Category: 2020 – Winter

Image: “Nenana Ice Classic Tripod” © jkbrooks85. Licensed under CC BY 2.0

Author: Linda Zagorskaya

– “You know this place is haunted, don’t you?” – she said in such a trivial way, stating the most undeniable fact ever – “What’s with this bewildered look on your face? You have internet on this telephone of yours and we have the best signal in town, go on, check it, I’m not making things up! Or just hang around and see for yourself, you have been warned! They are not mean though and love young boys like yourself!”

She uttered her monologue loudly, stretching each word, as if to make sure I understood the meaning of it, and went back to serving other customers. Their numbers were quite scarce, but they seemed to be regulars. An elderly couple was sitting at the bar and chatting with the hostess. They looked like old buddies finding each other after twenty years or perhaps just after a day, it was impossible to tell. 

– “What’s in that big green bottle, honey?  Let me have a try.” – The lady took a sip from the glass, lifted it up to the light and made a disgusted grimace – “This bottle must have been opened since the last flood! There, you have a sealed one just behind, let me have some of that!” – The hostess did not protest; the number of opened bottles did not seem to matter. The customer drank on happily, reminiscing on some crazy parties that used to have in the bar.  

 An old man was sitting on a bar stool, his back crooked, he was almost lying on the bar. He seemed to have grown into the furniture and taken its sinuous forms. In fact, there was not a single straight line in the whole establishment. The back of the bar, full of thick dust-covered bottles had a frontward tilt, threatening to fall to the feet on the barmaid. The main bar was once covered with leather-like material, the shreds of which now provided support for the glasses, avoiding embarrassing accidents on customer’s lap. Across the room there were small tables for two persons each along the wall, defying all laws of gravity, threatening to tilt over to the center of the room. A pool table, once standing in the middle, was pushed to the back, where the floor seemed a bit straighter. The winner of the game was determined by the force that pushed the balls only in one sure direction and not by the player’s skill. It was impossible to stand straight in the middle of the room without the feeling that the walls may close in onto the poor customer, burying him or her alive under the twisted rubble. 

The lady behind the bar did not mind the strange setting and worked the beer taps and the shifting bottles with ease. She was as old as the establishment itself, and just like that of the establishment, it was impossible to determine her age. She wore a oversized sac for a dress that could as well serve as a night gown. Her hair suffered years of peroxide and permanent curling, it had no shape or color. 

– “Ma name’s Connie….” – She said stretching the vowels in a “good ol rural Ameeerican way” . 

I would expect her name to be Barbara or Sheryl or Rosemary, but when she said it was Connie, it became obvious – it could not be anything else. 

– “I am so glad to meet you, Connie.“

She disappeared, ignoring what I said, but materialized few minutes later with a couple of colorful pens and post-it pads all bearing an image of a drunken-looking deer, an American flag, and the name – The Moocher’s. 

– “I wouldn’t use the bathroom if I were you, young man.” – an old man woke up from his lethargic state after seeing me get up from the stool. – “And whatever you do, don’t change the music!“

– “Oh, you stupid old Mac ! You will scare all my customers away! A young man like you is not afraid of ghosts, are you?” – Connie looked straight into my eyes with a crooked smile on her face. I felt that she was the main ghost herself and it was up to her if the the walls kept the whole structure in place or not. 

A bright jukebox proudly stood in the back of the room, a testimony to the good old days when dancing and partying was the daily routine at the Moocher’s. With every step towards the shiny machine I felt an acute risk of the ceiling plunging onto my head, but I could not resist the luring of a splendid instrument. Despite the years of use it was in perfect shape, a time machine waiting to transport an naive user into the days of the Alaskan gold rush. 

– “Choose your tune, young man! And come back for another drink. I have something to show you.” – said Connie and put a huge book on the bar – “And you must buy a ticket!“

***

The town resembled a huge market square, despite the bitter cold, the wind and the remaining snow from the harsh northern winter. Several dozen people, mostly in groups, occupied all the streets of this 200-soul-strong town. The gold rush days of Alaska were long gone, but the spirit of booty hunters and crazy adventurers is very much alive to this day. 

Huge pickup trucks lined the streets, the engine roar echoed for miles down the Tenana river, startling the virgin silence of the area. There were Alaskan natives who came from the nearby settlements to this tiny connection to the modern world. Rednecks from all over the state came to enjoy their pints and show off their trucks. Few lost tourists were present to witness the history in the making.  

They were all waiting for The Event. Who will win the jackpot? 300’000 US dollars will not make anyone a millionaire, but every year it gives the  bidders hope for a new life or a least an easy retirement. 

