Short Fiction

A Ghost for all Eternity: a Short Fiction

SEBASTIAN

I drive. I drive in search of you. I drive to forget you. Most of my passengers don’t speak. Silence is both a miracle and a plague. Both holy and evil.

I don’t speak either.

It is what it is.

One morning, I had a passenger who had eyes like you. They were brown swirled with cinnamon. I didn’t believe she was you, but I hoped.

I try. I try to forget you. My heart hurts. When I think about you, it aches. You once told me, “Sebastian, you’re too dramatic”. But now, you’re gone.

And the world is empty.

My sentences are short because I don’t know the language. I know grief is a language all its own – one I am fluent in. You spoke much better than me. I have pain I cannot find words for.

This country was your home. I live in this foreign land, hoping to find you everywhere I look. You are nowhere.

I am nobody in love with a ghost.

Photo via cottonbro studio

I think about your calling me dramatic and picture an actor on a stage. Life is a tragedy with no direction. Grief is a rock in my stomach that weighs more than love ever did. Love was buoyancy and lightness. Levity and joyousness. A balloon. Not a stone.

All of my clocks are stuck on the date I lost you, Annalise, February 10, 2020. It was a Monday.

Lunedí – that’s how you say Monday in my language. It sounds like sadness and eyelashes frozen with tears. But you can’t hear my voice. I wish I knew how to reset my clocks, so they, too, would remain frozen at 6:28, but they press onward.

And I know you would tell me to move on too, but I can’t.

Moving on means forgetting.

I refuse to forget you, Annalise.

You’re in every flower I pick, every passenger I drive to their mundane lives, every song lyric I hear, every tattoo I ink into my skin.

You are everywhere and nowhere all at once.

I guess this is what love means.

My heart belonging to a ghost for all eternity.

Photo via Zarina Khalilova

ANNALISE

Sebastian, Sebastian, I hear you cry my name in the middle of the night when everyone else sleeps. Your tongue lazy with exhaustion, thick with the fumbling of foreign vowels and consonants, the words you have struggled with for six-and-a-half years.

I know you don’t blame me for being gone, but I feel like a ghost, the way my memory haunts you. I watch you toss and turn at night, dear Sebastian. I see how you refuse to take our pictures off the walls. You haven’t yet made peace with my absence, but I am gone now and you have to let me go.

Photo via Marina Utrabo

You still sleep with my pillow and I have heard you say it still smells of my shampoo, but Sebastian, dear Sebastian, the years press on and you must let go.

You look so aimless since I’ve been gone, wandering around this city, your eyes wide as you take everything – and nothing – in all at once. I want to apologize to you over and over, but I’ve done nothing wrong.

I was walking late at night, I’ll admit that. It was dark out, yes, and my coat, too, was black, but Sebastian, I was in a crosswalk, I had the right of way.

I know you’re not from here, my love, but it was a red light, that didn’t mean for that driver to speed up, you’ve driven in the city before, you know that means to slow, to stop. She hurried, thinking she could beat the light; instead, it was my body she beat, merciless, as metal against flesh often is.

Sebastian, dear Sebastian, please just let me go.

end.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part III)

You dress hurriedly, button your shirt hurriedly, and you run.

You run without thinking. You run home. You run past your doorman. You run into your apartment. You run into your girlfriend’s embrace. You run into the smell of her shampoo. You run into her open arms.

And you cry.

The wings are gone.

But in their place, you feel a small pair of wings flapping on your neck. You slap the back of your neck as though bitten by a mosquito. Shiloh looks at you, surprised. You have no answers for her, but you loosen your hair from its ponytail to hide the feathers.

You discover quickly you’re molting. You’re losing feathers, and laughing lightly, Shiloh scoops up some black feathers that trail behind you wherever you go. “Did you sleep with a dark angel?” she teases.

You don’t reply. Maybe they’ll just fall out on their own. But still, you feel the wings beat against the back of your neck. You hope beyond hope she doesn’t notice them. The dark wings should blend in with your hair.

But still the question remains – why? Why have they appeared?

You wonder what is happening to you.

Micah said he had answers.

You have to find him again.

You need to know what’s going on.

But first, you must go to your mother.

