Story #29

Dear Readers,

No turkeys were harmed in the making of weekly one-page story number 29 in a series of 52. Thank you for reading. As always, please feel free to leave a comment or pass this on to someone you think would enjoy it.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Sharpe

Story #29

Henry had bursitis in his elbow. He went to a reiki practitioner who, while holding her cupped hands near his hurting elbow, told him to visualize it, and then to visualize the face of the first person who came to mind. “Picture the face inside the elbow,” the reiki practitioner, whose name was Lucy, said to Henry. “You don’t need to tell me this out loud, but whose face is it? What expression is this person’s face wearing?” Henry visualized his father’s grumpy mustachioed face. “Is the person saying anything?” “Goddamn it, Henry!” Henry’s father said, inside his elbow. “And what would you like to say back to the person?” Henry lay on his belly on her soft vinyl-upholstered reiki table, his face pressed into the medical tissue paper that surrounded the hole into which he had inserted his mouth, nose, and eyes. He stared down at the speckled gray indoor-outdoor carpet of Lucy’s office, which she shared with an acupuncturist and a Rolfer. He could think of nothing to say. After a while Lucy said, “What’s going on with you right now, Henry?” He told her. “Okay, I’d like you to work on that this week.” “Work on what?” “When the elbow starts hurting, visualize that elbow, that face, listen for what it says, and try saying something back to it. We’ll work with it when you come back next week. I’m seeing an expression on your face right now, what is that?” “I feel demoralized.” “Yeah, this is hard work, and it can be frustrating, it stirs up lots of stuff. Stay with it, I’m going to help you.” Lucy gave him a quick hug and he left. The hug made both his elbow and his mood improve. But that night when he was watching TV the elbow started to throb. Within minutes Henry was in agony. Okay, visualize, Henry thought. This time not his father’s face but Lucy’s appeared in his hurting elbow. Lucy was young, with short brown hair and glowing skin, and she smiled easily. Her face reflected her good health and inner beauty and her positive outlook on life. Neither Henry nor Lucy’s face spoke. With the non-affected hand he masturbated. The elbow felt fine afterward, but the pain returned the next night, and Henry did the same thing again, and the night after that and so on. When he arrived at her office the following week, Lucy said, “So how’d it go?” Henry smiled. “I told my father to fuck off. I mean, the father in my elbow, because I haven’t spoken to the real one in a year.” “And then?” “And then he turned into a baby, crying and crying and not being taken care of by anyone, and now I became his father. I picked him up and rested him in the crook of my arm, the one with bursitis, and I rocked him to sleep.” “And how did your elbow feel after this?” “Better.” “Henry, I’d call that progress.” “Me too.” Lucy had him lie on the table again and she cupped her hands an inch away from his elbow. “Oh!” she said, and drew back. “What?” “Nothing, I just, I felt a burning heat in your elbow and it startled me.” “What does it mean?” “It means things have definitely shifted since last week, and we have a lot of work to do.”

Story #28

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the twenty-eighth in a weekly series of very short stories, and thank you for reading.

Yours sincerely,

Matthew Sharpe

Story #28

When the bell rang in June’s classroom and she looked up from the storybook she had been reading aloud to her students, she had the sensation of having seen her husband standing in the doorway as she read, though she knew that that could not be so because he was a neurologist with a full schedule of surgeries on weekday mornings. She lined her children up in two rows in the hallway and marched them down to the auditorium, where they were to have a dress rehearsal for the play they would perform that weekend. When she emerged onto the sidewalk outside the school for her lunch hour, there he was waiting for her. They had been having some problems and Saul had moved out a week ago. She’d spoken to him on the phone but not seen him since then. He had several days’ growth of beard, was thinner, and looked as if he was balancing on the sidewalk rather than standing on it. As usual he didn’t speak but waited for her to. “How are you?” she asked. “Good.” “No surgery today?” “Elmo’s covering for me.” Elmo was the skeleton he kept in his office at the hospital, hanging from a hook in its skull and held together by wire. Saul was not given to making jokes, especially about surgery. He was a taciturn man who expressed very little. This had begun to make June nuts. Now he was laughing at his own joke. “Saul, are you all right?” “No.” “What’s wrong?” “What do you think is wrong? I can’t sleep, I hardly eat. I’m on my way to give a lecture on the human brain to a group of college biology majors and my hands won’t stop shaking.” “But you said nothing when I asked you to leave. You seemed indifferent, as you seem about most things.” “I’m not indifferent. I’m different. My inside is different from my outside. I’m always feeling something, I just don’t show it. I thought you knew this.” “So what’s it like to show your feelings, finally?” “I hate it.” “I like you better this way—I don’t know what to do with you when you won’t let me inside you. Do you have another joke for me?” He pointed behind her at the front door of the school and said, “Your students are approaching me with pitchforks and torches in their hands. They look angry.” June laughed. “No,” Saul said, “I’m serious.” The students surrounded June and Saul. They had dirt on their faces and they were shouting, “Give us the monster! Give us the monster!” Saul acceded to their demands, pulling from his briefcase a large jar that contained a pink human brain floating in clear, viscous fluid. Teddy, the biggest boy in June’s class, rushed toward Saul brandishing his pitchfork. “Put the brain on the sidewalk and back away!” Saul obliged. Teddy tossed his prop to the ground, picked up the jar containing the brain, raised it over his head, and ran back inside the school, surrounded by all the other shrieking students. June went to Saul and gently put her arms around him. “Darling, how do you feel?” “I feel like I’m melting into nothing.”

Story #27

Dear Readers,

This is this week’s one-page story in a series of 52. Thank you for reading.

