five microfictions
snow blind
He meant to take a powder, another run at it, despite “it” not looking so good. Snow blinded, clutching one pole (the other one missing, as well as one glove, one boot, one ski), he clung to the precipice, swaying on one leg. In the distance Sally (lovely Sally!) leaped and flapped, her whole body a semaphore—was she trying to tell him something or just making fun of him Then Quizno flashed by, tall and dashing, followed by Sam, Rick, and Schlomo, handsome all, laying down a single trail of powder like a bright zigzaggy arrow angling toward oblivion.
open city
Arrivederci! Tom yelps, waving his mangled hand, projector strapped to scooter as he angles off into the juttery night. “Open City” is our next scheduled feature save for a fused sprocket and shredded lamp: our chalet flattened, the bomb meant for the red cross clinic one valley over, where (it’s rumored) Il Duce, though hanged, now rests and recovers. Tom’s Nurse Nell’s beau: like us, she’s spy, cinephile, assassin, and—lately—film star: thirty feet tall without the screen, in a costume a cross between a nurse’s and ninja’s, wielding a scalpel like a scimitar.
Bombardiers salute, their weapon bays closed, and fly right past her.
demolition
In a large hotel scheduled for demolition antique fixtures of crystal and stained glass twirl beneath tall tin ceilings while below, along scaffolding and ladders, a disposal crew scrambles, wielding pliers like giant pincers. Wires snap like frayed nerve endings and lamps topple, shattering onto the distant parquet floor. Done for the day, the workers leave.
Years pass, the hotel’s forgotten, the demolition incomplete. Eventually, herds of rhino and wildebeest take residence there: they relish the crackly light, the shards that don’t pierce so much as scour their raw scabrous skin, the itch of centuries slowly discharged like spent lightning bolts.
eye in the sky
A teenage girl boards the bus, sits beside me, and unfolds a huge map, above which tiny kestrels reel and glide. I too feel about to fly, staring into miniature chasms, icebergs, cities, fjords. “Are you lost?” I ask. “No. Are you?” she replies, then stands as an old man points his walker askant at us. My new seat-mate retrieves a board game that’s also a map, a grid warped like space-time with radiant debris, dead stars, black holes. “Ready?” he asks, flourishing his king. I sigh as the girl exits the bus, then slide my own king onto the board.
graphology
Yesterday I received a packet of letters, news clippings, and photos, all about me. They’re more flattering than compromising, nonetheless I feel demeaned, violated. There’s no return address, but the front label’s handwriting is distinctive, even familiar, and so I go to a graphology expert who, after examining it, says the handwriting looks just like mine. “Absurd,” I reply, even after shown the near-identical loops, slants, lines. “And not a forgery, either,” he continues, “though the packet’s contents probably are.” “Sir, you’re the fraud,” I exclaim.
“Perhaps,” he sighs, removing his eyepiece, “we both are.” I remove mine too. We glower at each other.
“Snow Blind” (original title: “Oblivion”) first appeared in 100 Word Story; “Demolition” in Untoward; “Eye in the Sky” in The Prose-Poem Project; “Open City” in matchbook; “Graphology" in Bittersweet.
Artwork: The image is part of the Canadian Copyright Collection held by the British Library, and has been digitized as part of the "Picturing Canada" project. It was deposited with copyright number 16097, and is indexed with Dalhousie number 437. Artist: William Notman and Son.