As you rush to the hospital with Shiloh, she tells you more of the details. Normally, lyrical, Shiloh is short with her words. “They thought it anxiety,” she explains, “she couldn’t slow her heart. Your mom isn’t the anxious type. She still can’t get it to slow.”

“A heart attack?” you wonder.

“They don’t know.”

“You seem distracted,” Shiloh confronts you in a way that is unlike her, “is it the dark angel?”

“Something like that,” you admit.

***

A few hours later, as you are walking out of the hospital room and toward an intern, you feel a strange sprouting sensation at your ankle. You yank up your pant leg and see a handful of ivory feathers clustered into a thick wing fluttering in the cool, sterile breeze. Luckily, Shiloh is glancing at her phone, and the only other person around is a beautiful intern pushing an elderly woman in a wheelchair.

She smiles at you, her grin radiant, and blushing, you pull your pant leg down. Hopefully, she didn’t see anything. But the damage is done – you feel the swift quivering of the wings on your skin.

At first, you think it’s something fleeting and embarrassing – something akin to an erection. But when Shiloh and you make love that evening, you notice the wings fade. They don’t return that evening.

Or the next morning when you awaken to make her waffles for breakfast.

However, you do notice something odd, when you walk into the hospital to visit your mother, a new set of wings have grown on your eyelashes. Luckily, they’re black and curl up near the corners of your eyes, so they blend in with your eyelashes, but you feel their every movement.

And they appear only when you’re talking to your mother’s cardiologist.

She’s sweet, but unassuming. She wears a white lab coat and plain scrubs, and an engagement ring. But when she smiles, you think she seems nice. And you wonder what it’d be like to be her wife.

That’s when you know the wings aren’t a strange, sexual thing.

But when a new pair appears on your pinkie just like the first time, you grow curious. The same colors too – the lovely turquoise and brown.

Micah reappears as well.

You have so many questions for him, but he does not speak. He merely walks with you. He follows you to a coffeehouse. One you have walked to several times.

But this time, when you see Jacqueline, the barista, your heart begins to palpitate, your hands grow sweaty, and your lips feel dry. You have so much you wish to say to her, but you have lost the nerve.

You stand outside the coffee shop, heart in your throat. That is before you see your reflection in the window. That is before you see the six foot tall pair of wings the color of milk attached to your shoulder blades, glimmering and shimmering like stars.

You gasp.

“It’s never been about lust,” Micah whispers, “your seraphic metamorphosis. It’s been about love.”

end.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part II)

You take a deep breath, not sure whether to believe this man named Micah, but what choice do you have? You cannot stay locked in his bathroom with a pair of nail clippers forever.

As you trudge out of the bathroom, he offers you a weak smile – not the generous grin from before. “You’re not a mutant,” he says, as if that’s going to make you feel any better.

“Gee, thanks,” you mutter.

He shrugs. “I’m trying here.”

That’s when it hits you with all of the strength of a bullet train. Yes, you might have slept with Micah last night, but you’re in a relationship.

Your girlfriend won’t be mad. She probably is sleeping with someone else too, but she will be jealous you slept on silk sheets and the guy you slept with has a bidet, which probably cost more than your rent and monthly utility bill.

Anyway. You should probably hurry back to Shiloh, but right now, you have more questions than answers, and he’s out of bed and making eggs that smell to die for.

Finally, you say, “What do you mean you know all about the feathers on my finger?”

He turns to you, flipping the omelet. “I mean,” he says in a pedantic tone, “I know what they are. Why they showed up.”

You want to find out more. Your mouth is watering. You’re hungry. You’re not sure if you’re hungry for details or for the cheddar-and-ham omelet he is preparing like a three-star Michelin star chef. But before he can elaborate, your phone begins to blare your familiar melody, “A Seraphic Metamorphosis”, by your favorite band, Compensated Endeavor. He grins and grabs you by the waist, grinding against you.

You smile, the tiny wings on your pinkie fluttering. Sheepishly, you jam your hand against the skin of your hip, wishing you were dressed. “It’s my ring tone,” you mumble, “I better answer that.”

Shiloh’s voice floods your ear, breathless and frightened and small, “Hey,” she says, “it’s your mom. Something with her heart.”

