Endings
Dorothy Parker’s view on her own end was the perfect mixture of mordant and pithy– “Excuse my dust.” In life, we experience many ends before the ultimate one–the end of a friendship, the end of the line, the end of our parents, lovers and pets. In this issue, our writers tackle them all. The End.
Fledgling
Word Count 701
One morning in late Spring, as we were rushing back from a walk, Sugar Magnolia spotted a small Blue Jay flailing on the gravel driveway. She didn't strain the leash, as she might have with a squirrel or cat, but instead she stood still; complete attention. Ears raised and eyes serious, she repeatedly looked at the bird and back at me; What are you going to do?
Surely, I thought, it will be okay. I have no idea how to help a bird. And it was already time to log on for my Zoom meditation group, "Put your Tush on the Cush.” I pulled Maggie inside.
Place your mind on the breath. Notice when it departs. Gently re-place it.
The little blue bundle of feathers kept pulling me off my breath. What am I supposed to do?
The Himbim from Nimbim
Word Count 1545
Last spring, one large koi, and one fascinating man vanished. Flash had lit up my woodland pond for nine years. The man, Michael Malone, was a pass-along from the London Review of Books personals, an Australian, who months after the fact, responded to my friend Kathy’s ad. She was otherwise involved, so she forwarded him my information. I was alone in the country, recovering from a broken heart. It was winter, and the pond was frozen.Each year, in the late autumn, I transfer the koi I have bought in the spring from my small pond by the house to my large pond in the woods. Koi are a Japanese carp, with an infinite variety of color, pattern and scalation. They can live up to one hundred years and grow as long as three or four feet.
A Place In The Sun
Word Count 1124
When Lily was just a few months old, I was splitting up with my boyfriend. I was lost in my late thirties. My boyfriend had determination, vision, discipline, and a five-year plan. He used the words “productive” and “time-management” to describe his daily schedule.
I did not understand those words. I had no plans, no vision. Only a small puppy. One day we were sitting in the kitchen of my apartment, re-hashing our differences. David practiced three hours every morning, on his way to a shining career as a pianist. My piano was neglected in the living room. He saw life as a progression of steps towards a clear set of goals, and I saw nothing clearly.
Farewell, Michael
Word Count 960
I felt Michael again in the middle of my chest, like lead, there next to my heart. It was something like grief, like regret, like unfinished sentences. Trapped words that needed air. He died next to a younger woman he didn’t love, a woman with black stringy hair, a parsimonious woman who had claimed him, who had in effect owned him. He died in his sleep in a house on the Cape built with her money. I can’t remember her name. It was a stingy name. He was my first love, first orgasm, first husband, first alcoholic. His love cradled me, corrupted me, ignited me before I panicked. It was to
Tefillin
Word Count 1690
The first time I touched my future husband’s tefillin, I thought they were sex toys. I was helping him pack up his apartment for a move to a house in Los Angeles we would both share when I discovered them. Pressed up against a stack of Hebrew prayer books was a small velvet pouch. Inside were long brown leather straps, tightly coiled and cracking with age, a small, mysterious red box on each end. I thought I had possibly uncovered my future mate’s kinky side, and this both confused and delighted me. So I called out to him, brandishing the straps over my head. “Well, look what I found!” He seemed lost when he saw what I was holding. “Oh, those,” he sighed. “Those are tefillin from my bar mitzvah. You put them on this way.”
Death By Thesaurus
Word Count 1189
My day began as many do, with a writing prompt: Describe the last creature you killed.
Unless we’re a stockyard worker, a hunter or fisherman, or a euthanistic veterinarian, perhaps the only thing some of us ever kill is a bug. Or a garden slug. Or the occasional gut-twisting road kill, the Darwinian squirrel who ran toward our car rather than away.
The bug who crossed my path was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the moment, I couldn’t understand why I killed him. (How do I know it was a him?)
Is This Marriage Fixable?
Word Count 1783
From the backlit door frame, my husband hollered into the dark bedroom, “The car’s gone.”
“What do you mean?” I was half-awake now, my brain still spongy from the extra glass of wine I had several hours ago.
“The car. It’s not in the driveway. Did you go out last night and leave it somewhere?”
I sat up and threw off the covers. I had three glasses of wine last night, not 30. And in all the 38 years we’ve been married, I’ve never left the house in the middle of the night, much less left my car somewhere I didn’t remember.
