After a 10-month hiatus, I’m digging through old stories and publishing new ones on Picking Daisies. It’s as much of an exercise in reflection as it is an attempt to start sharing again. I can’t help but notice themes that I didn’t realize were brewing when a few unrelated stories and songs were written and that’s something I love to explore. Here’s part 1 of a short story I wrote in 2020 called “I’m In Flames But They Won’t Leave.” Maybe it’ll be a thought starter for other ideas, maybe it’s just a mood-setter for works in progress.
I hope you enjoy <3
- Alex
12:02 a.m. — The Living Room
Her head flies up off of his lap.
“Oh, who cares?! This is what life is about — connecting with people!”
She races up to the second floor, her heels punching holes through every stair.
Lotte knew talking over people was rude. She had a knack for inadvertently talking over the most pivotal scenes in a film.
But she was finally at ease for the day and felt bubbles of joy rising and popping in her brain the way they did whenever she truly relaxed, so repeating the funny way his Mancunian dialect dipped in “motherfucker” was a natural, if not completely inevitable, conclusion to the moment.
Mick lowers the volume and focuses on the sound of Lotte breathing over his head. A wild animal, panting.
4:32 a.m. — The Bed
Lotte slips a key into the eye socket of a decaying head. She twists it to the left and it does not open, then to the right and its jaw falls slack. A flood of glass marbles pours out of its mouth. The marbles get bigger and bigger as they roll away from the head, spilling into Lotte’s lap, filling the room, tumbling onto the floor, striking the hickory with a thousand tinny clacks.
She gasps for air and grabs a handful of ribs. Mick is sawing logs, curled up like a mouse, next to her in bed.
She detects a stale acidity in the air, but it’s coming from her, and she won’t vomit for another 20 minutes.
4:52 a.m. — The Bed
Lotte burps and tastes the lining of her own stomach. Mick rolls over and elbows her in the forehead, the rhythm of his breath unbroken.
In his dream, Mick has no elbows, or he is composed of only elbows. It doesn’t matter which; Mick is a god, floating above a herd of bleating sheep. He casts a glance down at Lotte, her frown visible from outer space or the top of the Empire State Building.
Three years ago, after his nephew’s christening, they’d gotten into an argument about finances and things had never really been the same.
Heavenly Mick sighs, his power of flight sapped once again by the mere shadow of his wife’s discontentment.
7:30 a.m. — The Bed
Mick’s alarm rings like a rotary telephone. He slips on the running gear he laid out the night before and is already three miles away before Lotte reaches for his iliac crest. Her fingers spread and stretch toward no one. She’s filled with adrenaline and rolls onto her right side to fall back asleep for another five years.
The absence of his body has left a pronounced dip in their lumpy, old mattress. Lotte rolls into it like a corpse. Her temperature skyrockets.
3:40 p.m. — The Den
“Do you smell that burning?” Lotte asks no one in particular.