A Night of Confessions

by Christina Carson

Death, the word that usually clears the room, only it didn't clear the room this night…

“Heh, Buddy thanks for inviting us to your place tonight”.  Chip clapped Buddy on the shoulder as he and his wife Liz squeezed past him in the narrow entry way of Buddy’s apartment. “I've had it with the noise in that pub where we usually get together.”

“Can’t stand the noise, eh. You getting old, Chip?” Andy yelled from across the room.

“Well as a matter of fact, yes, and so are you.”

Andy chuckled. “Only in years, Chip. My inner me is as insane as ever.”

Chip rolled his eyes. Liz, ignoring them both, spotted Andy’s wife, Judy, in the kitchen. She was putting together some cheese plates with crackers as well as warming some finger food. They hugged like sisters. They were roommates their first year in university and unlike many of the girls forced into sharing a room with a stranger, Judy and Liz became fast friends.

That left only the other singles in the group to arrive, and for unknown reasons, they were always last. The group had suggested many theories as to why that was, most not at all flattering, but it hadn't daunted Susan or Zach and the next door bell was Susan standing in the hall, leaving Zach to arrive a good twenty minutes later.

 It was an unusual group, seven people who deemed one another important enough to nurture this friendship over thirty years. Now in their mid-50s, children raised, jobs less riveting, ex’s banished, and futures less programmed, a new phase of life was upon them, the end game, and though they had shared their problems of smart-mouthed kids, financial worries, job losses and marriage break-ups through the years, they were loath to explore this stage of life in any way other than jokes.

As each grabbed a LeBatts Blue and scattered themselves over the chairs, chesterfield and floor, it was Zach who would speak the words that always started their evenings together. There had been occasional attempts in the past to drop this tradition, labeling it corny or childish. But, now that they were getting older, the ritual had strangely become infused with new meaning. Wherever they chose to meet, the convener stood, which quieted this talkative crowd, an often caught the attention of nearby tables. Then he or she would speak these same words they started with so long ago. Zach, who’d been a Fine Arts/Drama major and had gone on to stage and screen, was the convener this evening and everyone liked his delivery best. Zach stood and said in piglet’s high squeaky voice:

“We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?' asked Piglet.

Even longer,' Pooh answered.”

Pooh & Company was what they called themselves back in the day, and Pooh & Company they still were. Yet, little did they know the further poignancy the quote would acquire before this evening ended. 

With the gathering convened, small talk popped up in various groupings of the seven. They kept a serious line of chatter going until Chip said above the din, “Did you all hear about Richard?”

Richard had started with the group when they graduated from university. He brought his new wife Drew to it and stayed until his marriage broke apart. Everyone tried to get him back, but he plunged into his engineering career and began to travel internationally on oil and gas seismic crews. Chip had seen him a couple of times, but each time Richard was evasive and distant. Chip told the group he thought Richard was in trouble, maybe depressed, but it was impossible to follow up as he’d ship out and be gone again without warning.

“I ran into Toby who told me Richard had a heart attack last week and died on the spot in Kuala Lampur or some place in Malaysia.”

The group stopped talking, then intermittently murmured then sat quiet, then murmured again. They were at that time in their lives when death was a new frontier, one that was increasingly in their purview, and tonight, thanks to Richard, these friends crept a little closer to its edge.

“Is there anyone among us who believes they’re not afraid of death, their own that is? Just curious.” Susan, a professor of literature, asked the question and quieted the room better than an old schoolmarm wielding a ruler.

To finish the story, click here.

The Reunion

Sometimes a reunion can be a gathering of people, but at other times it can be a gathering up of one’s life.

by Christina Carson

She had chosen the table by the coffee shop’s front window, small square panes now aglow with the light of morning. Though the air was filled with the sumptuous aroma of the day’s first fresh pot of coffee, it was not the hour she’d have chosen for this meeting with the past, but he had mentioned a plane he was catching later in the day, so morning was best. Stranger still was her agreeing to this meeting at all. Hadn't she always been the one who’d said reunions of any sort, no never? Actually, she had said never, ever. Let’s face it, if you walked off from someone without a backward glance fifty years ago and no contact since that moment why would you imagine either of you well served by meeting now? But strangely, here she sat waiting on a classmate of some fifty years back. This was stupid. This was insane. She stated to push her chair back and gather her purse and book. She’d write a note, leave it with the young man making the coffee. Quickly, she scouted through her pockets for a pen that would write on a napkin. Her fountain pen was of no use, and her writing tablet pages were sewn in. With her head down and her attention now focused in the dark inner reaches of her purse, she didn't notice him standing at the door looking directly at her, his face softened by the whirl of memories flooding his mind.

When he noted her frantic search, he stopped and leaned against the door jamb, arms folded, one foot casually in front of the other. His eyes crinkled with the smile that was deepening on his face. He waited.