The visitors attack The Moocher’s in an adrenaline rush. There is enough booze for everyone. No-one is afraid that the crooked walls may not withstand such flooding of people. These walls have seen all kinds of floods! Everyone will be served, and nobody will be left indifferent by the magic of this haunted place. At the end, it’s in the ghosts’ interest to keep to walls up!

A heavy book is lying on the bar, carrying the weight of a hundred-year long statistics, giving hope to a lucky guesser to get The Date right. More than a date, the hour and even the minute are of utmost importance – the precision will decide if the bounty will be shared among several winners or if one fortunate chap will strike the « gold ». 

The black-and-white tripod is firmly set on the snow-covered river, trapped in the ice from the beginning of winter. The cable is connected to the tower that houses the clock. Few more hours or perhaps days, the mystery will be soon revealed. Meanwhile the guests are entertained by old Connie and perhaps are met by the ghosts that live in the decrepit bar. The phantoms will slam doors and change the music in the jukebox if the tune chosen by a clueless guest was not to their liking. 

***

Every year around mid-April, although some years they had to wait until May, people gather in Nenana to witness a natural wonder – breaking of the ice on the Tanana river. 

The tradition to put bets on the breaking of the ice dates back to 1917 and ever since all the bidders and the winners are immortalized in The Book. 

If you ever pass by Nenana, stop and take a break at the Moocher’s. Don’t worry about the walls or the ceiling, the ghosts will make sure nothing falls on your head. Get a drink from Connie and buy that ticket.  You never know where your luck will strike …

Image: “Frozen Pond” © nighttree. Source – CC Licence.

Author: Katharina Schwarck

“Are you sure you want to go further?”, I ask my best friend Daphne as she, not carefully enough, walks over the frozen pond in the forest behind my house where we are playing. It smells of cold. “Of course. This is solid.” It’s getting dark soon and we have to be home at six. It’s December and like every year I get a new Christmas hat from my grandma. My mum keeps telling me that one day I will stop liking them but I still like them and I cannot imagine ever not liking them. Actually, I’m wearing it right now. This year, it’s green with red seams and a little elf with a red hat who waves at people when I look at them. I’ve named him Bobo. I look down to my feet. With one leg, I am still standing on steady soil and with the other I’m standing on the frozen pond. In summer, I make friends with the little frogs who live here. I’m a bit scared of breaking through but Daphne can’t know that I’m scared. “Are you reaaally sure?”, I insist. Maybe she knows I’m a little scared now. She takes another step and starts poking around in the ice with a stick.
SPLASH.
The ice breaks and we’re both drenched in muddy and very cold water. I scream a little. “It’s so cold!”, I say, trying not to let my voice get too high-pitched. I move my hands around. Everything is so cold and sticky. I am trembling. “Oh, come on”, Daphne says, gets a grip of her stick and pulls me up. I’m almost crying. We get to solid grass. My gloves are floating in the half-broken ice. Bobo is on the ground, covered in muddy snow. I hide my face so Daphne cannot see how worried I am for Bobo. This is such a bad day. We pick up our stuff. “We should probably go home?”, I ask. Daphne nods. We start running towards my house. “Do you think they will be mad?”, we wonder.
The way isn’t far but it has never seemed further. I have never been this cold in my whole entire life, and I’m the third-oldest in my class. When we get to the door, I am so scared to ring the doorbell. I can barely move my hands. Daphne looks at the doorbell expectantly, so I ring it. My grandma opens. “Oh my god, girls! What happened to you?” I start crying. “Oh, but it’s okay.” She starts laughing. “Everything is okay.” She brings us upstairs, takes all of our clothes off. I show her Bobo while rubbing my eye. “Don’t worry my love”, she says, “I’ll make him beautiful and healthy again”. She kneels down to hug me. Grandma smells of home, and warmth, and Christmas. She’s wearing a pink cashmere pullover that soothes into my skin. She gets up again, winks and leaves Daphne and me to take a bath. First everything is a bit awkward but then we can feel our hands again and we play with bubbles and the shampoo that stings in our noses and eyes when it gets too close. “There was a monster in the pond and it came out like this!” Daphne gesticulates while holding a bubble dragon between her hands. “Whooosh, whoosh”, she moves it up and down. “And you beat it like this”, I say, “pfouuuuh”. “And then we helped each other out like heroes!”. She sprays some bubbles on my head and I smell pink and fruity. I grin. We come downstairs in freshly washed bathrobes that smell of white and clean and cosy. When I enter the living room, I am hit by a wave of home and feel good and family. I can hear the oven buzzing, I see some dough rests in the kitchen. My grandma brings us tea. “How are my two princesses? You were proper mud queens!”, so we tell her about the pond monster and about how we helped each other like mud heroes. “Now that’s just wonderful”. She smiles. We take our cups of tea and start staring into the fire that is burning in the chimney. It is properly dark now. My hands are getting just hot enough on my bunny cup. I put my face right above it so the tea heats it too. I recognise the tea. It’s called “evening sweetness” and it’s my favourite. It is round and sweet and yet spicy. But not too much. It is just right. Not many people like it. There is too much going on they say. But I love it. Daphne feeds me a warm cookie. It melts in my mouth as the chocolate chips reach my taste buds. I close my eyes while listening to the crackling sound of the wood. There’s a little fir spiciness in there as well. Maybe grandma is burning a branch of a pine tree or something. Daphne puts her head on my shoulder. Maybe this wasn’t such a bad day after all…

