For this post, two short pieces: the first one I see as part of something much longer. I'm sure every writer has an inkling to write a post apocalyptic piece of some sort at some point, here's mine. Or maybe it's just me.
The other one is a snipit and that's all I will do with it. I'll probably tweak the end at some point because currently, it is pretty weak.
**
(No title yet)
She visits him from time to time. Less so now, now that there's been so much to do with the paper. People like the stories, even if they aren't true, and she's written about all of the memories of the really lucid, good things she's seen people do, wonderful things she'd experienced. Like the time when she came home from a shitty day- bad haircut, delayed packages, coffee spill, and finally, her boss’s mistaken wrath at her (but Veronica wasn’t the type to apologize and only says "oh" when she realizes she'd received the report weeks ago but had accidentally archived the email), and there he is, waiting for her at home, with his delicious signature ratatouille. She's even been using cheesy platitudes and fragments of stories to make new ones- anything to satisfy their (and her own) ravenous need for more good news. Like that ballet company where everyone shaved their heads when one of their own was balding from chemo- or was it a football team- no soccer -no, maybe it never happened.
She used to go regularly. They'd sit her down alone in a room with one of the machines, and she'd strap herself in. It always amazed her how much detail she’d absorbed. There were even a few times when she missed how things were so badly that she didn't even focus on the memories, just the details everywhere. Like what her library looked like- messy but ordered. Books roughly grouped by how much she liked to read them. For a while, she noticed that she would put her favorites all the way on the top shelf so that she'd quit reading them, but it didn't work. She'd just keep going all the way to the basement to get that step stool, the one that always wobbled.
There were also the sounds. Like how there were still so many animals around. She used to hate bugs until they all disappeared. When she was feeling particularly nostalgic, she'd go back to summers long ago at the Lake, camping with her family. She'd hear Jen crying and her own squeaky voice complaining about the itchy rashes, but that would all be in the background because she'd be focused on the mosquitoes buzzing and how LOUD (croaking, chirping, chirping) summer nights could be.
In the end, though, she'd always go back to that same memory. It's not a particularly special one but it's the last time they see each other. She'd like to think that he and everyone else were still out there, doing the same thing she was, going to the picture houses to remember, but it gets more and more doubtful each time someone new appears at the Haven. They're fewer and fewer new ones arriving (the last one was months ago), and the ones that do almost never make it.
She knows the words exactly, and sometimes she says them, but most of the time, she's thinking of what it would have been like if she'd stayed or if he'd decided to come along. The earlier never goes longer than a few days of them two and her closet circle (Antonia, Benj, and Scottie), all huddled in Antonia’s crowded apartment around her ridiculous radio from the 1920s after her slick, 82-inch plasma TV stops working.
She stops going because she needs to be happy, and, she thinks, feverently, because she’s the one in charge of the stories so she has to stay happy, positive, and hopeful. And it's not that the memories make her sad- it's that they remind her of the reality that they’ll never be able to make new ones.
**
Unnamed
It’s been years since I’ve taken that class, and I’m not sure why I suddenly think of him now. He got famous- peaked some say, a few years back when he came out with his back to back to back best-selling, prize-winning novels. I’d like to think I had some hand in it, provided some sort of inspiration, because he published his first book the year after our class and then disappeared on sabbatical to read and write.
But I doubt I did. I doubt any of us, his students, really did. We, ultimately, were all privileged despite however humble we thought our beginnings. His characters were tough, uncouth. They were in gangs, they lived on the streets, they did hard drugs, they stole, they dealt- they were faced with terrible choices everyday. They were the characters I’d watch in gritty movies like City of God which I only watched because it’s well known and supposed to be good, not because it’s the sort of movie I’d enjoy. Even in my imagination, in the darkest depths of despair, I could not conjure up what he conjured. When I wrote about gangs, I hid them in the future so that beneath all the slick sci-fi elements, they wouldn’t quite be so real or rough-edged.
I see him later in an online interview from PBS. He’s grown plumper and softened- just slightly. It’s odd how quickly the details come back. I still remember what year he was born in. I still remember how he’d show up in gray sweats. I remember the energy he had, I wonder if he remembers. Today, he is promoting his newest book- it’s a nonfiction novel. A modern history of Argentina, where he grew up. He still pulls me in; he’s engaging, enthusiastic, intelligent. He reads okay, not as well as I’d thought he’d read. I suppose he’s trying to do the character’s accent but it comes out uneven and slightly unnatural.
It’s a scene that I’ve played out in my mind again and again. On the last day of class, I’d pack my bag a bit slower. Drop a few papers on the ground and try to organize them as they scattered. And when everyone had left, it’d start off as a simple good bye. “Mr. V, I’ve really enjoyed this class, and I’m going to miss it.” He’ll give a friendly hug and that will be that. Sometimes, when I’m braver in my little fantasy, I’d slip in an “I’m going to miss you.” and then we’d hug for a long time.