You listen to her breathing and can hear your own heart whooshing in your ear. This is not good. You look down at your hand – the flittering feathers have vanished.

Like they were never there at all.

… to be continued.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

Losing Annie: a Short, Short Fiction

A Stand-Alone Piece

Based on true-ish events.

The long days of summer are nearly behind us. I watch as the sun breaks through the cracks in tree branches high above Annie’s window, forming a pattern like lace, on the sidewalk. I look up into her window, wanting to throw a small rock at it.

Just enough of that quiet rat-a-tat-tat of the stone against glass to get her attention. But more than that, I want to be inside her home. In her basement where we had set up the vintage record player we brought for only ten bucks at a garage sale. Annie always bought the cool records too. Simon & Garfunkel. Credence Clearwater Revival. The Who.

Stuff I’d never heard of, but when I told her that, she had laughed and said it was all her daddy listened to.

I want to be in the basement, listening to the old records and drinking honey lemonade like we did last summer. But Annie’s window looks dusty. The whole place has been abandoned for about three months now.

I still remember it – the souring of my stomach when the operator told me that the Klein’s number had been disconnected.

I had asked my mom what it meant, but all she told me was that Annie and I wouldn’t be going roller skating this summer.

And I haven’t seen her since.

One day, she writes me a note. It has a return address of Wyoming. She says she’s sorry, but when her daddy has to move, she has to go with him. It’s what it’s like being the daughter of a man who works for the telephone company. I tell my mama this, and she laughs, but her laugh sounds sad. She says, “Annie sounds wise beyond her years.”

So, I write Annie back. I tell her it’s okay, just that summer is almost over, and that I miss her, and that I miss the beat-up, old record player we bought. But a few days later, the letter comes back to me.

“Return to sender” is stamped on the outside.

“She must have moved again,” my mama says, “maybe one day, you’ll find Annie.”

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.

A Seraphic Metamorphosis: a Short Fiction (Part I)

You wake up in a strange city, in a bed that doesn’t belong to you, and you feel a strange tickling in your pinkie. You glance down – a small pair of turquoise and brown feathers are fluttering on your nail bed. “What the…” you begin to murmur, but before you can complete the sentiment, a stranger slides back into the bed beside you.

“Oh,” he says with a big smile, “you’re awake.”

You writhe around, trying to find a way to keep the stranger from discovering what you just found out for yourself – that over night, you’ve developed a tiny pair of wings.

You try to smile back, but the stranger recognizes how uncomfortable you are. “Would you like to freshen up?” he offers.

How magnanimous, you think. Maybe he has some nail clippers in the bathroom and I can just snip the wings off. You nod and hide your hands behind your back as he gestures toward the bathroom. You nod and scurry to the bathroom, slamming the door behind you. “Sorry,” you call over your shoulder.

“No worries,” he replies. At least he seems like an easygoing enough guy. You find a hairbrush and untangle your snarled hair. You make do without a toothbrush. Then, the most important reason – you start hunting for a pair of nail clippers.

You find them and easily snip the wings off, but even in the yellow light of the bathroom, they are oddly beautiful – the turquoise is the color of the ocean and the brown is even lovely, the shade of a wren’s feathers.

Even weirder is the pain that sears through you when you cut them off. Like a scorching, sizzling sort of pain. You bite back a gasp.

Then, the unthinkable happens.

The two tiny feathers that had been beating against each other grow back.

“You okay in there?” the stranger calls.

You are speechless but finally swallow your fears and call back, “Yep. I’m fine.”

You think about it. This is a stranger. You probably slept together. You don’t really remember much. The night is a little hazy. You are naked. You did wake up in his bed. He was naked when he came back to bed.

“Did we have sex?” you ask because why the hell not? That’s safer than asking him if he knows anything about pinkie feathers.

“I was that memorable, huh?” he replies, his voice teasing. “We sure did. Next thing you know, you’ll tell me you don’t remember my name.”

Shit. It’s like someone wiped your memory clean.

What is his name?

“You’re going to hate me,” you respond, your voice decidedly not teasing.

“I’m Micah,” he tells you, “and you can come out of the bathroom now. I know all about the feathers on your finger.”

…to be continued.

Isabelle Palerma

This short story is entirely my own content – no A.I. used to create this.