Image: ©️ Julie Dey

Author: Julie Dey

It may sometimes be a question of viewpoint. That is why the reader should pay more attention to the surface of things. Read story A and story B and then adjust your lens.

A
My name is The Staircase, I live in an old building which is four storeys high and of which I know all the occupants. For example, on the ground floor, there is the guardian who has the good grace to make me as clean as a whistle. I like the way she cleans my steps which are damaged by the wear and tear of time. She flutters around me, passes from one floor to another and leaves behind a subtle smell of cleanliness.

Oh! Here comes the young lady living on the first floor. A handsome woman, always on high stilettos. With her self-confident gait, she climbs up the stairs and caresses my railing with her perfectly manicured hand. She wears a sumptuous dress, which, every step, lets me glimpse at her lace underwear. She pulls her keys out of her coat, opens the door and double locks it.
A few minutes later, I hear the musical notes of her piano getting lost in the stairwell. It is the end of the day. Through the window of the floor, I observe the setting sun which disappears slowly behind the hills.
Someone just walked into the building, a draught pushes the dead leaves into the lobby.
A man with polished shoes climbs upstairs with the quietest footsteps. He holds in his hand a splendid bouquet of carmine red roses. His other hand is tense and sweaty. He stops in front of the young woman’s door, hesitates and then rasps shy knocks. The door opens, a kiss, a few words exchanged, the door closes. He goes down again, his legs wobbly, feeling giddy.
It is night. Loud voices come from the second floor. They are Mister and Mrs who argue again. One hears glasses and plates breaking on the floor. A door opens violently and then closes in a crash. A big man takes a heavy step down my steps, opens the door to the building and then sinks into the darkness.
In the attic, I hear high pitched squeaks, hustle and bustle, probably some mice.
The bell tower of the Grande Place rings two times, the door opens. It is Mister who comes back from the Café next door. With an unsteady gait, he climbs up my stairs clutching the handrail. His clothes smell of alcohol and tobacco.
Winter is here again. It snowed a lot last night. I see through the window the hills covered with their white coat. Early this morning the guardian was clearing snow. The two kids from the second floor are excited, their cries resonate in the stairwell, they run me down and rush to the playground. When they go back home, my stone steps are wet and cold because of their snow-covered boots.
Two turns inside the lock. It is the young lady from the first floor. She wears her fur coat which brushes against my steps. Probably going to work. She comes across a blonde-haired woman and smiles at her. The blonde woman enters the old lady’s flat on the third floor, presumably the housekeeper.

It smells of gingerbread. It’s from the third floor. From this apartment comes a delicious smell of cooking, sometimes a roasted chicken, sometimes an apple pie, what an olfactory delight! She’s the old lady from the third floor. A nice lady who has always lived alone.
Today as every other day, she goes for her usual walk. I hear her door creaking. She grabs the handrail with her frail wrinkled hand and slowly and carefully gets down with a trembling step. She leaves in the air a subtle smell of powder and soap. After her walk, she usually sits down on the bench near the entrance and looks thoughtfully at the children playing. A few minutes later, the blonde woman gets out of the building.

