet life in a quiet space on the third floor. His Studio apartment was sparse,  in its decor and in personal belongings. He lived alone, never had a visitor in the three years he lived here (except the Super to fix something that Frank couldn’t; or the delivery people, who only appeared at his doorway,  dropping off the Italian, Chinese or diner fare he ordered regularly). Frank left the building quietly, head bowed, and returned the same way. He never made eye contact, and if he ever found himself in the elevator with others he’d nod his head in Hello the very rare times someone ventured to say the actual word to him.

Frank did not want much, ask for  much, need much…or so he would say, if anyone asked him.

No one ever asked him.

If anyone had ever taken the time to notice, and if he had been open and honest with himself, Frank indeed wanted so much it the want poured out of him in seeping waves. His needs were vast, but they were shuttered away deep inside. He was the epitome of an introvert, afraid of any interaction that could go wrong, so he hid from them all. In so hiding, he became what he actually feared: being invisible.

Frank longed to be loved, in love, loving someone so completely his life would metamorphosis into anyone other than himself.  He noticed the couples and the single women in the building, the few times they crossed paths. He’d hear some leave through the rear entrance,where his one window faced, and he’d sometimes watch.

One woman caught his attention when he first moved in. She would walk her dog, using the back door to leave and enter the building. Her voice was light as she called to her Pooh, laughed and sang. Occasionally she’d walk out hand in hand with someone else, but the same guy never lasted too long, or with a girl friend or three, taking their time. Frank noticed her in all of her changing styles, her changing with the seasons. The dog had since died, and Frank did not see her that often now.

Frank did know her name, Meredith, since others had called out to her. He did not like the shortened form Merry, used more often than not. Meredith suited her, in his opinion, much better. More elegant, a grander stature. He liked the way it rolled off his tongue when he said it out loud.

“Meredith.”

When he sat down for any meal, he imagined Meredith sitting down with him. They shared meals, coffee, cookies, and discuss events of their days. Walking through the hallways, taking out the trash, doing his laundry (only when the laundry room mafia were done for the day), going to bed, rising…all were done with Meredith in mind. Frank imagined how his life would be, if he only had the nerve to actually talk to her.

He knew about Pooh’s passing by overhearing a conversation Meredith had in the elevator. It had been almost a month since he had seen her, and he then understood why. She had no real reason to use the back doorway. Frank almost said something to her then, but the elevator door opened and she was too soon gone.

So, Frank imagined love, in his studio apartment, a quiet life, living in a quiet space, on the third floor.

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Merry caught the weird guy from the third floor eavesdropping on her conversation. Everyone in the building hush talked about him, and while she noticed him from time to time, he was just one of those few in the building who were just plain…weird.

She couldn’t wait for the elevator door to open so she could get out.

Sonnet: Wishing You

Wishing you were here does not make it so;

Extraordinary surprise, waiting

Holding onto unsaid words; what I know

Creates an inner need that needs sating.

Wishing you felt so exactly the same

Craving what has not been inside so long

It is unfair to you to force equal, no blame

Should rest on one whose spirit is so strong.

But, wishing all that I wish for can drive

A chasm that could not be crossed inside

Ceasing feelings that would die, not so thrive

Pulls me inward, keeping silent; I hide.

Oh, wishing you felt like I truly do

Wishing I  the nerve to say I love you.