A Universal Truth Of Human Expression

Now here it was, after all, preserved by some considerate hand with varnish and wax. Preserved along with it, like stale air in an unopened room, was the well-known fear which surrounded and filled those days, so much of it that I hadn’t even known it was there. Because, unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like, I had not been able to identify its presence (10).

“No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory. His last word had been my name.

The night air was heavy with silence. Clouds drifted across a calm sky, and a full moon shone in the distance. In a small hut on the outskirts of the valley, an old man lay in bed, awake in the peaceful slumber of the village. His breaths came in rattling gasps, his forehead burned, and his joints felt stiff with pain. He shifted on the blankets, his withered hands clenched in fists as he tried to suppress the wave of bitter memories coming to him. His life had been nothing more than work, loss, tragedy. He remembered all of his hope, his ambition, in his youth, and he smiled bitterly. No one would remember him as the man that he had once hoped he would become. Now, as his breathing became heavier and he felt himself fading on the brink of

Memories of the night before became a vivid memory in the recesses of his dimly lit mind, underneath the sunlight's intruding yet blissful gaze and the sensation of silk against his bare skin felt like a euphoria, a river of midnight encased his slender figure and with the scrunch of his refined nose and furrowed knit of his thin eyebrows, he rose from his slumber. Delicate fingertips leisurely danced across the silken sheets which lost its assuaging warmth only to discern that he was gone, Padding through the spacious house far too big for two alone to fill, and too much of a burden for one to find comfort in. To see his lover, clad in a suit that managed to take his breath away immediately

… No prayers were said over his tomb. No candle lit in his memory. His last word had been my name. He had called out to me

As I went downstairs the tone of the room felt hot, humid, and empty. Hot, because of the burning Atlanta temperatures of ninety-eight degrees or higher. Humid, caused by the broken air conditioning and affecting the density of the atmosphere. Finally empty. The furniture was missing and minimal sounds can bounce off to make echoes. I was departing from a place that I called home. I lived at the address 353 Leisure Court for almost a year; the identity of the street brings back smiles to my face because of its pleasantry. Living here has made me feel secure like a dog to his owner. Moving away from this security brought feelings of uncertainty. My lack of confidence was about the new beginnings my family would experience after the move. But

Posters and pamphlets strewn across the walls accompany the harsh, burning stench of disinfectant. Passing the bodies of former men, and followed by the click-clack of nurses shoes, he sees him. Hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, every bone visible through the thin hospital gown. His love is a shell of the man he once knew, Patty is gone.

“On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand.

When we went inside the spiral white wood staircase had fool’s gold railing. In the kitchen there was a table with 4 twine wrapped legs, and a wood stove with a chimney. In the living room there was 3 small chair couches and another chimney but this time with a fireplace. When we went upstairs there were 2 bedrooms, another living room with 4 couches this time and another fireplace. In my bedroom there was a big dresser with plenty of space, and there was a window, with a window screen, and glass! The bed was big and luxurious. And John’s bed was smaller but luxurious. His room was pretty much like mine, except mine had a fireplace with a chimney.

He walked into the quiet coffee house on Main Street, while I was there reading the classic How to Kill a Mockingbird when I saw him. Dressed in some dark washed jeans with a basic white T-shirt that went so utterly well with a creamy peach leather jacket he had on although a jet black color would have looked edgy. Meanwhile, his cologne was a strong Calvin Klein aroma that filled the coffee house and it smelt similar to the clean and fresh laundry detergent just with a bit of a manlier smell to it. It reminded me of walking into my brother’s room when I was a toddler. After I concluded my reminiscing, I noticed that he was swiftly making his way to the counter I noticed that the way his walk was off centered but balanced. While ordering

I looked down at my worn photo album, the pages dogeared and yellowed from use. I flipped idly through the pages, looking at snapshots of my past, from when I was a baby, right up until recently. In almost every picture, there he was, like a benevolent shadow; always ready to jump in and make me smile or save the day. I could see it and, stranger still, feel it as my fingers brushed over the glossy images. His presence still made me feel calm even though I knew he wasn’t here with me. As my fingers traced over the still images of different events in my life, like tiny vignettes, they came to rest on one particular photo. In that image, there we lay; two smiling, sunlit faces with a backdrop of grass and the occasional wildflower dotted around

And I was there, too, hoping to find you and say to you, Come back, come back, there's only one street, one door, we didn't mean it, we didn't know, whatever was wrong will be different. Several times I decided you were dead, even wished you were dead, but then another postcard would come, with another message to ponder. And I've always read them, even when my husband said not to, even if they've driven me to tears or rage or a blankness when I've no longer cared if you were dead or anyone were dead, including myself. I've been faithful, too, you see. I've always looked up where you were in the atlas, and put your postcards in the box. Sixtythree postcards, four hundred—odd lines of scrawl: our life together. Why are you standing there like that? my daughter asks me. I must have been away somewhere, I say. But I'm back. Yes. You see, Mother, I always come back. That's the distance that separates us. But on summer evenings, when the windows are open to the dusk, I sometimes smell cities … wheat fields … oceans—strange smells from far away—all the places you've been to that I never will. I smell them as if they weren't pictures on a postcard, but real, as close as my outstretched hand. And sometimes in the middle of the night, I'll sit bolt upright, my husband instantly awake and frightened, asking, What is it? What is it?

The street was eerily quiet as I crossed. So was Mike. Staring at me unwaveringly, he said nothing as I approached. The crow's feet framing his eyes, the ridges in his forehead, and the crinkles in his cheeks still stand out in my mind. How many nights had he lain on that bench, covering his face as the wind whipped against it? Now he hugged his body tightly. He was wearing an old pair of tan khakis, a shirt that I couldn't see clearly, and a light multi-colored jacket, its sleeves ending above his pale wrists, that was just slightly too small and clung to his body. As I gave him the money in my wallet, he took it--slowly--and stared at it for a second in disbelief. Although the street in front of the library is usually an amalgam of car horns, headlights, whining engines throughout the night, nothing--not

The place I hid my cigarettes has changed many times throughout my existence. Since I was old enough to speak, I’ve said it with alarm because some part of me was lost in my father’s sleeve, a soft spot that would soon harden. Wherever I hid my cigarettes, they’d always be found. I’ll never forget the time I put them under a loose floorboard in my parent’s bedroom. Everyday I would take two cigarettes and smoke them before and after school and when I came home I would go and take another if they weren’t home. Dad must have had the smell of a canine because every time I would take two for the next day a third had gone missing, sometimes even four that previous day. Why he couldn’t have just bought his own astonished me, or why he’d never told

My day begins again with a drone of the same ringtone of the alarm. Getting up to open the window forgetting about the same old raven bird that stares at me with its whole black eyes sending you into a black spiral. The sense of nostalgia hits, rain leaves its own scent like the scent of an ex-lover’s. After all eternity doesn’t wait for the past to catch up, you just keep on going with your life as I have. Making my way to the kitchen I avoid all the papers on the floor scattered like a tornado threw up and shredded its life. My hands twitches to grab the phone eager to check for the ghost messages and calls. Putting down my arm as soons as it raises “don’t do it”. I turn in circles to find someone but in its leave was nothing. “ I know” I whispered to no one. The hallway was filled with darkness except for one room whose light was slowly dimming. Darting past the shadowed hands reaching for me I went into the room. Searching for that dark grey raincoat that was hung up on a hanger in the half empty closet.