Twelve Stories

Theresa Williams

ii. 18 July

dear patricio,

lower case

wind

has the last word

you depict yourself sitting along a precipice, fishing for musical notes, balloons in the air.  you say you are the celestial scribe.  lightness, sunshine.  my land is gray, sad, in the way of lorca who once lay on his bed pretending to be dead.  call me duende only. lorca was murdered, a vile act, an assassination, but for the moment let s not go there.  gray does not mean gloomy.  lorca s world was not gloomy.  death quickened his pulse.  he wrote of it always, duende.  death does cast its sadness.  still, i do not want to live forever.  what about life … my world is gray, but not all things in it are gray.  some are luminous.  some shine with such power as to cause little earthquakes …  a strawberry or a bit of sedum growing on a rock, a touch, even a glance.  kindness is always luminous.  flowers are better off on their stems.  fruit should be eaten fresh from the vine or tree.  the stars at night, fireflies, the eyes of someone you love … these belong in a purse with the purest gold.  just now a great wind has come.  lightning flashes above the big maple.  a flock of birds dash out.  jagged and black against the sky, they disappear over the far aspens, their motion uniform. beauty.  the great wind travels in a circle.  a large branch snaps.

iv.  the living dead

23 July

dear i m a superhero,

thank you for your recent invitation to contribute to your encyclopedia of the living dead.  your almost complete lack of criteria may very well prove invigorating.

it continues to be unsettled here.  the sun is out, and the air is hot as if it had come out of a furnace.  i hear distant thunder, however, and it seems to be coming this way.  its approach is slow and ominous, much like that of a zombie in the movies of old.

i have consulted wikipedia, which i often find useful.  for the first time i encountered the term –zombie apocalypse-.  this phenomenon involves zombies taking over the planet, eating human brains.

i generally do not base compositions on my own personal judgments; however,  it is difficult to write with authority on this subject, it being so new to me.  i find myself able to offer you only my opinions.  as such, i hope they are useful.

in my opinion,  we are all waiting in quiet despair, fear, and loneliness for the other sandal to drop.  our brain is the seat of justice.  its consumption evokes fear of the worst possible chaos.

in my opinion, sometimes our mothers teach us how unique and special we are.  it may be true, but who, besides them, sees it … in this respect of not-noticing, we are all zombies of a sort.

cannibalism is taboo.  jeffrey dahmer comes to mind, but we also remember that jesus asked us to eat his flesh.  please, i mean no offense.

in my opinion, even symbolically, we are not supposed to eat our own kind.

if this is not useful, feel free to discard it.

_______________

Theresa Williams has published a novel, The Secret of Hurricanes, which was a finalist for the Paterson Fiction Prize. Her short fiction and poems have appeared or are forthcoming in a number of journals and magazines, including The Sun, Gargoyle, Chattahoochee Review, Barnwood, Segue, Paterson Literary Review,  and Seems.