May

He stood in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in his hand. It was still too hot to drink so he stood staring out the window over the sink, watching storm clouds form off in the distance. The wind was picking up and he watched as the leaves from the big oak tree in the front yard were ripped off and blown violently away. He took a sip of his coffee. It was still too hot to drink.
The phone rang. He placed the cup down next to the sink and walked over to the wall where the only phone in the house could be found. He let it ring three more times before he picked it up off its cradle. He didn’t speak. There was static, the sound of heavy breathing and then a voice. “Hello? John?” He sighed.
“Hello, May. Where are you?”
“At a gas station. A Shell I think.”
“You’re at a pay phone?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Not a pay phone. I’m on the phone inside. The owner said I could use it,” she said. “The phone in his office I mean.”
“Why would he let you do that?”
“I said it was an emergency. Not any kind of life threatening emergency, just that I had left the oven on at home and I needed to call a neighbor to get them to turn it off,” she said. “He’s a very nice man, John. He has blue eyes like my father did.”
“How long do you have then?”
She laughed. “How long for what?”
“How long before he wants his office back?”
“Oh. Well I locked the door, so he can’t get in,” She paused and waited for John to respond. “It’s a big door, John. One of those compressed fireproof ones. He could bang on that all day long with an axe and barely put a scratch in it.”
John walked back to the kitchen counter and picked up his coffee mug. “Are you coming back? Hello? May?”
There was another burst of static and muffled banging. John tried again. There was more static and then, clarity.
“John? Are you still there?” she asked.
“Yes. Yes I’m still here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry about this, I really am. There’s a storm here and it’s really messing with the connection… all that terrible static! And then the owner needed to get into his office to get some paper or something, but I had locked the door like I said-”
“May, are you coming back? Are you coming home?”
“Well, yes,” she said. “I mean, no. No, I’m not coming back, at least not right away. I’ll come back soon, I promise, it’s just this storm is so bad… it’s all thunder and lightning and not even a little bit of peace in between the two! You know how much I hate thunder, John. I can’t drive home in this, I just can’t!”
John grunted and anxiously rubbed his chin. “I don’t understand why you left to begin with May. You knew a storm was coming. You knew it was going to be bad and you still jumped in your car and drove off. I know you hate storms May, but I don’t understand. What kind of person drives into something they hate?” John waited for a sign that she had heard him, but she was silent. Somewhere in between his eyes a throbbing pain blossomed. He gripped the edge of the counter and waited for the headache to pass. “Listen, May, can you give me a second?” There was no response. He placed the phone on the tiled countertop ran his fingers through his hair.
John closed his eyes and took a sip of his coffee. It was still too hot. He walked over to the kitchen table and sat down. He placed the mug on the table and then pinched the bridge of his nose. He squeezed his eyes shut as if trying to crush his headache and leaned back in the chair, his body arcing haphazardly to the floor. The chair groaned under his weight and for a moment he thought it would snap. He sat like that until his back began to hurt. He looked out at the sky and saw that the storm was moving quickly. It’ll be here soon enough, he thought, and then where will she go? He stood back up and walked back to where he had placed the phone. He picked it up. “May?” His voice was hoarse and thick. “May, are you still there?” He coughed into the phone and pinched the bridge of his nose again. “Look, I’m sorry May. I didn’t mean it like it came out. Listen… are you there? May?”
She spoke. She sounded muffled and distant, but it was unmistakably her voice. “Yes John, I’m here and I heard you,” she said. “And you’re right, you know. What kind of person drives out into something they hate? I don’t know, John. I really don’t know what kind of person does that. I do that though. I do that every day of my goddamn life. I do it with you, I did it with her, I’m doing it now,” she said. “So I guess I don’t know what kind of person I am. I wish I did. I mean, I wish I knew what kind of person does that.”
