revised: Non-creative flash fiction

Conversation

Stepping out of the compound, we shiver, and then cringe, as we hear the rusty gates complain. “It’s Sssibeeria,” you say. A whiff of your brandy voice descends to, bounces off the slope of Matahimik Street.

“The ice is melting there, the death of ice,” you add, smacking your lips, inhaling deeply. The empty bottles in the bag you’re carrying rattle and jangle as they knock against each other and hit the side of your thigh. You are swaying. The ground under our feet is heaving like a tentative wave.

It makes me think: Surely that swaying moon, smug with the knowledge of melting, knows about this, this death of ice. I don’t know why I think that thought though. I don’t know now why I had thought it would be a good idea to get drunk— and not just drink, but get drunk— with you tonight. I don’t know why we got married. I thought we had agreed to be married to ourselves, and date each other on the side. I thought we were going to travel the world, help the poor, write novels. I don’t know why we both ended up as teachers. I don’t know why I am starting to hate hearing, listening to, pronouncing words.

“The streets are clean, well-lighted,” I say instead, laughing a little at the lame attempt at allusion.

“What?” you ask.

“Oh, nothing.”

“I wass stalking about Sibeeria, I mean talkings abouts Siberia--”

Yes, yes, I hear you, as I hear the seas sigh. Something in me is going to give, finally.
I think about the glass of ice swamped with soda and brandy. And I know why I think that thought. I think this, too: What I’d like to do right now is to grope in the shadows for your hand.
I feel there’s something wrong here. Left alone in the cold our fingers might go blind!

Meanwhile, you continue, “But then again, it’s after midnight…” Again, I think: It is in quiet hours that hands learn to master the spaces and the lengths, the curves and the coarse lines of fates. And we will ask ourselves much later, years and years from now. I, still lonely, drunk, by then much older, woman. You, still brooding over matters, still teacher, husband, man.

What the hell has Siberia got to do with us?
What the hell has Siberia got to do with us?

“Well, I’ve read that sssome eleven people…”

Oh my god, you’re still at it. Some eleven people have what? Turned away from the cold to seek the warmth of hell? As in this conversation, perhaps, the molten syllables will make their way smoothly down to settle in the memory of my throat.

And why the hell am I thinking in extended metaphors?

“But since we’re in the tropics…” You go on, and on, and on.

I wish you’d stop.

I take my clammy hand out of my pocket and reach for yours. It encounter’s glass, steel,
bottles of beer, and withdraws from the contact.

“Oh, oh, and you know? The waves?” You nudge me with your left elbow, and the bottles in the bag rattle again.

I face you. And then I tell you: “Yeah, I know, I hear they, too, mourn the deaths and desperately try to freeze in mid crash.” And then I dash down the street.

“What? Hey, where are you going?”

I stop at the nearest lamppost, lean heavily against it, and puke. Finally. You reach me, breathing short, heavy breaths. Your face is red. Your eyes are alive likie they have never been before. You seem to me magnified by some strange force. I look away, to the direction of the 7-11. The brightness of the store softly illuminates the entire block. I think of Alfon’s short story, the one which has beautiful, vulnerable children in them. The story has nothing to do with us. We do not have children. Else we would not be drinking like this. Almost every other night.

“You okay?”

“Yes. I’m good for four more. And then no more.”

You join the bag of bottles in your right hand with the other one in your left. The bottles clatter and jangle like mad. And then it’s quiet again. You extend your right hand. I take it. We walk down Matahimik Street.