3/6/2022 0 Comments Meow at the CrosswalkMeow at the Crosswalk
Hannah Anderson Why did it have to be today? Of all days, TODAY? She grabs her cup of coffee, trying to keep the fuel from sloshing over the edge of the mug as she rushes out the door. It was her last day of work as an in-class tutor. Freaking failure, why did you say that? “Meow.” She places her mug on the roof of her car and digs through her bag for her keys. Her brow is furrowed and her lips pursed. She tries to control her breathing, but it still comes out in forced puffs. Her teeth are starting to hurt. Did I grab my wallet? My phone? WHERE are my KEYS? She pulls the keys from her bag, unlocks the door, throws her bag on the passenger seat, grabs her coffee, leans in, and places the dripping mug in the cupholder. It takes her 28 minutes to get to work, and she is running behind schedule. Pleeease, don’t let me be late? She pleads with her higher power. She pulls up her map, her Spotify playlist and plugs the auxiliary cord into her phone. Hopefully, the music will be loud enough. Ugh, I forgot to do the dishes last night...Molls can barely move. You suck! She pulls her left hand up to her head, opening and closing her fingers in frantic movements until she hears the lyrics of a song. The rest of her drive to work is spent focusing on each song, trying to sing along. When she pulls up to the student crossing in front of her school, she sees the gray mass of what must be a cat. It’s in the middle of the road, maybe five feet from the crosswalk. “Meow.” She parks and hurries into work. She sighs. Her shoulders rise and fall with the exhale. She wasn’t late. Thank God! Inside the classroom, she waits for the teacher to turn on the movie and shut the lights off. Are you hoping for brownie points or something? Kiss up! “Meow.” She shakes her head, one of the students looks at her. A door opens behind her. She freezes. Her arms shoot up, hands at shoulder height. She doesn’t move. The student asks if she is alright. Someone passes by and briefly pats her shoulder. She gasps. The teacher looks at her and asks if she is alright. She shakes her hands and her head. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she lowers her arms and answers. “Yeah, I’m fine... just overstimulated.” After the movie starts and the lights are dim, she approaches the teacher for permission to move the cat in the crosswalk. She can. She leaves through the side door. Her hands are in fists as she walks along the sidewalk. It’s just roadkill. She watches her black-clad feet take each step. It’s just a cat. She doesn’t look up. Nothing to worry about. She doesn’t look toward the scene. It’s fine. She doesn’t look until she gets to the corner. Coward. She waits for the street to be empty before approaching the gray pile. Entering the crosswalk, she moves quickly, but when she is standing over the feline, she pauses. “Meow.” The head is twisted round, over the back. Its eyes are round as a stuffed animal’s, mouth open in a silent eternal hiss. She gulps. Her hands unclasp. “Meow.” The ants are following along the blood on its back. Where do I grab it? She inhales deep. She reaches down, grabs its chest, and lifts. There are cars at the crosswalk, stopped, waiting, watching. She crosses to the other side. Not breathing, arms outstretched, searching the grass and sidewalk for an appropriate place to leave the carcass. There, by the wall. The weeds will give it some cover. She tosses the mass. You should have put it somewhere else...They’ll still see it. She looks down at her hands. There’s blood. She’ll enter the classroom with blood on her hands. I won’t be able to open the door. I’ll need to knock. She clasps her hands. Where’s its dignity, coward? “Meow.” She enters the crosswalk for the last time.
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3/6/2022 0 Comments Navajo RoadNavajo Road
Hannah Anderson The whir of a/c units from the houses down the street converges with the music of the Buddhist temple next door. The lifeless, white statues are illuminated by the festive colored lights hanging from above the temple grounds. Singing, or chanting, whatever you call it, fills the chill night air. Ritual drums -pounding pounding pounding- overriding all other sounds, overriding one’s own thoughts, come and go. Across the street, the stain of blood can still be seen in the dim yellow street light. It's been there since late summer. Will it always be there? Has it become a permanent fixture of this neighborhood like the bicyclists at midnight, the sounds of poverty-stricken cultural diversity, and the potholes constantly overlooked by the city? It's nearly midnight, but the street is still busy. Busy if one counts the man with the backpack speeding past on his bike, or the other man with a bat dragging on the ground, as “busy”. They ignore each other, they ignore the watcher on the porch. The floorboards of the porch stop creaking when the rocking chair comes to a halt. It's best to be still when the neighbors pass by, especially this late at night. Behind the front door and the mauve-colored adobe, the sound of dog nails click click on the floor. In the room that opens to the porch, a woman rests behind broken windows, old character blankets, and cardboard window panes. The chain-link fence only offers safety because of the large dogs it cages. The youngest has annoyed more than one passing neighbor during her days patrolling the perimeter. The yard within the fence of the frankenstein house is full of weedy, brown grass. Broken pavement and red bricks once lain to represent someone’s idea of an artistic garden path are interspersed in the grassy carnage. In the moonlight, a broken wooden chair sits, waiting. Perhaps the ghost of a young student rests lightly upon its weather-beaten seat, carefully balancing so as not to overburden the dry, rough legs. The shadows of the trees next door wave and mottle the yard, the pavement, the chair. From the depths of the darkness, one might imagine a predator waiting, prowling. But predators don’t wait here. They strike when angered and flee, slinking back into their homes after a delivery, or fight, or injury, has been completed on a too watchful neighbor. On a neighbor who doesn’t ignore them. Observation is the true threat here, ignorance is safety. Next summer, when the monsoon rains