Just a quick piece of sudden fiction I had to do for class:
Youll always have your daddy.
There she was, standing before him, not at all as she had imagined. The pause of recognition that she had imagined on the train had failed to come. And so, lost for words, lost in disappointment, she found herself ordering a light lunch from the man who had frequented her thoughts since that day, so many years ago, when he had first deserted them.
Crepe, please.
He was still thin, with a hint of grizzle on his chin. His eyes had focused on her, then through her, and he paused to wipe his hands on a yellowing cloth. American, yeah?
Yeah. Just graduated. College, I mean. She wished she could tell him about the boy with the dark brown eyes who had knelt beside her just a few weeks ago. The flush had been heavy in his cheeks.
The man left the rag on the counter and nodded politely. Im originally from America too. What would you like on the crepe?
Nutella, please. She smiled then and lightly added a Merci as she walked to the other end of the shop, watching the tide slowly rise and swallow all the sediment. The hill was now an island.
As she heard the batter being sizzled and flipped, she searched inside for things to say. But when she heard him call out, Thatll be 3 francs, something in her broke, and she paid and quickly left.
Before the first drops of rain fell, the clouds had dulled the sky into a wet tone of grey. The drizzle started while she was still climbing the narrow streets, nearing the walls of the abbey perched atop the island-hill. Finding refuge in a tight stone alcove, just off the main walkway, she leaned against the mossy stones and felt the barest hint of moisture in its carpeted surface.
The tissue paper crinkled as she took the first bite of her steaming lunch. As umbrellas and tourists continued to pass unnoticed, she took another bite, enjoying the soft folds of chocolate, and then another as she began to cry.
When the rain had stopped, she stared up at the cloister situated high above on the monasterys granite sides, thinking of the man who had prepared the batter that was used to make her meal, the same man who then fried it and folded it, after carefully spreading the chocolate with a spoon.
To her left, a few steps down and a turn around the corner, was the shop where she had left him. And to her right, the stairs ascended, winding up to the cloisters, vistas, and crucifixions. She thought about the creases in the photographs she held in her knapsack, the tape she had used to mend what her mother had destroyed in her anguish.
Left foot, right foot, down the steps, in front of the shop, her hand now flat against the wooden door.
Youll always have your daddy.
There she was, standing before him, not at all as she had imagined. The pause of recognition that she had imagined on the train had failed to come. And so, lost for words, lost in disappointment, she found herself ordering a light lunch from the man who had frequented her thoughts since that day, so many years ago, when he had first deserted them.
Crepe, please.
He was still thin, with a hint of grizzle on his chin. His eyes had focused on her, then through her, and he paused to wipe his hands on a yellowing cloth. American, yeah?
Yeah. Just graduated. College, I mean. She wished she could tell him about the boy with the dark brown eyes who had knelt beside her just a few weeks ago. The flush had been heavy in his cheeks.
The man left the rag on the counter and nodded politely. Im originally from America too. What would you like on the crepe?
Nutella, please. She smiled then and lightly added a Merci as she walked to the other end of the shop, watching the tide slowly rise and swallow all the sediment. The hill was now an island.
As she heard the batter being sizzled and flipped, she searched inside for things to say. But when she heard him call out, Thatll be 3 francs, something in her broke, and she paid and quickly left.
Before the first drops of rain fell, the clouds had dulled the sky into a wet tone of grey. The drizzle started while she was still climbing the narrow streets, nearing the walls of the abbey perched atop the island-hill. Finding refuge in a tight stone alcove, just off the main walkway, she leaned against the mossy stones and felt the barest hint of moisture in its carpeted surface.
The tissue paper crinkled as she took the first bite of her steaming lunch. As umbrellas and tourists continued to pass unnoticed, she took another bite, enjoying the soft folds of chocolate, and then another as she began to cry.
When the rain had stopped, she stared up at the cloister situated high above on the monasterys granite sides, thinking of the man who had prepared the batter that was used to make her meal, the same man who then fried it and folded it, after carefully spreading the chocolate with a spoon.
To her left, a few steps down and a turn around the corner, was the shop where she had left him. And to her right, the stairs ascended, winding up to the cloisters, vistas, and crucifixions. She thought about the creases in the photographs she held in her knapsack, the tape she had used to mend what her mother had destroyed in her anguish.
Left foot, right foot, down the steps, in front of the shop, her hand now flat against the wooden door.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
Talking of Michelangelo.
- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot
