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FOUR WALLS
by: Lisa Harrison
"I want you to know."
His voice was
strong, as it always was - thick and deep, vibrating in his chest as he forced the words out.
"I want you
to know I love you."
"Yes."
I knew it. Didn't know it. Did it matter?
"I
want you to know," he repeated.
His hand - thick, like his voice, calloused but strangely smooth, the nails
yellowed and a shade too long - groped for his coffee cup. Once found, he did not lift it to his lips, instead gently stroked
the protruding handle. His gaze held mine steadily over the gulf of the kitchen table.
His eyes fascinated me. Alive,
but not. Blue, ordinary but for the pale pink tracery in the corner of the left one - one large spot like a stab from a child's
red marker. I tried not to stare the spot, not sure if he would know I was staring or only believe that I looked him in the
eye. Not sure he could even see me anyway. Perhaps I was no more than a hazy, grainy blob in the dusky light spilling through
the yellow mini-blinds - a dark, ghostly shape in place of the empty air which usually graced his table.
"I
love you," he said again.
"Yes."
THE END
Flashing Z
You enter a room without walls. Gathered inside is a large group of people, their faces indistinct,
their bodies a thick white vapor moving in slow motion from one to another. You sense a heightened expectancy - a subtle but
captivating energy. It hums through your senses and warms your blood. Electric excitement tingles through your limbs.
Then you realize you are only stoned. The people in this room are not people at all. They are names without audible
voices. You are not in an actual room; the heightened sense of expectant energy is only an illusion. It is borne of your own
dreams and hopes and has nothing at all to do with them.
"How can they be so stupid, TJ? Nobody gets
it. Nobody! Oh... Wait. This guy sort of got it. He said it was 'interesting'."
"Ego stroking."
"What?"
"Ego stroking. You know, they try to tell you how brilliant you are in the hope
you'll review their story and give it all tens."
"Who does that?"
"Everybody."
"Youre lying, TJ. Not everybody does that. I don't."
TJ shrugs. She tilts her head to the
side. Long brown hair falls like a silken bed-sheet over her shoulder. She stands up, stretches, takes a puff from her cigarette
then stubs it out in the crystal ashtray.
"Believe what you want, but I'm telling you, it's true. I've been
here a long time. I know."
"You're always here. You never leave."
TJ smiles a grim, self-deprecating
smile. "Some of us can't," she says. She turns and enters the long, twisting hallway.
"Some of
us," she calls back over her shoulder, "get lost."
"Well, I'll never be lost."
You are talking to no one. Which is a good thing, because no one is listening.
The walls are undulating.
Up and down. Back and forth. Swirling like a child in a fun-house mirror. The loud hum of conversation whirrs through your
head like the buzzing of bees.
"Too many metaphors."
"What?" You whirl around and
try to catch him, but he's too fast. His form dissipates. His name glows in little red letters, hovers in the air, then fades
away.
"The characters seem a little wooden."
"Purple prose..."
Someone
bumps your shoulder. You reach up, rub it absently. "Whatever," you mutter. "I'll never be lost. That's the
thing that matters."
"Distractions, TJ. That's all they are. How can I be a writer if I don't write?
And posts in your private room, or on the public board don't count."
"They count more than your stories.
Everybody reads the posts, cause they're short. Who has time for a long-ass story anymore?"
"That's what
I mean. They don't have time, because there are too many distractions."
"Write flash, then. Everybody
reads the flashes. They're the closest thing to a post, but usually with a little more depth."
"Usually?"
"Most of the time. Some of the writers are really good at it. It's a new kind of art form. I think it's pretty
cool."
"Yeah, but even if people will read it, can you get them to review it? That's the thing."
"Oh, everybody will review it, 'cause it's a quick way to get their own story up - which is usually about
seven thousand words or so. They'll give you the standard flash review."
"Which is?"
"Make it longer, what else?"
by: Lisa Harrison
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