Deux petits contes en Anglais

If you’re not reading the stories over at Brief Lies, you’re missing out. Some good stuff so far, and we’re just getting rolling. You should all get involved. For ease of access, and because I’d love some creative feedback, or even just little comments, I submit to thee my two stories so far, below. Enjoy!

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Tacos aren’t romantic at all
-Ahniwa Ferrari

So last night my roommate’s girlfriend came over and they made tacos and I had some and they were amazing like tacos of divinity or ambrosia or something. So we were sitting around eating our tacos – mmmmmm – and I’d had some ice cream earlier and that was good too but not like a heavenly taco, and I was telling them the story of the Summer of 2000 when I walked across town in a state of pure romantic distress. I was also distressed because I had no tacos, mind you, but also flustered by romance. I like tacos but I don’t find them romantic. They’re sexy though, but I wouldn’t bother buying them champagne or taking them on a moonlit walk on the beach. They’re sexy and I’d just use them and then leave before they woke up, and I wouldn’t be able to respect them anymore afterwards.

So I was walking across town, all the way across, from the west end to downtown and then up the hill to the southeast, to see my friend who’s my roommate now and whose girlfriend made tacos last night – coincidentally he knows this story already – and about halfway there I was like “Well fuck, I’ve walked a lot, and if I turned around I’d have to walk a lot more just to get home, and that’s where I came from so I’ll keep walking forward and get to my friend’s house and then maybe he’ll drive me somewhere and we can have tacos.” So after like another hour or something I made it to his house and he wasn’t in his room asleep like I thought he’d be so I could easily wake him up and make him drive me somewhere. At first I didn’t know where he was and stood outside wondering how I might be able to find a taco at two in the morning walking – I’d be walking, not the taco – and as I was wondering I saw the light flashing in the upstairs window like you see when someone is watching a movie, all blue and the dark and then flash and flash and from outside it seems so bright you wonder how someone could watch it without going blind.

So I’d found my friend, but he was upstairs and I was on the ground outside and I couldn’t just walk in because he was living with his mom at the time and I didn’t want to get shot or hit with a frying pan or have anything else violent happen to me. I warily eyed the fence that ran around the little house and thought that if I could get up on it I would be nearly at eye level with the window upstairs and then I could throw little twigs at the window and get my friend’s attention, because surely he’d prefer my company and tacos to whatever movie he was watching. So I climbed up the fence, and then I fell off but I landed on my feet, and I had to climb up again, which I did. Then I could see my friend, but throwing little twigs at the window didn’t seem to be having any effect. There was a tree that loomed over the fence, and had branches that extended very nearly to the window, so I grabbed a branch and shook it so that it hit the window and made a big motion which my friend wouldn’t be able to miss. And so I guess he was watching a really scary movie and the branch hitting the window on its own – because he couldn’t see me – really freaked him out and he screamed. But then he looked out and he saw me, and we laughed about it and he drove me to Denny’s at three in the morning until five in the morning while we drank coffee and ate food.

But not tacos, because Denny’s sucks and they don’t have tacos, and I was bitter at first but then I got all strung out on coffee and cigarettes and romance and lack of sleep so then I was okay with it, and I had a sandwich instead. Sandwiches are okay, but they aren’t as good as tacos at all.

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Dimmer Switch
-Ahniwa Ferrari

Cal leaned against the wall and made an effort not to squint as light danced across the room and fake smoke drifted past his eyes. He’d heard that the parties senior year were bigger and better, but he’d never imagined they included light shows and smoke machines. Still, he knew that to the people who threw these parties image was everything, and the expense was the equivalent of pennies. In any case, he hadn’t come to see fancy special effects. He had a purpose.

Liza was the kind of girl every boy in school had dreams about. She was head cheerleader and valedictorian, and had already spent a year studying in France. She’d come back with a certain savoir faire that made her seem mysterious and unattainable, and an accent that over time had faded until you could only ever hear it when she got very emotional. It was fate’s cruel joke that her locker was right next to Cal’s, but he doubted that she had ever really noticed him.

If you asked someone at school what they thought of Cal, most people would sum his character up in a single, concise word: “Who?” . He wore clothes, ate food, walked about and talked, laughed, smiled and joked with his friends; all in such a way that no-one but his friends were ever inclined to pay him any notice. How he’d ever gotten friends in this state is a mystery, though could most likely be attributed to the fact that they’d been his friends since the third grade, before he’d realized that he was destined to a life of inexorable obscurity. He went about his business like a shadow, was never called on in class, got straight ‘B’s, and avoided school activities or doing anything in which he might stand out like the plague. Even his senior picture in the yearbook had turned out fuzzy, as if he were blurred around the edges; a ghost.

Tonight was different. The dimmer switch of Cal’s personality, halfway down his entire life, was now in the full “On” position. Dressed in a suit, he had a distinct outline, a physical presence that dominated a particular space. His hair, usually a bland brown and neatly parted, seemed to change in the light, one moment wild and the next, keenly sophisticated. His eyes, usually brown, were now hazel and chestnut and cedar, mahogany and driftwood, and they sparkled as they set upon Liza Anne Hartley and never strayed.

Liza had noticed him, too. Noticed, but not recognized, despite having the same lockers for the past four years. She laughed as a friend told a joke, excused herself, and let her feet follow Cal’s gaze across the floor. As she reached him, the music changed from a loud beat to something slow and intimate. She wasn’t used to being shy, but her breath caught in her throat and she was held transfixed by Cal’s presence. It was years of natural social instinct that allowed her to ask, “Would you like to dance?”

Cal smiled, his teeth flashed pearls. His brown eyes engulfed hers, blue, and the music flooded out the world.

As he left the party, all he could think was that if he hurried, then he and his friends could have a good long party themselves before the night was over. He ripped off his tie, threw it out into the night breeze, and grinned as he remembered his response:

“Sorry, I don’t dance with cheerleaders.”