Three Short Stories
A Song so Sad it’s Impossible to Cry to
Deep into the foul night at another lousy party where boys have been nasty again and the pretty girls have been made to feel evil because of things they never did. Every girl in the party is beautiful. Every girl in the party could be a great mother one day, it’s the hardest job on this planet Earth. They’re littered throughout the garden crying about the shithead boys that wronged them. Queers occupy the liminal space. Boys are gallivanting around, asking for the next tearful woman. A per- fect princess who they can cuddle, whisper sweet promises too, then corrupt all over again. They tuck your hair behind your ear and sell you the whole world, just for a second of uncertainty.
From the beginning: we age till we die. There are no perfect rules for the in-between-time. We hate it when the beers don’t make us feel how we want them to, that’s why, sometimes, we try a small something else. As the beat loops over and over we let our existence wash through us, making assumptions which hesitate to challenge anything that isn’t already glaringly obvious.
Then a song so sad it’s impossible to cry to comes on and all the girls’ tears evaporate like ethanol. Tears are volatile liquids. Not a single soul knows who put it on. We won’t be able to recall how it sounded later, or we’ll simply choose not to. All we know is how haunting the track is – a tragedy so incomprehensible. They were once so forthcoming, those saline streams from crystalized eyes. When that melody rung out, they disappeared forever.
The saddest souls laugh till eternity, and the happiest women cry too much. As the girls dab their cheeks to doleful strings, wilting with every percussive shudder, the boys lose their mind amid the melodic ether. They make it rain from the forest of their souls, an ancient ecosystem of displeasure, where emotive evergreens have long-since pierced above the verdant chaos of the canopy, while the girls stand like totems, petri- fied, perturbed by a piercing unease. Composure and poise, grace and patience, persistently steady. A bassline so sad that the equilibrium of antiquity becomes distorted and warped, rendering the threads of our being frayed, bloody, and repulsive in the process. A song so sad that we had to let it all go.
Total Loco Parentis
Jenny’s Porsche has been idling for twenty minutes outside the school gates, waiting for her little prince to hop in. She is a beautiful Korean with powdery skin, dreamy eyes tucked safely behind pristine mono- lids, powerfully long lashes and an endless wardrobe of snug-fitting ath- leisure. She pops another Zyn tightly under her gum because she needs it so badly. Her husband Jason hates that she was a smoker, but he’s adamant that it’s in the past tense now.
Jenny’s waiting for her son and his friend because his friend’s parents are still away somewhere, closing the sale of their hotel business’ European wing and in so doing, making a swift €80 M after capital gains taxes have been siphoned from their swollen purse. She won’t drive home too fast this time, not with someone else’s child in the back, his smooth little legs and chubby calves dangling adorably from the orange leather back seat while his ankles slam against the felt. There’s no rush to get back and sit idly, watching her little terror and his friend play Fortnite while the maid prepares pasta pomodoro with chicken tenders and a lean Caeser Salad.
Jason won’t be home until later, he’s golfing again. It’s a work thing. That’s what Jenny won’t ever understand. Stupid Bitch. She won’t grasp how trade can spill outwards from the office, how deals can be cut over a green velveteen table or half-inch blades of fairway grass. She’ll never quite know what Jason means when he says A powerful drive is valuable, but a sharp short game is priceless. It’ll never dawn on her gentle mind that, no matter how beautiful she becomes, he won’t ever love her how he used to – that the weight of everything which has come before tethers him to the nuclear family like a castrated dog on a leash: McMansion, two kids, a burgeoning property portfolio, and bottomless memories, all shared.
She’ll take a benzodiazepine and maybe later, when he’s home, she’ll suck the Viagra right back out of him. But for now, she’ll ask the maid, who really is – as she tells all her friends – the best housekeeper she’s ever come across, to go to the cellar and grab a 2014 bottle of JL Chave Hermitage Blanc so that she can sit and stare with allotrope eyes, as her half-Korean kid games the afternoon away in echoes and neon screams.
A Fine Place to Die
It’s a log cabin in Finland, a lake house on a headland nestled between auburn leaves and evergreens. It’s a eucalyptus-scented polar pine sauna with space for seven – so steamy you can’t begin to imagine. It’s a damp pontoon in summer, splattered footsteps decorating the wood. An icy plain in winter, parabolic engraving carved harshly from the skates. It’s a breath of fresh air. It’s a capacious three-building compound, a snow-equipped Subaru, a reindeer stew, a full-bodied red, a crackling hearth. Truly, it’s a long-sought-after sense of levity. It’s what you’ve nev- er known you’ve always needed.
The nearest violent crime is taking place 294 miles away, the brutal use of a woman’s body. It’s best not to get into the details, to think beyond these confines, to contemplate the big things, the nasty things, the dis- gusting happenings. You’re best when you’re well fed and lightly merry, sat with a content belly as the Sauna’s löyly sprinkles gemstone beads on your leathery torso. We left the bad things behind; I should never have brought them up.
It’s dining before triple-glazed windows, desiring slowly across the des- olate expanse. It’s the memories of raw, consensual sex on a deerskin rug, a wet room, a boot room, an eight-hob gas stove. It’s the company we once had. We used to talk about tree trunks like they were precious metal. You don’t quite understand until you see the pious majesty of a Finnish Pine. It’s an attractive proposition – you’re a risk-taker.
We once saw snow chains as the keys to our freedom. But we aren’t alone, there’s Finns and Sámis too – they’ve been here since long before us. The floor is white for half the year, the wind bites at your furrowed brow for a few months more, and solitude plays softly on this desolate existence. It’s a gentle retreat.
It’s a twenty-minute drive from a provincial airport (so convenient). You came here years ago because it’s a beautiful place to die and it’s mighty fine that it’s finally happening.