On Sunday, when most people get together with family, the old lady goes to church, wrapped up warmly in her heavy coat with her rosary clanking in her hand.
Winter is already gone. After all this white comes green. Nature awakes, I hear birds chirping by the window. The sun shines and warms my steps. What a delight. Nonetheless, something spoils this fresh atmosphere. A putrid smell comes out of the door of the old lady, therefore I imagine the worst.
It has been two days since and the smell only gets worse. The guardian knocked at the door of the old woman but this latter does not answer. Owning the duplicate key of her flat, she unlocks it and screams.
The residents of the other floors rush one after another. The young lady is shocked, she then sits down on my steps nearly fainting. Mister and Mrs come next and Mister calls the police.
The kids from the second floor are curious and want to see the dead body but their parents prevent them from seeing the horrific scene. The ambulance and the policemen arrive. They carry the old lady, whose body is covered with a pure white sheet, on a stretcher and carefully gets down to the ambulance. “Heart attack” the ambulance man declares.

It has been over a month since the sad event. On the third floor, it smells of fresh paint because the flat is being renovated. Every morning, I hear the workmen coming to work whistling. Right after begins the concert of electric drills and hammers. At the end of the day, the workmen go home with a tired heavy gait.
The renovations in the flat are now over. A young couple moved in. Something saddens me. The door has been replaced, there is no more creaking… and I will never hear it again.

It is summer. The air is heavy, even at night. A burst of fresh air comes in when the man of the third floor enters the building. He climbs up the stairs, one sweaty hand on the handrail, the other typing on his phone, as usual. The cries of Mr and Mrs resonate again, suddenly cut by the melody of the young lady’s piano.
On Sunday morning, like every Sunday, the woman of the third floor gets out for a walk. As usual, she stops by the window and looks outside with her blank gaze. She then goes out and comes back with some warm bread from the bakery.
The ritual of life goes on and time goes by.

Many years went by. I am now very old. My steps are worn out and cracked on all sides. I fall apart. The walls are damp and musty. The building has been emptied of its occupants. Some workers have come to discuss a demolition project. They plan to construct an old folk’s home.
The building will be gone tomorrow morning.

Time has come. I am not afraid. I am blessed to have lived such a long life and to have seen many people from different backgrounds. I am happily going to remember forever the old lady of the third floor.

An excavator crashes on the roof, breaking down walls and ceilings. Some bystanders gather around the demolition site.
A little boy exclaims:
– Dad, look! They break it all down except the staircase!
-Yes, but they’re gonna demolish it now, look, the excavator rises and BOUM on the staircase! Come on, it’s over, time to go home now.
– Hey dad?
– Yes, buddy?
– Do you think the staircase is dead?
– Ah yes of course he is. Definitely dead!

B
Olga is a beautiful woman. She does not know it. Maybe she pretends not to know. She thinks it is simplistic to show your awareness about your own beauty. Pretending is better because it leaves room for mystery, room for possibility. Olga likes this word. It is the name of her favourite lipstick. The red velvet one she wears every day. She likes to think she lives a life of endless possibilities or rather possibilities of impossibilities. “Create yourself new possibilities” claimed an article she read in a magazine (the ones she found in the next-door tobacco shop, in the section titled “feminine readings”, to avoid any misunderstanding.) Olga had already read the ones titled “How to please your man?” and the other May issue “Get the Bikini body in 10 days”. “Too easy” she used to think. Her husband was deadly in love with her and her body was envied by all her girlfriends who fought with the numerals on their scales.
Olga lives in a 5-storey building. She just moved in with her husband Dave. Dave wanted a high ceiling flat and a room for his desk and computer, namely a room as the extension of his office in which he spent an awful amount of time. Olga thinks that Dave’s life is controlled by extensions. The one defining him as “male” and the cell phone stuck with fast glue to his hand.
Olga wanted a flat with a lake view. When she was younger, she would have killed for such a view. Now she had one. The lake view was the kind of things she could mention during one of these dull parties she had to accompany Dave to. People were more friendly if you had a lake view. The power of two words. It was Olga’s way to reassure them she fitted their parties and that her invitation was not the postman’s mistake.
Olga worked as a secretary in a consulting firm. When anyone would ask her about her job, she would unintentionally omit the word secretary. “I work in a consulting firm” was evasive enough to avoid any further questions about it thus, allowing Olga to shift attention away from her and redirect it to the addresser. That was an easy task, people love to talk about themselves. In fact, she did not want to speak too much because words had a bad tendency to betray her sometimes. Words are so loaded and heavy they may drag her down, she may drown.
Olga prefers listening and observing people. While listening to them, she dissects them inch to inch and absorbs every component of their being to fill herself, but it remains insufficient, she is still hungry, still so empty.

