Double-Click Flash Fic (5 page)

The goal, of course, is to earn enough, make enough

– to Make It –

To sit back and rest, rest assured that it was worth it

That what was started-up, finished-up

And up and up and up; and up.

T
he business channel’s talking heads:

“Crude oil is up, as are Big Pharma’s meds”;

“This stock is showing signs of ‘pain’”;

“Efforts redouble on the ‘Asian contagion’”;

“We once were ‘hawkish,’ now we’re ‘dovish’”;

“The desert dictator’s acting oafish”;

To get your daily dose of news

And allot time to competing views

Tune in to this fine investor’s channel

With
per diem
updates from a dedicated panel

Buy, sell, short, hold, lose your stocks

Just head investments away from the rocks.

L
e philosophe
is pacing the hallway again. We call him that because that’s what he does. Or what it looks like he’s doing: walking up and down the hall, silent, gaze a few feet ahead. Thinking about humanity’s greatest conundrums. “Hey, Balzac!” we yell but he doesn’t reply. Lost in thought. Like a philosopher or something. But when he speaks, which is rarely, he sounds just like us. No lofty thoughts in that great big head of his. But the nickname persists.

Janelle is in my room again. It’s evening, and she’s standing by the window. The grey light filters in through the rain drops and her figure is in silhouette. I wonder what she’s filched from me this time,
if
she’s filched anything this time. I don’t say anything to her. I’m feeling generous with the few belongings I brought with me. And she doesn’t talk anyway – like,
at all
– so what do you say to someone like that? I keep the lights off and go about my business as if she weren’t there. With a chirp, she’s out of my room like a shot. It’s not by accident that I don’t impose. Plumed wonders like her are easily spooked, and it’s my belief that you should always give people their space.

The next morning, I line up for breakfast and see Janelle in the blue sweater my best friend gave me years ago.
Eh, whatever. Live and let live.

Bertrand is slurring again. It’s not because he’s not right in the head – no one in here has his head right. It’s because he doesn’t open his mouth all the way when he speaks. And he doesn’t open his mouth all the way when he speaks because he has bad teeth. Like, they’re white, but crooked and jagged and weird. It might also be because he’s a real ladies’ man, and his slow, languorous way of speaking is part of his natural appeal. He’s so chill. That, and you can tell he works out. My first morning here, I saw him sitting across from some girl. When I introduced myself and reached out to shake hands with her, then with him, he took my hand between his two hands and turned on the charm. “Hello my dear, and how are you today?” Or as I heard it, “Hellooo maa derrr, aaand howrrryuuu toodaay?” It’s a relief that everyone here is about the same age as me. If Bertrand were older I don’t know what I’d do.

Now that I think of it, Bertrand might not sound right because he’s bilingual. The Quebecois part of him might be warring with the English part of him, and with the parts of him that visited different countries and slept with beautiful women speaking foreign tongues. He has two girlfriends, he tells me, in two different countries. Typical.

I
t’s summer and she’s sitting in an air-conditioned coffee shop, trying to find the words. Today’s newspaper is in front of her on the table, she’s sipping on a mochaccino, and the words aren’t coming. She braces herself for the meeting that’s slowly closing in on her, and gazes out of the window looking for him but knowing he won’t be there yet. Outside, the sun bathes everything in a cold light – the cars driving past, the people walking by, the young trees gently waving in the wind. There is so much happening out in the world that she feels ashamed that the only thing going for her is the slim hope that the nothingness of her life will abate soon. She was never an optimist, but not a pessimist either. The mute neutrality that defines her so well does not see its counterpoint in the world buzzing around her. Through the window, she sees an attractive couple linger for a few moments on the sidewalk. The young woman slips off her sunglasses and looks up at the young man. He’s saying something, a smirk on his face. The young woman scrunches up her face in what must be confusion, then erupts into a laugh. Interesting how she could hear a laugh even when there was no sound. Soon they walk off, towards some kind of future, a future she, inside the coffee shop, feels she has already lost.
The words, the words,
she thinks,
if only I had the right words.
He’ll be coming in, she knows, and he’ll have all the words. How can she keep up when she’s so empty? What is she going to say?
Perhaps it would be best to say nothing
, she thinks, and turns her face away from the window.

“A
nd how was your day?”

Sandy looked at Shelly. She didn’t want to answer her sister’s question the way she usually does: candidly, with a recited list of what she had eaten, whom she had seen, and what she had written from early this morning to the present moment. She didn’t want to say anything, least of all what was weighing on her mind. So instead she turned the question around on her sister.

“Pretty good, pretty good, thank you.” Sandy smiled weakly. “And how was yours?”

Shelly seemed surprised by the response, so unlike her older sister, but then she knew Sandy had her moody days, so she didn’t press her for more information.

They were sitting on the couch and sipping White Zinfandel from shot glasses, the only glassware they had for alcohol. The apartment seemed too small suddenly and Sandy felt an urge to escape. Instead, she listened to Shelly talk about her day.

“Well, over lunch, Samantha from Marketing talked my
ear
off about the new boots she bought and what a steal they were – hey, are you okay?”

Shelly had her Concerned look, Concerned with a capital C. Something about Sandy’s facial expression must have given her away. Sandy rearranged her features and said in a voice slightly more strident than she intended, “Yeah, I’m fine. The Zin is going to my head, that’s all.”

Shelly smiled. “You were always a lightweight.” She went on, sharing office gossip, bemoaning the death of her plant, and plotting their plans for the weekend – her vision was of them, two spinster sisters of modest means, taking the air in a park, maybe popping into a Tim Hortons for coffee and bagels and a chat with some strangers united by their love of cheap fare.

