Wednesday Briefs
This week I am posting my very first flash fiction. My first book, What Binds Us, spanned ten tears, My third, Unbroken spans forty years, so for me writing flash fiction, a short-short was quite a challenge, Clocking in at 763 words, I give you "Sahel." Feel free to leave a comment , letting me know what you think of "Sahel."
Sahel
“I do not like her,” my mother said.
“Who?” I asked.
“This foreign girl. This Sahel.”
She spat the name like it was poison in her mouth.
I was bewildered by her hostility, her venom.
***
Waiting for the light to change so I could cross, I stared
at the row of dilapidated houses—some with porches newly painted bright colors,
others, lacking hope, were shrouded in their original dusty brick and crumbling
brownstone—all squeezed together and leaning to the left as if in defiance of
the hill on which they sat, which leaned to the right.
The light changed and I hurried across the street. I was
practically shaking with fright and excitement. Tonight, I would ask Sahel to
marry me. My nerves were as jangly as the wind chimes on the porch. The ring in
my pocket seemed to be burning a hole in my pocket.
My hands were shaking as I turned the key, blinking at the
accustomed brightness of the turquoise door. Three quarters into the turn, I
paused startled by the silence. The sudden absence of the familiar sound unnerved
me. I listened carefully. And then I heard it, the baby crying. Somewhere. I
tried to relax, finished turning the key.
Sahel would be waiting in my room, I knew. Naked and cold
under the covers, watching the evening news and waiting for me.
***
Naked, under the covers, I crawled on top of her, the ring
clenched in my fist. She turned her head from the TV, watched me. I swallowed.
“Sahel, will you marry me?” I opened my hand and the ring fell awkwardly, cold
and shiny, to her chest.
She picked it up, looked at it, then smiled. “Yes. Yes, I’ll
marry you.”
Suddenly too shy to kiss her, I touched her face, traced the
line of her brow, her nose, her lips.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“In your face,” I said, “I see tradition.”
She laughed. “Crazy woman,” she said.
I sighed, lay my head on her chest, nuzzled her breasts,
then fell asleep, her hands on my shoulders.
***
“You are going to marry
Sahel?” my mother asked disbelieving.
“Yes,” I mumbled, head down, cheeks burning. Then finding my
nerve, “It is tradition. To marry the person you love most in the world.”
“I do not understand why you love this person, this woman, who looks like you in a baseball
cap,” my mother said.
It hurt me to see her so confused and unhappy.
***
“She’ll come around,” I told Sahel. “She just doesn’t
understand—”
“She does not need to understand. It is not your job to
explain yourself. She just needs to accept your truth.”
“Sahel, please. She is my mother.” I rubbed my temple. I
could hear the baby crying. I wished I knew where she was so I could comfort
her, stop that endless grievous crying.
Angry, Sahel’s eyes, cold, and hard, flashed like diamonds
in a face flushed red-gold with fury. “Why do your people act like children
always? Sitting at the children’s table at Holiday waiting to be invited to the
grown up’s table where there is talk and wine!”
“What would you have me do, Sahel? She is my mother!”
“Stop waiting to be invited to the table. Stand up, walk
into the dining room and pull up a chair.”
“What if they don’t want me there? What if they ask me to
leave?”
“Who cares if they don’t want you there? It is your right to be there. If they ask you to
leave, refuse. If they don’t want you there with them, let them leave. Do not make the mistake I did and leave your homeland!”
***
Days later, my mother came downstairs carrying a suitcase.
“Where are you going?” I asked regarding her over the rim of
my coffee cup.
“I am leaving,” she said.
“Where are you going?” I repeated.
“To her homeland―that foreign land―where you found her. “
“Why?”
“To find this tradition you speak so highly of.”
I looked at her. She shrugged. “Maybe, also, to find
myself.”
As my own eyes started to fill with tears, the baby, the
unknown baby who seemed to furnish the soundtrack to my life, started to cry
again. I made my mother a cup of coffee—half coffee, half cream and six
teaspoons of sugar—just the way she liked it.
I thought going might be good for her, might help her trace
the roots of her hostility, her hatred. Maybe going away would help her find
her way back to me.
The End
Check out the Wednesday Briefs web site for flash fiction by other authors.
Check out my longer short fiction here: Damaged Angels
Beautiful as always, Mr. Benjamin. I loved that I couldn't fathom the identity of the first person until well into the story.
ReplyDeleteThank you. That was deliberate and a later addition. As I wrote it I sort of had one identity in mind then that line that identifies them popped into my head and I though oh, hey that could be.
DeleteThat was so interesting and intriguing. I want to know what happened when the mother comes back and what stops the baby crying, or at least lets your character find her. If you're not going to write more of their story I'll make it up in my head :)
ReplyDeleteThanks! Actually I haven't written the rest of their story. At least not yet. The baby crying was the "prompt"; it seemed to fit the story and underscore the moodiness of the piece.
DeleteQuite intriguing, indeed. Hope you finish it and let us see it.
ReplyDeleteMax
Thanks Max!
Delete