Olga likes her flat, but she does not like the occupants of the building. She hates hearing the couple argue. Why do they always choose to argue when she is watching her favourite soap. She cannot hear if Brad cheated on Jessica or if Jessica’s step sister had had an affair with Brad’s twin brother. Olga needed silence to concentrate, it was important for her to understand the events. (What would her friends think at her Pilates class when they’d find out she did not understand the story. For sure, they would reject her. They only accepted the ones who followed.)
She also hates coming across the woman after the argument. When Olga meets the woman in the stairwell, she notices the blackeye on her sad face, the same boxers have when they get punched in the face. She knows she must feel sorry, but she does not want to be forced to. She is the one who decides what to feel or not. Olga wonders why it seems so hard for people to put on a happy face. When she wakes up in the morning, she washes her face and puts it on. It is not itchy; it is a second skin. It is soft and practical.
Dave says she is so beautiful when she smiles. She loves Dave and Dave loves her. She knows he loves her because she sees it in his big brown eyes and by his soft touch on her skin, almost unnoticeable. He loves her because why wouldn’t he? It is not questionable nor explicable, it is definite. Maybe it suits Olga to think that way because again, it is easier.

When Olga meets the beautiful woman of the first floor, she feels her mouth tense, she quickly glances at her and politely greets her. She sees her pearl white skin, smells her perfume, feels the brushing of her fur coat. The woman smiles at her. Not a smile because there is a need to but a warm and kind smile. A warning sign. No evaluation, no looking up and down, just a smile. Olga is confused.
The bell tower of the Grande Place rings two times, Olga takes a sip of her glass of wine, she hears the door open. Dave comes back from work. She hears the same ritual. He throws the keys on the shelf, pours himself a glass of water, sits on the sofa, watching his phone. Olga gets up and hugs him. “You should be sleeping by now. I’m exhausted, let’s sleep now” he says. Olga returns to her bed, switches the light off. She cannot sleep. She imagines the scene. He comes back, throws the keys on the shelf, pours himself a glass of water. She hugs him, he hugs her too, he then asks her how her day was, tells her he loves her. The remake of the scene lasts the whole night. She wakes up, puts on her mask. “Good to go” she thinks.
Winter is here again. It snowed a lot last night. Olga sees through the window the hills covered with their white coat. Early this morning the guardian was clearing snow. The two kids from the second floor are excited, their cries resonate in the stairwell. Olga smiles at them. She wonders if someday she’ll have a baby. A baby to herself, the flesh of her flesh. A baby that she would love and that would love her endlessly. She looks at the snow. Her mom never loved her because she cared too much about the snow. This icing sugar that would make her wicked. Olga was sent to a foster family home; she never saw the snowwoman again.
Olga decides to make some lemon cake. She’ll make a layer of frosting because Dave likes it that way. She starts musing. It always smelled of cooking in this flat before she moved in. The old woman apparently loved baking too. A common tie binding them. Olga always made sure to lift the door a little bit when she entered her house, so that it would not creak. Then, she would wander in the apartment without making any noise. She observed her for hours behind the dining room wall, gazing out the window: the lake. Wide body of water.
One day when the old woman turned her back, she poured some white powder in the cake mixture. She was her mother’s daughter, she thought. Wicked.
A week after, she and Dave moved into the flat. While decorating the cake, she looks out the window. What an amazing lake view, she thinks.

Note
This short story was inspired by the short stories “Sunrise”, “Bluebeard’s egg” and “Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood.

Image:  “Light Curtains” © Andrew Mason. Source – CC Licence.

Author: Sorcha Walsh

Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. Alanna woke up in a bed that was decidedly not her own. This did not, at first, produce any sort of unusual reaction within her. This was not, after all, the first time she had woken up in a bed she didn’t recognise. She turned over, expecting to see a strange man who was probably less attractive in the daylight, and mentally prepared herself to stealthily sneak out of the door. However, she was instead met with the sight of a woman, long brown hair mussed from a rough nights’ sleep, and her face half-buried in the pillow. Now this was new, even for her. Usually if she woke up in bed with a woman, there was a man between them. Far more disturbed now by this realisation, she decided it was time to leave, before the sleeping beauty arose. She sat up and swung her legs out of bed, and found that they landed squarely in a pair of slippers. Men’s slippers. She rolled her eyes. She’d promised herself she would stop homewrecking, weeks prior, and had mostly managed to keep that promise. They were pretty small men’s slippers, all things considered, her feet fit quite snugly inside of them.

She was suddenly struck with a sense of deep malaise. Her legs, surely, hadn’t always looked like that? And her head felt much lighter somehow, and, oh god, her hands, why were they suddenly so… hairy?