“May, what are you talking about?” he asked.
“I don’t know… I’m sorry. I’m rambling. I love you John, I do,” she said. “And I loved her. I loved her so much.”
“Aw, hell May…”
“I’m sorry John. I don’t mean to say things like that. It’s this weather. I just hate this weather,” she said.
“It’s all right May, really it is.”
“No it isn’t! Do you know why I hate thunder, John? Do you know why?”
“No May, no you’ve never really said why.”
“It’s because you can’t hide from it! If I was afraid of lightning then at least then I could hide in a basement, somewhere without windows and lock myself away. I wouldn’t ever see it there! I wouldn’t even know it was happening if I was there! But thunder is something you can’t hide from. You can’t see thunder, but you can hear it, and you can’t hide in a basement from that!”
“You could stuff your ears with cotton or-”
“No! No you couldn’t! You could be the deafest man in the entire world and still feel thunder! It cuts though you like cannon shot and lets you know that it is there and it will always be there and that you can never, ever hide from it!” She was gasping for breath in between sobs. There was a banging and May shouted at someone. John walked to the kitchen table and picked up the mug of coffee. He took a gulp and the lukewarm liquid splashed uncomfortably in his stomach. He realized he hadn’t eaten all day.
“May? May listen, I want you to relax, all right? I want you to relax and stop crying. Can you do that? May?” She coughed and choked on a sob. Her breathing began to slow and she exhaled loudly. “John. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry about all this.” He laughed. “May, it’s all right. Everyone gets a little overwhelmed sometimes.”
“No John, no it isn’t that. I’m not sorry about that at all,” she said.
“Then what, May?” he asked.
She sighed. “It was raining that night wasn’t it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was raining,” she said. “I remember it was raining.”
“I don’t want to talk about this, May,” he said. “Come home.”
“You’ve never had a problem with sleeping through the rain.” He took a gulp of his coffee. It was cold and bitter.
“You never have. I couldn’t sleep that night… I was so tired! I was so tired, John, and I couldn’t fall asleep. I was just waiting for the thunder to come, all night waiting for the thunder to come. I couldn’t sleep and so I climbed out of bed and went into her room,” she said. “Do you remember me leaving?”
“No, May. I didn’t wake up.”
“I suppose I knew that… but anyway, I went into her room, and the window was open. Rain was coming in, not a lot, but it was coming in and the room was so cold.” she said. “She was asleep though. Even with the thunder and the rain and she was asleep.”
“Come home, May. Just come home and we can talk about this, all right?”
“I can’t come home, John. Don’t you get it now? I can’t come home.”
The telephone was heavy in his hand. “So what now, May? What now?”
“I’m so sorry, John. I’m so sorry. I’ve got to go now.”
“Where are you going?”
“There’s a field outside, right across the way from the Shell station. I think I’m going to go out there and wait,” she said.
“I think that’s a good idea, May. I think that’s a very good idea.” He hung up the phone.
The kitchen was silent and empty. He picked up the cold coffee, went over to the sink and poured it down the drain. He looked out the window and saw that it was beginning to rain. He went to the refrigerator and looked inside. He wasn’t hungry, but he grabbed a pickle from a jar and bit into it. It was cold and tart and he realized with a sudden jolt of adrenaline that he was going to be sick. He lurched over to the sink and threw up what little there was in his stomach. He wiped his mouth on a hand rag and let it drop to the floor. Rain was gently tapping on the window. He turned and left the kitchen. He trudged slowly up the steep stairs of his house and walked through the first door on the left. The large bed in the middle of the room was unmade and a pile of dirty clothes lay in a corner.
He turned and walked across the hall and into another room. The floor was dusty and the air smelled a little like mothballs and talcum powder. There was a crib on one side of the room, and he went over to it and looked down. It was empty with the exception of a small embroidered pillow and a stuffed owl. He grabbed the pillow and laid down next to the crib. The hardwood floor was cold and uncomfortable. He placed the pillow under his head and closed his eyes.

