I have written a story

There was a time when I thought I wanted to be a writer and would spend an appreciable portion of my time writing silly little stories to amuse myself. I no longer think I will be a great writer some day, but a few weeks ago I realized that there was no reason this awareness should stop me from writing silly little stories to amuse myself. So here one is.

Gifts

Zane Torretta

It was just a small thing that fell from the sky. But it was dead, and in its deadness it was his. The bird made no sound as it landed on the pavement, its crumpled body glaring a brilliant white from the grey space before the man’s feet. His hands moved as if automatically, seizing the bird and forcing it into the pocket of his coat with unwonted eagerness. Before someone sees, he thought anxiously as his hand closed searchingly around the unfamiliar shape in the dark of the pocket. His fingers felt no clammy stickiness identifying a wound that had slain the bird; neither did they discover any suspicious bumps or broken bones that would offer some paltry explanation for its curious fate. A heart attack, he mused. The idea entranced him. An explosion secreted away from prying eyes by shields woven of bone and flesh; a heart throbbing so furiously with life that it shatters the wall to death and is consumed by what it finds.

The bird's deadness clung to him like the scent of a lover, encircling him and accompanying him on his long walk through the emptiness of night. The streetlights collaborated with the screaming colors of the shopfront neons to send endless waves of sensation to assault the man; moments earlier, they had oppressed him to the point of despair, but now the deadness that surrounded him kept such invaders far at bay, making him feel lighter and more free than his dim memory served him to recall ever being before. He continued his walk almost merrily, playing aimlessly with the corpse in his pocket as he gazed into the distance at the grey-blue mess into which the pavement, the streetlights, the taxicabs, and the sky too bright for stars collapsed at the end of every street. The bitter trepidation that marked his close circle of thoughts these many years seemed to have vanished without a trace, leaving in their stead a refreshing feeling of power and confidence.

Death owns me. I own death, he thought with a wan smile that grew into a true grin. Here it is, he said aloud, pretending to speak to himself in reference to the corpse, but actually addressing and meaning the cloud around him. His roving eyes scanned the street for anyone to whom he could reveal his newfound secret, but came up frustratingly empty. The frustration built rapidly into outrage. Here is an answer to the nothing. Where are they to see? The bird weighed heavy and cold in his pocket.

Lost in ruminations and recriminations, he almost did not notice that his feet had carried him to more populated regions. He almost missed the woman.

She stepped out of a taxi-cab in a rush, clapping the door shut with an efficient noise and hurrying down the street as if to flee the lateness of the hour. The man stared at her as she crossed his field of vision, too distracted by the deadness to notice her precisely formed lips or the indelicate half-shuffle her right foot made as she completed each step. Stop, he said. You have to know. Please.

The sounds leapt at the woman with a force belying their hesitancy and she whirled around as if physically struck. The hand caught her eye first, jammed uncomfortably into an over-small coat pocket that bulged strangely and maliciously with the portent of danger. The man followed her gaze and slowly began to realize the gravity and wrongness of her misguided thoughts about the nature of the weapon his hand was closed upon. Power, he thought. Death. Not a gun. The last word aloud.

The woman looked at him, eyes widening for a moment before she could stop herself. In control once more, she went through a weary mental checklist of the contents of her purse, more bored than afraid; satisfied, she threw it at his feet and ran desultorily across the street to the half-shelter of a group smoking outside an empty bar, her flight made halting and unattractive by her not-quite-lameness. Crying, she was already smoking a proffered cigarette before one of the men thought to retrieve the purse. But by then everything was over.

Gun. The corpse was a blinding white in the darkness of his pocket as the woman sent her purse skittering toward the man’s feet. His mind reeled from the deadness and the blindness, but his hand would not release the body. The woman’s purse was a red blotch on the pavement, its delicate hoops coursing away only to return in shame to a spot adjacent to where they began, as if nailed to an eternal circuit. The red pierced the cloud effortlessly even through the white, and the man gasped as if winded; reeling backwards, he stumbled into the street and the waiting embrace of a passing car.

The purse had disappeared, transformed into great pools of red welling around his prone form. A car was stopped strangely askew in the road right next to him, yet the desperate glare of its headlights seemed dim as fireflies in comparison to the white blazing from the bird in his pocket. His hand tightened on the white as if in desperate entreaty as his heart ground to a stop. Motionless, his heart throbbed with life as death drained from his body. The sky was full of stars.