She stood up abruptly and ran out of the door, tripping as she went, coming to a hallway. Blindly, she stumbled her way to the first door she came to, which by some stroke of luck was a bathroom. She stared deeply into the mirror, aghast at the face that stared back. A strong brow covered deep-set eyes, crowned by a head of floppy hair. Below, an aquiline nose, below that a straight mouth and, between them, a well-groomed, full, silky moustache, accompanied by an immaculate goatee. Instinctively, she retched into the sink, and made her second unpleasant discovery of the day: she had been drinking Bloody Marys the previous night. When she stood back up, a third surprise awaited her: the brunette woman who had been sleeping was standing behind her in the doorway.

“Is everything ok love?” enquired the smooth voice. Oh God. Alanna thought. A Brit. I’m in a poxy man’s poxy body and I’m living with a poxy poxy Brit. Just my luck. 

Out loud, she replied with an affirmative grunt, surprised by the resonance of which her voice was now capable. 

“I’m making toast, d’you want any?” said the oblivious woman.

“M-mh” said Alanna, suddenly grateful for the cover her bout of nausea had provided her. She needed to think, fast. Her first instinct was to attempt to avoid suspicion and adopt the persona of this… man. But really, she hadn’t done anything wrong. Her only crime, as far as she could see, was waking up. Really, it would be bad (not to mention inconvenient!) to keep it a secret. So she gathered all the nerves she could muster, stood up straight, and made her way downstairs, only to be met by yet another unpleasant surprise: a side-tackle from a ball of kinetic energy that she quickly deduced was a child. She stumbled slightly but picked the kid up and carried them downstairs, somewhat awkwardly, gripping them around the waist and holding their body out horizontally. Luckily, the child seemed to think of it as a game, laughing and crying out “Wheeeee” as they went down the stairs. At the bottom, Alanna put the child back down on their feet (more or less) and tried to find what she could only imagine was her partner. She looked down at her left hand. No. Her wife. Steeling herself once again, she made her way into the kitchen.

“Can I talk to you?” she said in her natural accent, cursing the awkward formulation. Her wife (?) didn’t seem to notice the awkwardness and continued buttering bread while nodding.

“Listen, there’s a problem. Or something. I’m… I’m not… I’m not this.” Alanna said, gesturing vaguely to her entire self.

“Okay?”

“As in, I’m… I’m a woman named Alanna.”

“Oh.”

There was a beat.

“So do you want to do, like, hormones and that?”

“No, you don’t understand. I am a woman and my name is Alanna.”

“Yeah, you’re a woman. Of course I support you.”

Alanna wanted to tear her hair out. This support, under any other circumstance, would have been charming, and for someone in the situation the woman imagined her to be in, extremely validating and reassuring, but she didn’t want hormone therapy so much as her body back.

“I woke up in this body today, but this isn’t the one I fell asleep in last night. I have no idea who you are. My name is Alanna Quinn, I live in Dublin. I’m twenty three tomorrow, I’m like five foot nothing, I definitely don’t have children and a wife. And I don’t know how this happened.”

Unexpectedly, the brunette woman burst out in near-hysterical laughter.

“Oh, that’s funny! You’re such a joker, Liam. Now get Posey ready for school.”

And just like that, her wife, whose name Alanna did not know, pecked her on the lips and flounced upstairs. She reeled back, stunned for an instant, and gave a deep sigh. This was going to be, somehow, even more difficult than anticipated.

Image: © Lara Lambelet

Author: Lara Lambelet

Soul Letter

Dear Mary,

I received your letter and your delicious biscuits which made me very happy. And yes, I won’t forget to put the cat’s collar back on. What a scoundrel that one is! In your letter, you asked me how to live a joyful and serene relationship. Here is what I can answer you.

I remember one day, during the summer of 1950, when my dear and sweet James and I were walking along the bank of the Seine. I was so grateful to have him by my side. Our rocky beginnings were far from predicting the success of our union and yet we had now been married for three years. I remember the question he asked me that night: “What have you learned about love?”. I replied that the most important thing I had understood over time was that it is not possible to make the other person happy. When you try, you fool yourself and you are going in the wrong direction.

You know sweetie, I found myself in the same situations as you. In insecurity, expecting too much from the other person and being afraid of losing them. But it was when I understood that nothing can hold the other person back that I felt real freedom. Be yourself, radiate and don’t be afraid to displease.

I thought I was going to lose your grandfather. He was a player who was scared to love. But don’t make the same mistake as I did, my little one, don’t give him everything. It won’t work. Learn to love yourself and to prioritise yourself. If this man you’re talking about really loves you, he’ll come back. Love is scary when it is not lived. Love makes you stronger when it is welcomed and nourished with the right seeds, with a lot of patience and understanding.