But the only thing on Sandy’s mind was the automatic pencil and legal pad she had “borrowed indefinitely” from the office earlier that same day. Sandy was a doodler and a hack writer, and she needed this. Still, it was company property. The dilemma of her sudden act weighed heavily on her. Was it breaking the law if she used the pencil and pad to write with the goal of contributing to the company outside of work hours? She had a lot of good, edgy ideas, she did.

T
he sunlight glints off of Tasha’s knockoff Ray-Ban sunglasses and Teddy wonders if it was such a good idea to come here. The water’s good, the DJ passable, the crowd not even swarming, and the sun – it shines, which is the most it can be expected to do in the middle of May. But already Tasha’s chewed Teddy out for looking around and resting his gaze a millisecond too long on a babe with a bodacious beach bod. Except those aren’t quite the terms he would use. They’re terms Tasha would use, except about other men, except when she had had her fourth drink. She’s holding steady now with one beer already in her and a cosmo in hand,
sip sip,
she goes, staring at him over the glass and getting ready for what he now sees as inevitable. She draws herself up to her full 5’4” height, chin up, shoulders down, ignoring the masses milling around, and launches into a monologue.

“Teddy, baby, you know I love you sooo much, right? There’s no one I’d rather be with, and even though we’ve been together for only seven months, I feel like you and I really have history, like prehistory, like soulmates in another life. Like, in this life, too – you know what I mean!” She laughs.

Teddy opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, she barrels on.

“And since we’re so close, you know we can say anything to each other, like
anything
.”

Teddy doesn’t like the sound of that. He tenses and prepares for the worst.

“And you know I’m a very honest person, like I can’t keep any secrets from you or anyone really close and important to me.” Her voice grows more strident with every word. Teddy sighs.

“Well, there’s something I’ve been really meaning to tell you, really soon …” She pauses significantly.

Teddy waits. Finally, she blurts it out.

“——!”

It’s a good thing she’s got a bodacious beach body herself, or else Teddy wouldn’t be putting up with this nonsense.

I
want to be your Galatea

A great big block of ivory

Standing 5‘8”

White and cool to the touch

Unassuming, raw material

Only you can see the figure hidden inside

Under your rough hands

With only a carving tool

And the image in your mind

You can chip away

Piece by piece

Slowly, the material crumbling

Falling apart at the edges

Outside in

The shape of the statue pressing gently

Inside out

As the hard outlines soften into feminine curves

You can touch the statue that is your vision made

manifest

The ivory will seem to quiver when you run your

fingers over it

Here is her head, here are her arms

Here is the length of her torso

There is a shapely leg, there another

You can stand back from your creation

The better to admire it

But your hands will itch to touch

To glide, trembling, over the still unyielding surface

Galatea, you will name her

Milky-skinned one

That you can dress in fine clothes

According to your tastes

She is yours, your very own creation.

T
ell me what colour clothes match my hair

Tell me, oh, tell me what to wear

Shall I put on this jacket of yours so we can ski

Does this lipstick make mine lips plum or cherry

My family’s rich but I’m a poor working stiff

Advise me on raises, and work, I won’t be miffed

Scathe me with criticism, fill me with pain

I know you will never see me again

But God, I adore you and your smooth-talkin’ ways

I’ll remember and pine for the rest of my days

The way you put your hand right there

And the way you tended my wound with care

How you told me what happened was not my fault

That being young and foolish is fine even for adults

That my body is beautiful just the way it is

Sealed it with a kiss, like this, and like this

In Canada, you said, people understand

Of course you would, you play in a band

And music’s emotion courses through your soul

Respect and trust, your mottos through all

You’re so wise and smart but such a child

You said it yourself, you’re the one who’s wild.

I
n the apartment of a millennial power couple

He, an investment banker

She, a professional artist

Hang and sit pictures and curios

Celebrating their shared heritage ironically

He, born in the former USSR

She, in China

Propaganda postcards here and there

With Russian characters and traditional Chinese ideograms

With red-cheeked pioneers of the bright republics, smiling

Miniature flags, refrigerator magnets

Each juxtaposed and so very congruent

Hilarious and apt

You’d get the joke if you’d been there

A history they have in common, though miles had been between them

The lingering collective unconscious still felt despite the laughter

(Or maybe because of it)

Of hardship, punishment, gulags, massacres

Mind-numbing conformity and hysterical secrecy

A sharp knock on the door in the middle of the night

And the dream, the yearning for the West

The mythical land paved with gold and blooming with

‘American Beauty’ roses

Where struggle still exists

But it’s not the same

And given a choice – here, they have it – they’d never go back

Despite traces of nostalgia, fond memories of pain.

A framed picture of a bird, hand-painted, hangs on the living room wall.

They are free in the home of the brave.

A
few cars drive past with barely a pause in the rhythm of their traffic, but I stop walking some feet away and contemplate the scene unfolding on the road. A grey BMW Sedan has steered sideways into a white Honda Accord, buckling the driver-side door of the BMW and the shotgun door of the Honda.

A soft snow falls. It is the beginning of December, and the roads are clean, clear, and perfectly drivable, and yet this accident blocks part of the way along this street. No one stops; a handful of drivers peek out of their windows for a moment, then are on their way. The driver of the BMW rolls down his window and gestures from it; the driver of the Honda cranes her neck as much as she can to hear him better, then nods. BMW switches lanes and turns into the parking lot of a nearby plaza; Honda follows suit until they are parked side by side. BMW’s car door is mangled so badly he can’t get out of it.