Best wishes,

Matthew Sharpe

Story #27

Dave was walking in the park when he felt something smash into his left arm. He staggered and regained his balance. Two boys, about thirteen years old, were standing to his left, giggling, shoving each other. “Why did you do that? Say you’re sorry,” one boy said to the other. “Why did you do it? You say you’re sorry,” the other said. They weren’t really asking or apologizing, they were playing a game with each other in which Dave was the equipment. “Be more careful next time,” Dave said, and kept walking. He wished he’d spoken more strongly to the boys, put them in their place. It was forty degrees and cloudy. There was no grass in this park and there were no trees, just a lot of concrete and fences, and the park was very small. He reached a closed gate and opened it and went through. He sat on a bench and closed his eyes to collect his thoughts. “Didn’t you read the sign on the gate?” a woman said. “No adults without a child.” Dave opened his eyes to see the woman sitting on a bench not far from him with several other women. He looked around and saw small children, swings, and a jungle gym. He was in a playground. “Where’s your child?” the woman asked. “I don’t have one.” “Then what are you doing here?” “I just needed to sit down.” “Sit down somewhere else.” “Not only is he a wimp,” she said to one of the other mothers, “he’s also illiterate.” “Or he’s a pervert,” the second mother said. “Keep moving, pervert,” said a third. He got up and left the playground and the park. Now he was walking along the sidewalk on a cold Friday afternoon not knowing where to go. “Hey Mister!” someone called behind him. Dave turned around. A woman was running toward him, holding something above her head. Great, now I’m going to get hit in the face, Dave thought. “You dropped your wallet,” she said. She handed it to him. She was wearing running shorts and a form-fitting shirt, her face red and sweating, her arms and legs glowing with exertion. She stood looking into his eyes. “Those women were wrong about you. You’re a nice man, intelligent, and you have a beautiful soul. I can tell by looking in your eyes. You’ve had some hard blows lately. You’re vulnerable. People sense this and instead of being kind, they go in for the kill, even mothers of small children. I used to be like that but I’ve changed. Now I seek out people with whom I feel a connection and shower them with kindness. Do you think you can be kind to me too?” “Yes.” “Good, my car’s right over there.” She started down the block, walking fast, springing up off the balls of her feet, great leg muscles. Dave followed. When they got to her car he hesitated. She said, “I’ve got a pretty little cottage upstate, fields and trees for miles. Just for the weekend. I’m a little crazy but basically okay. If we don’t get along I’ll take you to the bus station, scout’s honor. My name is Laura.” She extended her hand. “I’m Dave.” They shook hands and climbed in the car. Laura got onto the highway heading north. Dave looked her up and down. “Did you just go for a run?” She laughed and said, “I’m so glad you said yes. I’ve been really needing a good man.” “For what?” he said, realizing he was flirting. They were paused in traffic and she looked over at him. He expected her to be leering but she wasn’t. She looked somber and scared. He put his left hand on her right one, which was resting on the seat between them. She flinched but Dave held her hand there. “You’re stronger than you look,” she said, nervously. He said, “The contact is healing.” “Okay,” she said, and relaxed. There was a massive Friday evening traffic jam on the highway, no one moving for miles ahead and the sun going down. Dave and Laura sat quietly in the car.

Story #26

Dear Readers,

Today marks the halfway point in the project wherein I post one one-page story a week on this site for a year. Thanks for reading.

Best wishes,

Matthew Sharpe

Story #26

Ted’s neighbor Selena invited him to attend a séance at her house. When he got there he found that one of the attendees was his former high school math teacher, Iliana Silver—not a spirit of her, she was still alive, scowling on the sofa, no closer to teaching him math or treating him with an ounce of generosity. Morris Undelage, who had accidentally run Ted and his bike off the road with his car and never apologized—on the contrary, had blamed Ted—was also present, in a hard-backed chair. Ted didn’t know the others. Selena took his hand, brought him to a chair—right next to Morris—and went around closing the window shades before taking a seat across the room from Ted. The room was dim. They were seated in a circle. Selena asked them to close their eyes and be silent. She said some things about welcoming the spirits and so on. She said people could open their eyes and invited anyone to say whom they’d like to contact. Iliana said, “I’d like to see my mother, I miss her so.” It was quiet for a while and Ted got fidgety. “Mama!” he heard Iliana exclaim. “Oh Mama,” she said, and wept. Ted couldn’t see anything except this old woman weeping in the dim light. Morris leaned over to Ted and whispered, “This is bullshit. Want to go to the kitchen and have some pancakes?” He got up and Ted followed. In the kitchen Morris said, “You just sit there at the table and let me take care of this, I make terrific pancakes.” “Why are you doing this? I thought you hated me.” “I don’t hate you. After I knocked you off your bike I was scared you were going to come after me for everything I’m worth.” “No, I just wanted to be treated with a little kindness and compassion.” “Thus the pancakes,” Morris said, and put a plate of them in front of Ted. They were delicious. “I think you and I are alike,” Morris said. “We both want everyone to be nice to us and we want to have a lot of material comfort, but the difference is that I’m confident those things will happen and you haven’t gotten what you’ve wanted for as long as you can remember.” “How do I turn that around?” Ted asked. “With pancakes,” Morris said. Ted lost track of things for a minute and found himself back in the chair in the living room. Selena was opening the shades. The séance was over. Ted put his hand on Morris’s shoulder and said “Thanks.” Morris pulled away, frowned, and said, “I don’t know why you’re thanking me or why I’m here.” “None of us knows why we’re here,” Iliana Silver serenely said.