There, little one, I hope my words will be of comfort to you. Don’t lose hope. Love will come, be it with this man or another.

Your grandmother

Plum

I observed her auburn hair, the lower part of her bare back and the arch of her hips, half hidden by the ivy surrounding the garden gate. It was quarter to six o’clock. A beautiful opening of a summer evening. She was gorgeous, seated and focused on her reading. Then my gaze was drawn to the gradation of reds and greens that adorned the gate next door. I approached and grabbed a burgundy leaf. “How can Mother Nature create such things? “I thought to myself. A ray of sunshine dazzled me, and my thought was lost. I wandered here and there, letting my senses guide me. A little further away from the house overlooking the lake, I leaned against a pillar of the canopy dominated by brown tones.

– Would you offer me a dance?

– Here, now?

– Yes

– But to what music?

– That of Nature. Can’t you hear it?

– No, I can’t hear it.

– Close your eyes.

Then she took me by the waist, slipped her hand into mine and swung us slowly from left to right. One step back, then one forward. The singing of the birds came to mingle with the stirring of the fine breeze. With my eyes still closed, I savoured the moment. The scent of the lily bed at the bottom of the garden reached my nostrils. We continued our slow waltz under the fragmented marquee. We must certainly have looked silly, but surprisingly, I felt good.

– Can you hear it now?

– Yes, it’s wonderful.

We were now at the bottom of the garden. The view of the lake was breath-taking. You could even see the reflection of the sun on the surface of the water. At the bottom of the garden was a huge fruit tree.

– Plums? prunes? I asked.

– I’m not sure. Hold on a moment.

On tiptoe, she picked the offspring of the age-old tree.

– I’ve always dreamed of having my own garden in which I could escape,” she continued.

My eyes lingered on the drop of juice from the fruit, which her teeth had just bitten into, running down her lip.

– A plum. Here, taste it.

Sweetened

*content warning: injury and death

Tetanized, he observed the blood effusion on the right leg, lacerated all along, of the dying fox. The restraint of his spirit on the scarlet river made him dizzy. His hands grabbed the leather steering wheel. The hammering of his heart in his rib cage contrasted with the increasingly muffled groans of the red-haired creature. As he approached the clearing, the sinuous road and the thick October fog had played a nasty trick on him. The cracked windshield and the blood that gushed from it were witnesses to this.

Every Thursday night, after a hard day at the office, Charles would meet up with friends for a drink at Please Don’t Tell, a trendy New York bar with an evocative name and vintage atmosphere. One beer had turned into two, then into four. One propensity hiding another: the visceral need to please others. Under the pompous influence of Tom, an old friend from his university years who was now his brother-in-law, Charles rarely managed to impose his true desires on others as well as on himself. His feet were numb, and he had stumbled to the vehicle. His eyes were blinded by the city’s lights, and he had fallen over a manhole. “Damn it,” he mumbled. The torn trousers were perfectly suited to his putrid breath. The key inserted, the engine humming and the smell of dried tobacco.

A crowd had gathered around the drained remains. “Somebody, call an ambulance! “pressed a young woman dressed in a yellow raincoat. He hadn’t moved; his body was stuck in the car seat. He embodied both a feeling of fear and euphoria. A nightmare? Dream? The sweetened reality emanated from a filter that presumably did not match that of the people present at the accident scene. Suddenly, someone knocked against the window. “Sir, are you alright? You need to get out of the vehicle. The police are on their way” said a nerd in his fifties. Charles was livid. No reaction. It’s a fox. It’s a fox. Words were jostling in his head. His hand trembling, he turned up the volume of the radio in the hope of silencing the hubbub of his mind. He hesitantly pressed the gas pedal. The red bush was lit by the headlights. He closed his eyes. When they opened, the illusion disappeared. He accelerated and fled pusillanimously under the screams of the sirens. Help had just arrived and was working on the inert body of a young man with red hair. Matt was twenty-two years old. Charles, haunted by the vision of his actions, lost control. His feet were saddled with the pedal. 100km/h. The speedometer went crazy. 120km/h. 150km/h and the car rushed at high speed against the front of a shop. Charles was forty-five years old.

Mosaic

– Chemin de Verdonnet number…, I start to answer.