Ophelia

A Note For My Dear (And potentially estranged) Readers:
Awhile Back I began writing a story about a made-up woman and a egotistical writer. I posted those things on this blog and then hated every word I wrote. I then ask you, my closest friends, to disregard any beginning involving apartments, fish, dreams involving horribly thin train metaphors,and made up women and instead try this very new (albeit pretentious and underdeveloped) beginning to 'Ophelia'.




Stephanie Mersault gazed quietly at the face of her brother as he read to her from a book she had read many times before. His voice was calm and deep, the sound of a childhood lullaby heard in a half remembered moment of nostalgia. It did not crack and it did not waver; it held strong to the course plotted by its master, its even monotone cutting clear and bright through waves of fever. It was the voice of a man in complete control of his own world; a man absent of doubt. She realized that this voice was the one thing that she would miss, and the last thing she would ever wish to hear.
She coughed. A spatter of red, a dizzying spiral downward.
He stopped reading and looked up. A look of concern began to spread across his face, but she waved it away and struggled to catch her breath. “I’m… all right Eli…keep reading…please.” His gray eyes flashed fluorescent as they flicked back to the book. He read quietly, and she closed her eyes, falling again into the sound of his voice. She was alone, in some warm place untouched and deep inside.
There was a banging at the door, and a woman’s voice screeched. “Eli! Unlock this door immediately! You have no right to keep me out! She is my daughter, Eli, my baby girl! I need to be there! I need to be there when-” The voice stopped, stumbling to a halt before the remainder slipped out. A throat was cleared. “I need to be there when she dies. Eli, please open this door.”
Eli had stopped reading. He looked towards his sister’s bed and watched for the rising of her chest. He closed the book and gently placed it on the pillow beside her. He stood up, ran his fingers through his dark brown hair and walked towards the door. He pushed aside the wicker chair he had wedged under the doorknob, and swiftly opened the door. His mother rushed by him and into the room, her normally kempt hair a wild and vicious thing. She knelt beside her daughter’s bed and grasped her pale hand. “Stephanie, I’m-”
“It’s too late mother. She’s dead.”
Mrs. Mersault whipped around, her face turning purple in quiet rage. “You little bastard, you-“
“That is quite enough.”
“You’ve taken her from me! You’ve taken my darling girl from me!”
Eli laughed. It was a cold and foreign thing. “You did this to yourself, so don’t point that bony finger at me. You never cared for Stephanie before, so don’t start pretending now. It’s disgusting to watch you try.” Mrs. Mersault stood up, her entire body shaking with rage.
“You contemptible brat. I loved Stephanie more than any mother ever could!”
“She didn’t see it that way, and neither do I. I’m going to ask you to leave, and you will do as I say. If you don’t, I won’t hesitate to throw you out of this house myself. “
“You wouldn’t lay a finger on me!”
“You know that isn’t true.”
Mrs. Mersault stared at her son and then brusquely walked out of the room. There was a clatter of heels in the hall, the sound of her descent and then the slam of the front door.
Eli sat down on his sister’s bed and brushed a stray strand of blonde hair off of her face. Her blue eyes were closed, and with a sudden pang of sadness Eli knew that he would never see them again.

