Window

Tags

Anya Riis, death, loss, love, short story, stillbirth

The sirens wailed in the distance, and there was an inked in blackness outside the window. He had taken himself to the far side of the dully-lit room with the polished lino floor, and leant his head against the glass, looking over the suburban lights. He felt as if he was leaning out into the night and falling into it, through the membrane, seeing nothing.

He had meant to say something to her before she’d left, he really did. But those words had become crust, and her shoulder was turned already. That familiar shoulder.

Outside he listened to the sirens sounding like birds answering each other, echoing the other’s call. Such a hollow sweet sound. They were wailing, calling to the other to reassure each of the distance.

Their sound was fading and he knew it would pass soon enough. So their urgency waned and ebbed, disappeared, as his forehead grew cold pressed against the liquid blackness. The sound of feet in the corridor came and went.

This was the kind of night you were meant to have faith, or something like it. You were supposed to lean into something more than just a window. You were meant to feel the Godhead, know that it was there and pull it round you like a blanket.

But he found it was hard to feel forsaken when he didn’t believe there was anything to looking out for him in the first place. Believing in something like that just wasn’t his style.

The thought snagged in his head, and hooked his chin upright.

He stared at the bent reflection of himself in the glass, examining the hollow sockets of his eyes. In the reflection over his shoulder he could see the glazed light spilling in from the corridor that she had taken when she had strode out of the room. The fluorescent light was muted, but still the air shook with her.

When the time came for him to leave the room, he already knew he would turn the opposite direction to the one that she had taken. He wouldn’t follow.

As she opened the door to where their son lay, he knew he would lift his head from its pressed position against the glass, and he’d walk away.

As she took the tiny hand of their boy who hadn’t breathed, he would walk through the sliding doors to the street and gulp on the air.

Written for Emma

Wash Day

Tags

affair, Anya Riis, love, short story, story, tale, wash day, washing

“I’ve done something bad,” said Ruby, lying stretched out on the grass underneath the clothes line. She’d been squinting into the sun.

“Hmmmm?” said Lionel, as he bent and scooped another peg from the bag. “How bad?” he asked with a frown as he examined the neck of the shirts.

“Pretty bad,” muttered Ruby, turning on her side and picking at the lawn. She glanced up at Lionel again, trying to read his face.

“It’s got to do with you,” she finished.

The breeze picked up and stirred Lionel’s hair. He wiped his forehead and looked at the washing. There really is something in the snap of a piece of linen, flicked clean and pinched with pegs, he thought. There is something in the scent of wet, clean cloth that smacks of potential and the suggestion of what lies just around the corner. It’s neat. Ordered. Controllable. He sighed inwardly and looked down at Ruby.

“Do tell,” he said.

Ruby glanced away and prepared to speak to the lawn. In six years of marriage she’d never been able to master looking him in the eyes with her truths. She felt her eyes skid and flit, glancing him. Lionel waited. He was good at waiting.

“I’ve had an affair,” she began, taking a breath and faltering, her voice sounding robotic and far away.

There was a feeling like the sound when a stone falls into a pond. A reverberation and the air changed. Ruby felt her mouth go dry as Lionel gave nothing away. She couldn’t see his face clearly above her, framed by the endless empty haunch of blue. Now it was Ruby’s turn to wait. Ruby was no good at waiting.

The linen gave a satisfying crack in the breeze.

Lionel watched the washing circle, responding to the wind. ‘A washing line with neat whites aligned is something special,’ he thought.

Inside he felt the stone sinking into the cool pond depths.

“I know,” was all he said.

Like I used to

Tags

Anya Riis, longing, love, missing, relationship, searching, short story

It’s a weird phrase – “like I used to”. It summons up something more than now, and more than then. It says to me that I once was there; I once was a part of you. Something happened along the way. Our hands slipped, just for an instant. It must have happened in that large crowd. And then you were gone, borne away on the tide of people.

There must have been a mourning for you. I don’t remember clearly, but there must have been. I must have also searched for a while, and then as the days became months and the months years, well, I started to forget what I was looking for. Only that I was looking. Still looking. Always seeking.

Did You Know

Tags

boundaries, inner ear, love, short story, stirrup bone, tale

“The smallest bone in the body is the stirrup bone, located in the ear,” I said, while leaning against you and looking away towards the horizon.

“Is that so?” you replied, comfortably abstracted, occupied with something invisible in the middle distance.

“Yes, it’s the bone that quivers with sound and moves it from the outside of you to the inside,” I said. “I think it is a translator.”

“How so?” you said. “How can a bone translate?”

How indeed?

An Open Letter to a Nineteen Year Old

Tags

Anya Riis, Creative Writing, love, nineteen year old, relationship, running away, short story

I know you’re not going to want to hear what I’ve got to say. You’ve been missing for such a long time now, you’ll probably think I’m out of touch or just too old to understand. So much has happened to you since we last saw each other you’re probably thinking that I couldn’t possibly get it.

You ran away to another country. Took flight, and ran. I get that. See, I’m not too old to understand. I know that you just had to get away, that something was pressing on you until you popped. Picking up the bags would have felt illicit, like a thrill, and getting on the bus would have had all the hallmarks of a stolen adventure. Heart beating hard, the unknown laid out before you. I get it. I know it.

Bed

Tags

Creative Writing, love, marriage, relationship, short story

She buried her head into the pillow in the dark. The cotton sighed around her as she made herself comfortable; wrapping the doona around her legs but making sure he had enough too. The sheet underneath her felt cold, she’d just changed it and there was something nice about a fresh sheet. The crisp feeling would be gone by morning, so she moved her legs slightly to enjoy the sensation.

Bed. Cocoon. The darkness felt close and complete, and only forgiven by a sliver of light in the window. The nighttime sounded like a sigh.

He rustled next to her. She could feel the lines being drawn down the centre of the bed. Etching slowly, so she didn’t recognize them at first, but as the minutes ticked by they gathered themselves into road markings. Familiar road signs which made her heart sink. This is my side, that is yours, they declared.

Travel

Tags

Creative Writing, love, relationship, short story, tension

The dragonfly was beating its wings with a frantic fluttering against the glass. A hissing sound mingled with the steady beat of its confusion. Col took out a plastic takeaway container and rifled through the paperwork looking for something suitably heavy and broad. He leant heavily across the old wooden table with a grunt, his belly grazing the surface.

It didn’t take long to capture the dragonfly inside the container, where its confusion multiplied. It was surrounded by colour and light which looked tantalizingly like the outdoors. Col felt the chaotic thump of the wings and body thrown with repeated passion against the inside of the plastic. He slid the cardboard in underneath and split the sunlight away from the dragonfly, cutting it away from the light and temporarily silencing the thrumming.

The seahorse and the starfish

Tags

children, Creative Writing, love, short story

In a deep pale blue harbour, with water that giggled and sparkled, lived a starfish. An average sized starfish of dusty red.

He lived between a small collection of rocks where the water couldn’t make up its mind whether it was iridescent blue or green. His rocks were greened with age, and harboured small shellfish and the occasional travelling sardine, but aside from that the rocks were his own. The starfish had lived there for many years. He was a gentle, wise starfish, who spoke little and listened a lot. He would sleep while the stars reflected their kindness through the water, and during the day he wandered his rocks while the rays of light darted over him.

The starfish thought he was happy.