When she paused for a second to raise her head and search for a barista, her gaze flash over him and slammed to a stop about five feet further on. Slowly she retraced her path and sat staring at him. Her embarrassment showed on her face, and her eyes, those beautiful dark eyes glinting in the morning light,  they too acknowledged being caught in the act. He mouthed, “You can’t run. You can’t hide.”  Words that took her back decades with the speed of light such that in that moment his hair was its usual dark brown and his face abloom with youth. Is that possible, she wondered. She shook her head slightly to clear her vision and then felt the youthful sense of impertinence that possessed her back then come within reach. It grounded her. She dropped her panic and boldly met his gaze as she had routinely done so many times in those years of long ago. He pushed off the door frame and walked slowly to her table, his eyes never leaving hers.

Her only thoughts as he came near were, how could I have forgotten?

She was confused as he sat down, because she still felt caught somewhere between then and present day. Before her sat a man who felt like he still lived in the prime of youth. The sensation was so powerful she kept thinking she even saw him as a young man. She glanced at the backs of her hands and noticed they were still old. She chuckled to herself thinking, it doesn't seem to be transforming me. Neither said anything for what seemed forever. She knew what was keeping her speechless, but she had no idea what was going on across the table. He’d always been fascinating that way. He was what her mother used to call a dangerous man.

“Why did you want to meet me?” she finally asked.

To finish this story, click here.

If It Weren't for Dogs and Babies - Part 2

By Christina Carson

“That old pile of bones over there on the doormat; he came sniffing down the sidewalk.” Charlie Frances’s eyes lit up again as she remembered that moment, and she smiled warmly at Marley. He moved back over to the glider, but sat just on its edge so he could stay within arm’s-reach of her. He smiled back, no less thrilled now by her glow than fifty years ago. The child she’d never lost touch with, reached her hand out toward his face and played her fingers lovingly down over its rough stubble and sun-etched wrinkles.

Then she continued. “That old pup started sniffing at my feet and ran his big, wet nose right up my body until he was licking my face. At first it was gentle, but then he got insistent and licked on me like a mama trying to bring her new offspring to life. When I didn't respond, he started digging at me, but with his little feet, not his claws, like he was saying, ‘get up; get up.’ But I couldn't. When that didn't work, he began to speak Beagle, not barking but baying - LOUD. He didn't quit. He sounded like the hounds of the Baskervilles. A young man sitting in traffic with his car window

rolled down looked my way. When the little guy felt the man’s attention on him, he turned toward him baying right at him. The man jumped out of his car and, as he came around in front of it, he saw me. He ran up and knelt down, asking if I needed help. When he saw I couldn't speak, he swept me up in his arms and put me in his car. Then he ran back and grabbed the beagle and threw him in too. Off we went to the hospital, and that’s where I've been for the last three days. He never left his name, and, since my vision was so fuzzy, I couldn't even tell you what he looked like. But he left some money and that old dog.” She shuddered at the thought of all that happened, and then smiled half questioningly, half shyly at Marley.

Marley smiled back and said jokingly, “You always knew how to pick ‘em, Sunshine, dogs, that is.”

“When they stabilized me and adjusted my medication, I felt like nothing had happened. They gave me some free samples of what I use and a stern lecture about being less careless. A peach-fuzz faced doctor lecturing me on behavior. I guess they don’t want to deal with reality the way it is these days - that some people can’t afford the medicine that keeps them alive.”

There was no self-pity in her voice, just matter-of-fact reporting. She paused, thoughtfully. “When I was driving home I had this thought.” She looked Marley square in the face. “I do believe that if it weren't for dogs and babies, the cosmos might just flip the switch on gravity for a few minutes, wiggle the earth’s axis a tad, and shake off as many of us as it could, cleaning house, so to speak. We’re not making much headway, Marley. We can’t seem to quit judging each other and admit we’re just plain scared, then nuzzle up to each other, wagging our tails, knowing there’s something good in everyone regardless.”

They continued to stare at each other. Marley broke first. He chuckled. Then he shook his head slowly from side-to-side. He reached across the gap between them and tapped the tip of her nose playfully with his index finger. Her smile widened with each pat until she too broke into a soft chuckle. Shyly she said, “Sometimes it’s just downright embarrassing being me.”

“I think of it as entertaining,” Marley rejoined. “And I think one more thing too. Without sounding judgmental, I’d like to suggest a bath for that dog as I can smell him all the way over here.”

In that moment, as if all the years they knew together shed like hair off a dog in spring, he offered her his hand, and she took it giggling, going off with him like two school kids. It wasn't the first time either of them had walked away from despair, between her ugly marriage and his uglier war; though death this close was a new wrinkle. As she hunted under the sink for a wash tub, clear-minded and comfortable in her skin once again, she heard herself think, Don’t flip the switch just yet. We may have made some headway today, as she reflected on the kindness of that stranger. 

On the front porch, the old beagle, with eyes so big and round each looked like a fortune-teller’s crystal ball, watched Marley come toward him and thumped his thick tail against the boards of the porch floor, raising small puffs of dust. Marley squatted down and began rubbing the dog’s bony head, its breath doggy and smelling almost as bad as the rest of him. He slid his hand down what was once a silky flap of ear, now scarred from cuts and tears, and lifted it tenderly, whispering inside it an intimacy meant only for him, “God bless you whoever you are; and whatever you want, you got it.”

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If you are looking for Part 1, click here.

Hope you enjoyed this one. I plan to write some more.

Christina Carson, Writer

Novels of Substance and Story