Tohternam's Last Note

ANOTHER IMPROMPTU FICTION


Dear Christine,

The news will have been delivered with this letter.
The course of the disease was suprising if not terribly
swift - to me at least.

Forgive me.  I tried for years to interest you
enough so that it would be worth my while to
keep talking to you, but I just couldn't pull it
off. 

Love,

H. E.

Baby, We All Gotta Go Down

She was at a concert - for a band she'd be embarrassed
to own up to - and she was not enjoying herself either,
when suddenly a song caught her ear, a boisterious
song, Baby, We All Gotta Go Down, and she immediately
started to cry. 

The old men singing it on stage did not appeal to her,
and she could not understand why it made her so emotional.
She could not shake the song from her memory, and again
it made her cry for something lost she could not name.
She bought an old vinyl disc of another band playing the
song, and since she had no other way to play it she took
it to her mother's house and played it there on her antiquated
turn table.

Her mother wasn't at home, and her father had been gone
for years, so the house was empty when she arrived. 
She went straight to the turn table without taking off her
coat and could not understand why she was shaking as she
put the record on.

Not wanting to scratch the grooves of the song itself,
she put the record on at the beginning and let it play
to her song, but when the song was finished, she picked
the needle up carefully and placed it precisely at the
right spot, even though her eyes were filled with tears.

It was on the 3rd play that she noticed her mother
standing in the room.  Her mother was crying too.

- Why, the daughter asked, what is it about this
song?

- Do you remember your father?

- Of course not.

He had died before she turned 3.

-Oh, yes you do, answered her mother, he used to
sing this to you everynight at bedtime.  You hated
going to sleep and absolutely refused until he sang
you this, Baby We All Gotta Go Down.  You
wouldn't let me sing it after he died, and you lay
awake for hours with a dim hall light on,
refusing sleep.

The daughter looked up out the window: part of
the landscape was missing; it had grown dark,
and what was missing comforted her.

Her Certain Smile

AN IMPROMPTU FICTION

She took me lovingly by the hand, and I wondered
how many germs passed between us at that moment
and all the other customers she had taken in the same
way that day tenderly by the hand.

Why had I slowed down?  I knew exactly why.  The
way she smiled at me, although she was only selling
me a hand product. 

I enjoyed the way she handled my fingers.  I told
her I thought she had the wrong customer.  Her
product cost $40 - that was half off - and she was
disappointed when I moved on. 

I wished I had given her the money.  She would
have smiled again, and it would have been worth
every bit of my $40 plus tax.

In A Pool, Not Swimming

AN IMPROMPTU FICTION

If I am honest, I have always taken some relish in going
in a pool - urinating only, I'm not disgusting - but I did
not make a habit of it and always did my best to
avoid it until 2 weeks ago.  Of course you encouraged
me to swim - everyday was best, you said - after I could
no longer run.

"You must take care of yourself."

I didn't enjoy swimming too much.  I always worried I
would panic when I first submerged in the cold water,
and then never enjoyed the monotony of going back and
forth inside the deprivation tank, but I learned to let my
thoughts wander to methods of self-improvement and even
tried to make plans for a better future.

I didn't really start taking pleasure time after time in
urinating in the pool until two weeks ago.  But since
then I've done it everytime I've gone in the water.
You see, since you left me, it's absolutely the only power I have left.