Ever Since
Word Count 144
Ever since your father died, you’ve had trouble explaining how it happened to people. He had an accident, you said at first. But then people asked if it was a car accident, and you had to back up and try again. He was electrocuted, you learned to say next, but then, people’s faces fell so quickly you wished you hadn’t said anything at all.
You still haven’t settled on a response, 16 years later.
Pumpkins is Dead
Word Count 1604
That January afternoon, my two daughters and I tumbled into the house, fumbling with backpacks and a violin case, and winter coats, when we spotted Pumpkins, our orange-and-white cat of nearly a decade, lying on a step, then pulling himself toward us using only his front legs.
The sound of his full weight hitting each stair chilled me.
I scooped him up and set him on the hardwood floor, watching as he stayed completely still. “Get the treats,” I told my 13 year old. But when she shook the bag – a noise that had always set him running – he didn’t budge.
The Noguchi is Sold
Word Count 770
When my mother moved into a nursing home in 1995, I had to make all the decisions about my parents’ treasured possessions. Finally, all that remained was their small art collection. After keeping the few pieces I liked, I sold all but one.
I didn’t have the heart to sell my father’s treasure, a small black slate sculpture by the Japanese artist Isamu Noguchi which had been sitting in a drawer under my bed for years, wrapped in yellowed pages from an old New York Times
My father and Noguchi became friends in the 1940’s when my father worked for an advertising agency creating ads for a furniture company’s most popular piece, a curved glass and wood table designed by the young Noguchi.
What Did Love Have To Do With It?
Word Count 624
You never did meet my parents, even after we got married. The introductions were planned – I wanted them to meet the man I was in love with. Living with, although I didn’t talk with my parents openly about that. I was happy, and I wanted to share my joy with them.
I had bought the tickets. We'd leave early Saturday morning, catch the subway down to Penn Station, and take Amtrak to D.C. Then we’d ride the Red Line to Friendship Heights, and my parents would pick us up in front of Hecht’s, the way they always did when I visited. We would stay only one night.
The Death of a Marriage
Word Count 1065
Me: Have you always lied to me?
Me: 5 days ago I believed that you loved me and that I could trust you, now I just want to know if you think about me at all?
No response.
Me: And when were you planning on telling me about your latest plaything? I feel like a complete idiot. How do you lie like that and live with yourself?
Him: My ability to compartmentalize, while efficient for business, is a little sketchy when it comes to my personal life. Lying like that and living with myself is easy when I put things in their own boxes since I don’t feel the emotion or guilt around it.
Me: Sketchy? Who are you?
Falling Down The Robert Hole
Word Count 1180
It almost didn't end. I was expecting another boy when Robert turned up, after the Fresher Meat Parade. 'Girl college virgins meet boys' next door college' was a coy social event which Robert gazumped by cheating his friend to get the girl...
Robert was too tall for anyone's good. With red hair and a snort giggle, he stood out. How could I not spend the next year convulsed with him? He played tennis like a lazy McEnroe, and in the holidays Harold, Robert and I watched McEnroe bounce balls endlessly in a dark room. Robert and Harold were twins, their father was an astronomer, a famous boffin. Robert had painted his bedroom ceiling dark blue, with stars. Their cat was called Rigel. His mother was condescending. I was uncomfortable in their home, but I was used to that, I was uncomfortable anywhere. I ate them up.
Last Week
Word Count 507
Sunday
It’s almost mundane. Him slicing mushrooms, weeping over diced onions, the sizzle of a cast iron pan. The pan he’ll soon pack in a box labeled COOKWARE. We’ll share this frittata, but he’s leaving.
He is leaving.
Monday
We’ve always been nice to each other, but now we’re reverential. No chore goes unappreciated, no meal unpraised. We don’t complain. It’s pointless to want change for a vanishing future.
Ransacked
Word Count 92
I don’t want to remember how crazy you were.
How when I wouldn’t take you back
You broke into my Woodstock country house
and smashed every gift you ever bought me.
The Mark of ‘Z’
Word Count 521
When your last name begins with the letter ‘Z’, you get used to being at the end. It all starts in elementary school where you are always at the end of the line. Eventually, I began to think of myself as something last, something less, an afterthought, the dregs.
There are serious real-life consequences to being pereptually last. Take, for example, high school graduation. Each student is summoned to the stage in alphabetical order to receive their diploma, but by the time they get to the W’s, the audience is very weary. Enthusiasm, truth be told, begins to wane after the letter N. By the time the program gets around to the W’s, there’s hardly anyone left in the room to clap because they’ve all left the auditorium.