come again, that blood staining the street will finally be washed away. The street will flood and rush. Navajo road will become the Navajo river, even if only for a day or two. You do not play in the river. The rushing waters carry too many sins, too many secrets. Empty plastic dumpsters will float down the block, and that blood-stained pavement will finally be free of its mark. But the muddy waters will block the driveways, cars pushing through will send waves up the sides of the street. In all its washing, it will leave debris and garbage piled, stuck along fences, and carts, and huge steel dumpsters. This is no cleansing rain nor purging river. It is a mask to cover the scars and the putrid of sins. It covers up lies, pain, and people no one will care to remember or heal. How much blood has washed away in the waters of Navajo river? How many sins erased? How many secrets forgotten? For now, such knowledge is beyond the reach of the watcher on the porch. The winter holds no foreshadowing of the stain’s fate. All the night holds are those pounding drums and the chanting down the street. The wind, empty of spring, continues to give life to the shadows across the yard. The porch boards start to creak under the renewed movement of the rocking chair. The neighbors have passed, and the watcher is safe from detection. Above, in the clear midnight sky, the chalky moon is far and cold and heartless. But the moon cannot touch the watcher on the porch, hidden in the shadows of the house. Welcome to Navajo Road. 3/6/2022 0 Comments Window ShoppingWindow Shopping
Hannah Anderson I signed up for the subscription. It is free on Facebook. But nothing in life is truly free. ‘Free’ implies that it doesn’t cost anything, right? Everything cost something. Energy. Resources. Time. Emotions. Investment. Thinking. If it doesn’t cost money, it costs something else. So, I signed up for a “free” subscription to Facebook’s online dating. Made my “About Me” tab. Time and thought spent. Filled out the ‘What I am looking for’. Talk. Friends. Casual. Nothing long term. Nothing serious. Nothing intimate. See the problem yet? All the guys like my profile. It was gratifying to my vanity. And not. Flipping through their profiles. Online dating. Just pictures in a catalogue. Circling what I wanted, but would never buy. Do you ever do that? I did. When I was 8. We got that Oriental Trading Company catalog. I would go through with a ballpoint pen and circle everything I wanted. I had taste then. I knew to avoid all the cheesy, lame crap. All the guys who liked my profile, I flipped through like pages in the Facebook dating catalogue. Used my ‘ball point pen’ to ‘circle’ what I liked. Ignored what I didn’t. One guy realized I wasn’t that kinda peep. He kindly informed me what ‘casual’ meant. I knew. But I was stubborn. Wanted to prove a point. I was wrong. I played dumb. I played naive. I let him think I really was that innocent. I was just window shopping. 3/6/2022 0 Comments Moon LoversMoon Lovers
Hannah Anderson ‘Do you love me?’ she asks, tiptoes, stretching up. She is begging to see truth and lies in her lover's eyes. ‘Yes.’ He said to his phone. ‘Then kiss me. Kiss me goodnight.’ A peck on the cheek, a heart on the instagram post. Half-full moon cradled in gray clouds. She falls to her heels. Looks to the shadows on the ground, on the wall, in her lover’s eyes. ‘Do you love me?’ Autumn breeze stole his sigh. ‘Oh-oh-phelia, you’ve been on my mind gir-’ ‘Yes?’ he answered his singing phone. ‘S’up Toni?’ He stepped into the light. ‘Do you love me?’ she says to his back. ‘Yes, yes, yes, of course!’ He said to Toni. ‘Then kiss me goodbye,’ she says. He turned around when Toni hung up. The moon was hiding behind wind-blown clouds. The ground is shadow. Nothing to see but shadow. If the Crap Ever Comes, Call Me
Hannah Anderson Far away, I see you there, kissing her like she was never coming back again. Her arms never hold you like yours hold her. You and I both know she’ll come back when she’s done with the next guy and he makes her cry. We all know you’ll take her back like she’s the next best thing, but she’s just a passing trend, and you are the only one who hasn’t seemed to catch on. Never knew what you saw in her. What you still do. But, hey, it's your life. Not mine. Thank god! I’ll sit here waiting for the crap to hit the fan, and I’ll smile when she comes dragging back, but you aren’t there to pick her up and put her back together for the next guy...maybe the same guy. You’ll learn you’re worth more than her rebound love. But then again. Maybe you will never learn. And this is just reality. I’d sit and wait, pop a bag of popcorn, watching for the big reveal, or whatever it's called. But I have better things to do than wait for you to get your head out of your butt. There’s a life to live. I’ll see you on the other side of the crap-fest...if it ever comes. 3/6/2022 0 Comments Run, Run, Running ManRun, Run, Running Man
Hannah Anderson Run, run, running away. Running into harm's way. Men spray your blood from the streets as boys and girls pass while their cameras on phones record the bloody flood. They sip their macchiatos-no foam, low-fat, soy. Run, run, running here. Running from your past. Carry on oh wayward one and hope someone cares when you're shot down, blown up, washed away. Maybe when you are left in the past, true change will come at last. Run, run, running far. Running from some golden life-like lie. Hope. You’re hoping that there’s more to this fool’s gold lie to make your fate worth facing. Maybe it really will be better, a day you will smile and know peace. Run, run, running nowhere. Running towards some bright lit future. Young fool you are, you still believe in happy ever-afters. Dreams of families, dreams of peace on Earth among men. Walking hand in hand with the enemy in mutual understanding. No more blood drawn lines in the golden sand. |
AuthorThese are just short pieces I wrote during my time in a Short Story class. During Fall 2021, I was exposed to several different approaches to writing. Within the above pieces, I started experimenting more with flash fiction. I stopped aiming to write a "traditional" story and decided to let the words spill upon the page how they so chose. There is still so much to learn, fine tune, and develop, but here is start of my experimentation. |