Bill Lapham

THE POWER OF HER WORDS

   She got into my head with the power of her words and twisted my thoughts in pretzelnovel ways. The Samizdat of Mid-Twentieth Century Union of Soviet Socialist Republics: An Analysis of Popular Dissident Literature in a Modern Communist State moved me. It forced me out of my seat to walk in nervous circles, twitching. I felt anxious, like in that moment before delivering a speech when you come to realize there will be no substitutions.
   The power of her words came from the library. From their distribution and consumption, from the inspiration they fomented. I had stumbled on the title while binder-browsing with my head bent. From the moment I received her words inside me I understood them. It was then that knew I was fucked.
   I pictured the words flowing from her brain to her fingertips, across the electronic divide, and into the wide world with no defined destination. The blackness of the print blotted out the light and their shadows found comfort in my eyes. They got converted into signals my brain could understand, and produced meaning. She got one shot at making herself clear or leaving me behind forever, and she had gotten it right, at least for me. Ambiguity is an unstable state where meanings are lost. She made me think and I think she meant to.
   She flung my thoughts in diverse directions. Ideas were like her discarded lace clothing floating through the air and falling on lampshades in her bedroom. Her words have spanned time to take up residence in my head. Did she sit in her room to write during a summer morning thunderstorm in her pajamas? Did she sip piping hot Colombian coffee and breathe in the supercharged Leningrad air?
   She and I had been intimate, I knew. She shared her thoughts with me and I had agreed to go along. But it had been years since she had written them; could her meaning have been warped by war or her intentions perverted by the pause between them?
   Or maybe the breeze was just a breeze.
   She transmogrified herself, entered my head, influence me, persuaded me. Once she got inside, her words changed me, fucked with me, made me think about things I would not have considered in the absence of her agency. Her words wielded power and transformed me forever. I cannot undo this thing she has done. Now I know and I have no way of not knowing it.
   I am a gentle human being, impressionable and willing. She could do great harm or great good in the matter that was me.
   And that’s what made her a target for tyrants, the builders and keepers of gulags and starvation camps. To kill her words – their power and grace – they had to cancel her voice. To counter the danger of her immortality they shredded her books and burnt the shreds. They spilled their powdered ashes across the black northern sea.
   They thought they had to stop the flow of thoughts from her mind to mine. The greatest danger that they might be spread. But they couldn’t do that; the splendor had already been wrought between the teacher and the taught.
   A skeletal tree with rough bark armor, standing mindless and alone, snow drifting in its lee. They chained her to a place where bars set in stone guarded her uneasy sleep. A barren place of bare cells, crowded graves and flat gray light.
   But she had gotten in my head with the power of her words. She was in me. The damage had been done.

© William Lapham 2012

Bill Lapham is a student in the Goddard College low-residency MFA in Creative Writing program. His flash fiction and short stories have been featured here and at MudSpots, and at Six Sentences, Thinking Ten—A Writer’s Playground, and the Molotov Cocktail. His work has also appeared in several Six Sentences and Thinking Ten print anthologies, as well as Goddard College’s own peer-reviewed literary journal, the Pitkin Review. He lives in Brighton, Michigan.

Edward Dean

Bob Boyce (I'll Be Around)