The memory fades away. Unattainable. It floats in an ocean of tentacular thoughts. We all have had addresses. A farandole of places imbued with happiness, moments of complicity, melancholy, the screams of kids or even authoritarian “dinner is ready” echoing in the four corners of the house. Isolated in a remote part of my memory, this element, which I am struggling to extract from my past, rushes exponentially towards the void. Yet it seems easy for me to depict the environment in which the six-year-old me was parading on an imaginary red carpet in flashy outfits. Disparate. Coming from idolized characters, my looks transported me to the depths of my childhood dreams. When I closed my eyes, the light shades tending to creamy white on the walls of the living room appeared to me like a flash. I feel the softness of my mother’s smile and the reassuring warmth of the blanket resting on my shoulder on rainy evenings. With concentration, the vermilion couch, combined with a few cushions Native American patterns, takes shape like an unfinished sketch. Although this flat was the cradle of my early youth, its rooms alienated me. Expelled. Or was it the decision of my progenitors to expatriate me from my world? I no longer know who is at fault.

– You know, on second thought, this is not where I really felt at home,” I continue.

– It makes sense to me. The walls only knew you as a child. On the other hand, the house before you left is certainly connected to some deep anecdotes, isn’t it? Come on, I’m sure you’ve got some gossip to tell me,” James enthuses.

A home away from the crowds where silence prevails. When you open the front door, the vastness of the room is disturbing. My eyes wander along the imposing mahogany table and stop at the pile of neglected administrative files. A thin layer of dust covers it. The dust is nesting. It penetrates. It disturbs. It upsets. It irritates. Nevertheless, I observe it and cherish its presence. The area is surrounded by lush vegetation. My mother has always been fond of decoration, although it was always too cluttered for my taste. Cat figurines, paintings, candleholders and junk. Suddenly, a spicy smell, certainly that of my brother’s curry chicken simmering, takes me out of my daydream and I find myself in the centre of the kitchen. Its furniture and instruments are worn out by time and by its careless users. I can still see my father with a large butcher’s knife in his hand, my maternal grandfather’s knife, cutting a piece of meat on the marbled worktop. This culinary cocoon has stories to tell. Monotonous and solitary meals. A table filled with tightly arranged cutlery for frenetic celebrations.

The hustle and bustle pushes me upstairs and to its bevy of rooms. I choose to stop on the landing of my room. The scaly white door has been covered with photographs, remnants of my adolescence and its anamnesis, which disorderly surround the four calligraphic letters of my first name. Made from a jet-black felted cloth, my baptismal name is like an introduction to the treasures inside.

– Shall we go inside?

– OK, but I have to warn you. My parents haven’t been there since I left. So, expect a museum of Lara, including cobwebs and dust.

When you open the door, it squeaks as usual. When I first step on the floor, I remember that the parquet floor also has an annoying tendency to creak. I explore the space. Not the slightest change. Although I’ve been living in Edinburgh for some time now, the period I’ve been living at the address, Route de Salles 20 in Berlens, is pretty much my entire life. Coming back to this timeless and so familiar bubble gives me goosebumps. The pleasant atmosphere in the bedroom pretends to be a somewhat distinguished mix of genres. Against one of the walls, an orange-coloured wood panelling, in front of which the bed is placed, enhances the tone and gives the room its singular spirit. When André Prévot evoked the bed, he referred to it as a piece of furniture where one rests when alone but tires when in pair. My bed, measuring about one metre forty and especially cluttered with stuffed animals, acts like a sponge. It absorbs and stores. It is the graveyard of my emotions, dreams, one-night stands and everlasting passions. In a niche of the bedroom, the music scores and colourful vinyl still brighten up the old electric piano. A key, that of a D, no longer sounds. A tear runs down my cheek. I had missed this place. This cruise into my past is only imaginary, yet the sensations are so stirring that I have to sit down.

One morning, my father proudly bought me a garland of LEDs that he had installed vertically against the edge of the wall. I will always remember my enthusiasm and the famous photoshoot for which the red shades were a great inspiration. Then comes the centrepiece. The crucial piece of furniture in this intimate space: my desk. It was a gift from my best friend. Orderly and methodical at all times, it is the pillar of my determination, the symbol of my success. With my elbows resting on the varnished wood, there I wrote, for many hours, poems, novels, essays, lists, wishes and often love letters. I cried and laughed. I also remember leaving there the wooden dice he gave me. A symbol of a bygone love. A shattered love. It is disturbing how a simple object can have enormous power over us. It is stored in a box now; the kryptonite is under control. Among the objects that were dear to me, a large flowered cup, where various teas used to brew, also rests there. But this is all part of a past era. The memory evaporates. I open my eyes. Basically, an address is just an address; what fascinates is the vivid and chipped mosaic of stories that emerges from it.