Handprints

She passes by with her mother, another mother and her two small children. Little girl stops at a string of balloons, several balloons tied onto a length of string between two trees. Outside the art studio, an attractive eye-level advertisement. They're tie-dye, white balloons and rainbow paint, but the paint is on the inside. How'd they do that?

Seven rubbery rainbow orbs across this length of string and the middle one is starting to fade. It is not doing well. It has lost its air. Little girl is drawn to it. She takes it in her small hands and gives it the slightest of squeezes. Splashes of blue and red bulge and seem to smile at her. Hello to you, too!

Removes her hands, smile fades. But her handprints remain. Some new life is given to this balloon. It looks bigger than before, it grew where her hands once were. It is oddly beautiful and somewhat grotesque. It looks forgotten, and it is her favorite.

Her mother, the other mother, the other children, they are gone. They are down the sidewalk, turned some corner. They cannot see this. Or her. Or anything. Little girl looks at her balloon and thinks about paint and rainbows and parties and art and beauty and life and doesn't realize it. She traces each handprint over and over with her littlest finger. She looks at the splotches of paint. She wonders how, how, how they got in there.

Square One

Peel. The simplest idea would be to peel. To layer and layer, to start with option on top of option. You start with a lot and then add or take away. You start. With a lot. And then add. Or take away. You don't start with basics and then change them and them change them and then change them. You don't strip and then start from Square One. That's not what you do. It's an obvious thing, this is elementary. Why is it that we can see it and you can't?

You peel and add, add and peel. Never lose your base. Never. Time is of the essence.

Dry

It's a never-ending thing. Pouncing on him through the door, cuddling up in the theater, there's people around. A head always on his shoulder. Latticework fingers. Some groove to fit into or another one to make. Question and answer after question and answer. It never stops.

We leave and walk down the sidewalk, it's dark out, it's night. Passing through trailings of perfume and tobacco. Hands in pockets, fingers clenched.

A man in front of us, the smoker, walks on the edge. He's close to the cars, maybe too close. He looks over from time to time, maybe looking for something in those cars. Something nice.

My jacket doesn't protect from rain. Not really. It's showing these drops as they start, these slight few drops. A couple hit me on the cheeks, just right. Clenched.

We peel off, two and one, say good night, go our separate ways. A few more drops now. My coat will show me all of this. And always a head on his shoulder, keeping him dry.

The Right Words

She asked me what the one thing was that I would save in a fire. I thought for a moment, not sure if I should answer truthfully or tell her something that would make her happy. What would make her happy, what does she want to hear? I was thinking about it for too long, so I just picked. Wedding photo that I keep on the desk in my office. A nice compromise of a selection I thought.

She got upset. Upset that it had taken me so long to answer, and that when I answered I didn't say her. She wanted me to say, Why, of course I would save you, sweetheart. What kind of question is that? But of course I assumed she was in the other room, saving something of her own, that's how these hypotheticals work. Had I answered the way she wanted would it still have been what she wanted to hear? Is it one way in your head and another way in my mouth? Would you want me to describe you as a thing? I'll never be sure.

When we were young, and dating, I remember sitting in front of her on the over-sized cushiony chair in her living room. She asked me if she thought we'd get married. We were seventeen. I told her this was entrapment. She said no, it wasn't. I said yes, it was. We never brought it up again, until I popped the question four years later.

It's a beautiful picture of us. We both look so happy, so incredibly fulfilled. We look the way you'd want young newlyweds to look. I thought it was sweet. I thought it was a good answer. I thought it was a damn good answer.

I sit in my office now and I turn the picture away. I turn it back when I leave of course, and when I hear her coming down the hall. Funny how quickly my ears fine-tuned themselves to that noise. Funny's not really the right word. But it's the word I'll use.

To Bed

We woke when our daughter crawled into our bed.

The poison didn't work.

The Business

She's supposed to love me, pretend to love me, pretend to be my wife or girlfriend or something, I can't remember. She's cute, blonde, pixie haircut, but one I can stand. Loose, drapey sweater that you wouldn't think would look good on camera. Some mud and tan, charcoal and olive vaguely paisley number. Short, maybe a little over five feet, with a bright smile and she does seem like the definition of what you think a cute girl might look like. Real Girl Next Door. Real sweet.

I'm just feeling bad that I didn't shower. She's supposed to run her fingers through my hair, adjust it or something, poke around at me a bit. I can feel the sweat under my arms, of all the times not to wear an undershirt, this stupid ridiculous rule I have. I was soaked through in more places than one when I arrived at the agency and bee-lined to the bathroom, dried what I could of myself with the hand dryer. But my body heat it still high, I'm a hot body, and I'm sweating through again. My hair is acceptable I suppose, with a straggler here and there. But there's a general curl to it and it looks decently unmatted and I just couldn't make it to the shower. Still, the grease, it's there if you look at it, if you're looking. And certainly if you're sticking your cute little blonde fingers in it.

I feel the need to tell her all this. She's more concerned with her summer, thinking about something fun she did.

"What am I going to tell them?"

"I don't know. You didn't do anything fun? Go to the beach?"

"Yeah," she shrugs, "I guess. But, ugh, that's so boring." I don't know. I like the beach a lot. I like that windswept hair. It's a day for thinking about hair it would seem. "What are you going to say?"

"I can't tell you that. If they have you go first you might steal it, then where would I be?" She laughs at this. I think about asking her out, not now, but maybe after when we're both leaving, that second right outside the door when we could either go left or go right or part ways. She's supposed to love me, pretend to love me, and I'll pretend to love her back, and that will ease the transition. That's the business though, you can never tell you likes you and you hates you because they all seem to like you.

She ends up telling some lie about skydiving. It's so good she even had me going, I have to ask her if it actually happened or not. I'm not even trying to butter her up but I can tell she appreciates it.

I'm bending over, getting my bag from under the chair, thinking about how exactly to ask her out because I definitely decided I will. We walk out together, or not together, but nearly together, basically together. And as I hold the door for her she thanks me, flashes me a smile over her shoulder and she walks west. I have to walk east. I think about whether or not I should call after her, but the thought lasts so long that that's all it can be, a thought.

I turn around and go, don't want to seem like I'm staring. I stop in to get an ice cream. And I can't stop thinking that she, whatever her name was, was supposed to love me.

A Book Goes By

I press with my thumb and my nail goes click, my own version of turning the page I've created. There was no sound, and it was uneasy. A book goes by, a book grows uneven, moving from unread to read before your eyes, after they've finished the page. You can see the progress you're making, you feel like you're doing something. Not like the small percentage in the bottom corner, not like the small glowing "pages" that trick you. Four pages to one percent, four-to-one, like a ladder, leading nowhere. A conclusion, sure, a climax and denouement, but they are made hollow. By this glossy demon's card. It it smooth, it feels too smooth, it feels like an accessory. No smell. No smell to speak of, no history, no memory, no crisp or crumbled faded yellow tale. It just glows at you, another screen added to the pile. Must everything be as easy as it could ever possibly be?