The full dark straight hair that framed Bob Boyce’s long slender face made his large sleepy eyes more pronounced. It seemed to speak to his sexuality. His ruddy pock marked face added strength to the perception.
Bobby used his overactive libido to solve his loneliness. His frequent forays to the local bars could always yield a female in desperate need of attention. Alcoholic playgrounds seemed to be a magnet for the lonely. Everyone there was looking for a respite from seclusion. It solved the inconsolable need for human contact. Whether it was simple conversation or the warmth of another body, Bobby was always accommodating. Most evenings, a willing female participant accompanied Bobby home. His well honed skills as a lover made him a favorite with this frantic crowd. They used him to fulfill some void in their lives. He had a latent emotional sense that could satisfy their fantasies. His ongoing trysts never lasted. Whenever a female partner put burdens upon him or demanded that he be faithful, he gracefully departed. To say that he was shallow did not speak to the core of his being. It was more of a lack of a time. His most deep-seated fear was death. A family history of all closely related males dying prematurely gave cause to Bobby’s fear. Few had lasted for more than forty or fifty years. He knew his life would be short. In a way it was peaceful and easy for Bob. He faced his own mortality early on in life when it was easy to look into the face of death and not blink. The sudden shock of his first angina attack at an early age of thirty-six put this certainty into focus. From then on, every day was a new beginning for Bob. To taste every nuance of every offering from life was a mission that he pursued with vigor!
Most any evening, you could hear the soft lilting tones of Frank Sinatra or Tony Bennett emanating from his apartment. He had literally worn out two copies of Franks The Wee Small hours of the Morning album. If there was ever a piece of music that spoke to his soul, this was it! The serenity of the midnight hour was comforting to Bob; he had tasted and relished another day.
The song, Wee small hours, would set the tempo for his melancholia. By the time he got to When your lover has gone, he would be well into his second scotch. There was a voice or feeling lurking in his brain for every phrase of every song. His other repast was comedic movies. It was the pain in comedy that he identified with. He loved to laugh and did so with great gusto.
His and Suzie’s relationship was founded on common ground. They were kindred souls in many ways. Oddly they both wanted detachment. To be alone in each other’s company was their bond. A sharing of good scotch, music and revere’ gave them a sense of peace. Even in the bedroom, there was solitude as they shared each other’s body. To be able to savor and hold on to one’s own orgasm gave them a sense of contentment. To let the body speak uncontrollably, with no intrusion from the voices within their own minds was their holy grail.
Suzie was always thoughtful and gracious enough to call before going upstairs to his apartment. She never knew if Bob was entertaining. It really didn’t matter to Bob. He would always offer to have Suzie join them. Bobby wanted in the worst way to enlist Suzie and his newfound partner in a ménage a trios. Suzie would laugh at the suggestion. She was aware that this was every male’s fantasy.
‘When are they going to learn that they can’t handle one woman, much less two at a time? Maybe it takes the pressure off of them to perform and let the women take care of each other. Or is it the show that they’re looking for? I really don’t understand men sometimes. They can be so strange; and they have the nerve to talk about us women!’
A deep smoky voice answered the phone. “Sure, come on up Suz. Hey have you got any scotch? I’m just about out.”
“Of course Bobby.”
She grabbed her last bottle of single malt and headed up.
True to his casual ease with Suzie, he answered the door clad in his boxer shorts. The ever-present waft of Sinatra music greeted her as she entered the room. Bobby smiled gratefully as he took the most excellent single malt and poured them both a drink. He handed Suzie a large crystal snifter containing two inches of the delectable liquid with two ice cubes; just the way she liked it. Bobby always drank his neat. The importance of cut crystal, small art pieces and fashionable clothes were important in Bobby’s life. The finer things of life were his must enjoyment of the now.
They both fell back on the deep leather couch and began to cuddle. Suzie’s favorite position was between his outstretched legs. They sat that way for the longest time, listening to the music, saying nothing. The warmth of the darkness and a kindred soul satiated their needs. They both shared a knowing smile at each other when the ‘I’ll be Around’ track came on. Regardless of the sex, there was an unspoken pledge to one another. A commitment to be the lifeboat in each other’s sea of turmoil; nothing asked, nothing expected but a bond inherent in their own melancholy.
“You got a visitor upstairs tonight Suz?”
Bobby knew of her voices and certainly understood. He was never sure that he comprehended his own. He knew they were there whispering to him but they were never strong enough to assert themselves like Suzie’s did.
“Yea…..” She just didn’t feel like elaborating tonight.
He laughed softly into her ear,” Well would you like a visitor downstairs?”
“Not really Bobby. Do you mind? I just want to cuddle against your erection and enjoy this scotch. Just hold me Bobby and make me safe and warm.”
He smiled lovingly and gently rested his cheek against her soft perfumed hair. After the second album and a third scotch, sleep crept easily into their brains and the nagging voices grew silent in the warmth of their bonded flesh.

© Edward Dean 2011

This story was supposed to have appeared on Blake N. Cooper's Thinking Ten: A Writer's Playground, and may yet arrive there.