Tag: love

Fiction — Valentine’s Day

sylvia

Sylvia looked at the moon, a smudged coin disappearing in a cloudy sky.  It would rain soon, probably before morning.  That didn’t matter: she planned to be safe in bed by then.  Tomorrow night, she was going north, but tonight – tonight was hers.  Tonight was an ice-cubed whiskey in a heavy glass.  The fish?  No, the beef — with scallops to start and a wine so red it turned black on her tongue.  Then coffee and honey-wet pastry, sticky and sweet, and a hotel bedroom key.  It was a night of boat neck shoulders, cuff length sleeves and a tight walk hemline.  It was a night of long jewelry earrings that touched her throat, a dancing emerald ring and tall heels.  It was a night that men and their women noticed her when she walked in, watched her sit down and wondered who she was there for.  It was a night of little tongue candles that made licking shadows.  A night of dim shaded faces and intimate reflections.  It was a night of eyelashes and lipstick and deep silver fingernails.  It was a night breathing with seduction.

Once, a few years ago, when she was much younger, she’d brought a man to a night like this.  He was a handsome European with diplomatic immunity and a coming career.  He spent the evening trying to recruit her into his bed, like a qualified negotiator.  The evening faded and finished, and Sylvia walked away.  Unfortunately, a couple of days later when Sylvia didn’t call, he came looking for her and ended up meeting Mirac in an underground carpark.  Since then, Sylvia kept these nights to herself.

On the other side of the moon, Karga was reading a bedtime story to his two sons, Mustafa and Taavi.  It was a tale of a reluctant thief and a clever slave girl, Morgiana, who made him rich.  He read parts in English so his boys would get to know the words.  And when he was done, he went downstairs, drank tea with his wife and waited for the rain.

Sylvia raised her glass to where the moon should have been.  And all alone in a crowded restaurant, she touched her lips to the cold glass, drank, and waited for the warmth of the whiskey.

Under Hate/Over Love!

over love

According to psychologists, psychiatrists and the Internet, the thing most people fear is – wait for it! – speaking in front of a group.  Yep, public speaking!  That terrible moment when you have to give the toast to the bride or rally the troops for the church bake sale.  Don’t get me wrong: I understand pathological fear (been there/done that) but I think we’re aiming a little low here.  Personally, when I think of fear, my mind kinda runs to homicidal maniacs with sharp objects or those dead-eyed, bearded guys with bulky vests.  Quite frankly, speaking to the assembled PTA doesn’t come up.

The problem is we live in the most benevolent society in history, and we really don’t know how to handle it.  Strong emotions are reserved for strong situations, and our world has, for the most part, done away with those.  In short, our emotions have no place to go.  So they hang around, cluttering up our lives and making things difficult.

For example, I’ve heard people say, “I hate Kanye West.”  Okay, fair enough!  However, in a world that has Kim Jung-un and Vlad Putin in it, hating Kanye West strikes me as a little undercooked.  If you’re going to hate somebody (which isn’t actually allowed, these days) you might want to do a little research.  Kanye West is a pompous ass who has bad taste in women; those other two guys can blow up the world.  Random hate diminishes the brand.

And talking about diminishing the brand, the things we do to love oughta be illegal.  People love to cook.  They love to ski.  They love hiking and painting and going to the mall.  Hell, they even love cyberjunk like Instagram.  Yet, when it comes to that one magical moment with that one magical person, we run and hide behind “the relationship” as if even thinking “love affair” would unleash an emotional bogeyman.  Go figure!

The thing is we’ve spent the better part of a generation trying to concoct a society without sharp edges – a place that doesn’t cry.  However, in our zeal to make a better world, we’ve inadvertently smoothed out all the other stuff, too.  Unfortunately, people aren’t made that way.  We don’t even like it.  We need and want to ache with love, burn with hate and shiver in fear.  It’s the way we’re made.  (That’s why people go to horror movies and rom/coms.)  Our primal emotions are an essential part of life’s equation, and when you take them away, people start looking around for replacement parts.  That’s why the 21st century is flooded with depression instead of sadness, anxiety instead of excitement and outrage instead of disappointment.  People need to feel, and they’re willing to tie themselves in imaginary knots to do it.

So go ahead and fear public speaking, hate mediocre musicians and love video games.  Just remember: it’s a big world out there, and there’s tons more and better stuff around to get worked up about.

Valentine’s Day — Fiction

lovers

On the first night, they blew out the candles and whispered in the suspicious darkness like spies unravelling their secrets.  The tip-wary waiters kept their distance.  And only a lipstick line on a brandy glass betrayed that they were ever there.  Eventually, there was a cloud-careful moon and a long walk through the hotel-crowded streets smooth with the forgotten footsteps of long ago lovers.

On the second night, they found the river, simmering black with dancing silver ridges — so they hid on the balcony and wondered if anyone would find them.  No one did.  And then, when they had nothing left to say, their shadows leaned forward and undressed them, caressed them and covered them so completely with the night that only their breathing remained.

On the third day, they slept deep into the sun, and folded into the bedsheets and their newspapers, they drank coffee and had breakfast and spilled the orange juice.  They walked past the museums and found a few tales of conflicting folklore from the market merchants who had stories to tell.  Then, as the afternoon slipped into evening, they wandered and wined their way back to the hotel for late night shrimp and avocados.

On the fourth morning, they picked up their telephones from the hotel safe, and when the taxi driver asked them about their luggage, they just shrugged.  At the airport, they phoned the kids to come get them because — after 20 years of Valentine’s Day weekends — Mr. and Mrs. Cooper were not foolish enough to pay for airport parking.