She had left everything to him, the house, her small fortune, everything. Eli had accepted it quietly and just as quietly gave most of it away. The only thing he kept was the house.
It was a small home, nestled in the valley of a quiet New England township. It was elegant in its confusion and had been praised by various visitors for its striking resemblance to an observatory. An old friend of Stephanie’s had once told her that there nothing else that could possibly fit her so perfectly, that this unconventional home was the only thing that could possibly contain her. She had laughed and said, “You’re absolutely wrong. This is the only place where I have ever felt truly free.”
Stephanie Mersault had been a woman of modest fame. A musical genius, she had written music for three films, conducted a well known chamber orchestra for two years, had composed several original pieces, all of which received glowing praise from several big names, and had discreetly aided in the composition of well known musical giant Marcel Gideon’s magnum opus Koshka. She had been described as one of the greatest composers alive, a burning sun.
Then she wrote M.
It had premiered on a Sunday in January three years before her death. It was a small piece, written for one cello and two violins. She had selected the musicians herself, a rag tag group of unknowns. The cello was played by a Mr. Jonah Gerring, a music professor at a small Midwestern University. The two violins were played by a pair of burnouts discovered in the dregs of a failing New England conservatory. After the performance, no one could recall their names.
The crowd had arrived, stocked to the brim with followers of Mersualt, critics of well known publications such as the ever prestigious art rag Literature Abounds! and the major musical authority Minor Notes. The music hall had been filled with the refined babble of the intelligentsia as they waited for the unveiling of what was undoubtedly Miss Mersault’s greatest work.
She had taken the stage under a roar of thunderous applause, her blonde hair tied neatly into a tight bun and her slender frame tucked into a skintight red dress. She was, to many drooling men in the audience that night, the embodiment of seduction. She bowed deeply and the thunder abated. She stared at the music spread before her on the black stand, the musicians sat, their bows poised and ready, and with a flourish described later as the pulling of a trigger, M sprang into existence.
When it was done, Stephanie stood on the stage, her back turned to a bemused crowd. She smiled to Jonah Gerring and his two compatriots; she did not turn to look at the faces of the critics and fans who sat in dark silence behind her. Instead, she turned sharply and, in the company of her three unknowns, exited stage left.
M, once anticipated as the crowning jewel of a young genius’s career, was lambasted. When asked for a comment on the composition, Stephanie had refused, saying: “You don’t care to hear what I have to say. You only want to hear an apology. I don’t apologize for my work.”
After M, she retreated to the safety of her home in her quiet New England township and allowed herself to fade into obscurity. A year after the premier of M, Stephanie Mersault was diagnosed with lung cancer. She refused treatment, electing instead to live her life as she wished, not as her disease demanded. Two years later, in the room where she had built the bullet that killed her career, Stephanie Mersault died.

Meyer

He tapped his fingers on the table, the incessant beat cutting through the evening din of the cafeteria. She flinched with every finger roll and nail click.
“Would you stop that?”
Her eyes were red and wet. Ragged nails bit into the nylon of a nearby baby blue back pack.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“No.”
She blinked back tears and dragged the pack into her lap. She looked around for a moment, eyes self conscious and cheeks flushed. She unzipped the smaller pocket and took out a tube of cherry red lipstick. She applied it without a mirror. Her accuracy surprised him, and, freshly reborn, she looked towards him with a sharp new malevolence. His fingers stopped.
“Well, listen. If you won’t talk, then I will.”
She dragged her pale fingers through her dark hair and exhaled.
“This is the last time I want to see you, understand? Christ, I need a cigarette.”
She laughed.
“See what a poison you are? I haven’t smoked in months, and now, looking at you, all I can think of is how good a cigarette or four would taste.”
A short, old man in a blue stripped polo was eavesdropping from a table across the way.
“Where are you looking? Where are you even looking?”
She spun around and saw the interloper, his thin neck craning forward and a grin splayed guiltlessly across his face. She waved at him and smiled.
“Sir, excuse me? Sir? Can you hear me?” He nodded. “Excellent! Now I’m sure this is all very exciting to listen to, I’m sure it’s the highlight of your day. Really, I’m sure it is! Do you have a name?” He coughed. “Ah, so shy, so shy! It’s all right my dear Stumble John, I’m sure it’s a fairly boring name anyway. Perhaps it’s Frank. Such an ugly name don’t you think? I feel bad for you Frank, living with a name like that. Now, my miserable companion here, my fellow cohort, my Meyer, he has a beautiful name. Musical. Elegant. Exotic even. It’s a shame it doesn’t fit him very well.” She stopped smiling and ran her tongue across her full lips. She closed her eyes and firmly pinched the bridge of her nose. “Frank, watch closely, I don’t want you to miss the burning of one of my most favorite bridges. Are you watching?”
“Ma’am I don’t-”
“Shut up. This is delicate work. I can’t have you distracting me. Sit still and watch.”
She turned back to him. A tear fell on the table. Her hands found a loose paper napkin and began to absently shred it.
“You know, Meyer, I did love you. Even if you never loved me, I really did love you.”
“I know you did.”
She began to sob. “Oh God, oh goddamn it, goddamn it all!”
“I’m sorry.”
“Meyer, oh Meyer, how can you know what that means? How can you ever know what that means?”