Pain (4 A.M., #83)

Henley scanned the menu, wondering if her date would be offended if she only ordered mashed potatoes.
This morning, he had sent chocolates to her office with a card that read: “A sweet start to your day. Looking forward to tonight, Gabe”
She cracked her tooth on an almond from the first piece she’d tried. Anyone else would have instinctively spit the candy out, but in a panic she’d swallowed it along with a chunk of bottom molar.
Alexa, the perky blonde she shared a cubicle with, was kind enough to call her dentist, but they couldn’t get Henley in until tomorrow morning. She knew she should cancel the date, but spending Valentine’s Day alone seemed more painful than sitting through dinner with a toothache.
So now here she was sharing a booth looking out over the Bay Bridge with a strikingly handsome, extremely interesting man, trying her best to concentrate on the conversation and the company.
“Would either of you care for a glass of wine?” the waiter came by to ask.
Henley could go for a whole bottle, as the two Vicodin she’d popped before leaving the house were already beginning to wear off.
“No, water peas,” she said, avoiding looking over at her date.
“Are you sure?” Gabe said.
“Yes, I’m ine.” The first lie of what she knew would be a long evening.
“I guess water for me then as well.” And now he avoided looking at the waiter, which embarrassed Henley since she was about to make them look even cheaper by only ordering soup.
“No ice peas,” Henley added quickly as the waiter turned to leave. “Tap, neat” she thought she heard him mumble.
“So, how was your day?”
“Ine, hank oo,” she said, keeping the number of words in her response to a minimum. She had to keep her tongue on the right side of her mouth, far away from the hole in her left molar.
Gabe only stared at her, until finally she realized he was waiting for her to ask about his day—and probably for a thank you for the chocolates.
“Ow us ors?”
Gabe just continued to stare.
Maybe she should have ordered wine.
The waiter returned with their waters and asked if they were ready to order.
“Ladies first,” Gabe said.
“Up of oup, peas.”
“Cup of soup to start,” said the waiter. “And for the main course?”
“Um, no, us the oup.”
Now both Gabe and the waiter were starting at her.
“Peas?” she said.
The throbbing was back in full force. She reached for her water and managed a small sip before a steady stream ran down her chin and onto the crotch of her red Calvin Klein dress.
“And for you sir?” the waiter said, still staring at Henley.
“I think we’ll need another minute,” Gabe said.
When the waiter left, Gabe excused himself, saying he needed to use the restroom.
Ten minutes passed before Henley realized he wasn’t coming back.

Alarm Clock Dream (3 A.M., #22)

A bank of clouds purple like a newly formed bruise hovers on the horizon. I am slowed for a moment by their intense beauty. I’ve been running for almost and hour, so lost in thought that only now do I take in my surroundings.
Across the road is a bus shelter. It seems out of place on this deserted stretch of highway. It’s as if someone built it here to say, “Don’t be fooled, life does exist here,”—but still I doubt that it is actually ever used.
Then I notice someone is in fact sitting on its plywood bench. It takes me a minute to determine the sex of this person, as my eyes are first drawn to the dazzling bright white of their smile.
I know whom this smile belongs to before I even take in the rest of the face. It’s a sly smile—the lips pulled back ever so gently across the teeth, the left corner of the mouth turned up just a half-inch higher than the right. I know that if I move my gaze up to the eyes, all will be lost.
I find him in the most unusual places, always wearing this same smile, the one that says, Did you really think you could escape me?
I know how the rest will go before I even begin to move towards him. I wish I could stand right where I am, just staring back as he smiles at me, forever… but I know it’s not up to me.
When I am halfway across the road he rises. I take in all that I can before the inevitable end of this moment—his almond shaped eyes dark as obsidian and his smooth chestnut skin. His ears have always stuck out too far, and now they catch the sun and turn a translucent red as it penetrates through them.
The wave of shock and excitement over his unexplained presence is the first thing to come, followed always by the same question—“What are you doing here?”
I never get an answer.
Just that smile, like he knows something really great—something that will be years before I can even begin to understand. But this not knowing doesn’t scare me. When I’m here with him like this, his face so full of answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet, the only thing I feel is safe.
He’s going to hug me now. Then everything will get dark. Right before I wake up, he’ll squeeze me really tight.
And now, here I am back in my bed. I glance at the clock. 2 a.m. I won’t be able to fall back asleep for several hours. When he comes to me like this, the rest of the day is a loss.
I walk around in a daze, replaying the dream in my head trying to recapture those feelings I’m filled with at that moment he takes me in his arms. When I am unable to, I start thinking about whether it would be the same if we were to simply run into each other in town.
Because that’s the thing… the man who comes to me in my dreams is not a man I’ve lost to illness or death. Not a man that was ever mine to lose, really. A man I can’t for sure say has ever even shared the feelings I once had for him.
He’s a man who is very much alive and very easy to find. He is a man who used to be my best friend, and, if I ever felt the need, could still call for anything.
And that is why these dreams I have every few months never fail to shake me and leave me with so many questions.
Questions that I never dare to ask, as it seems to be he’s the one with all the answers.

The Royal We (3 A.M., #6)

We found him sitting on the back porch. “You two just let me be,” he said. “I’ve heard enough.”
Paul and Maggie asked if that meant he’d come to a decision.
“I’ll decide when I’m good and ready to decide.”
We exchanged a look that said should we leave it alone for now? Maggie raised an eyebrow that suggested later might be too late.
Paul asked our dad why he was so against the idea. “You said yourself the place and the people seemed nice.”
“Spain and its people are nice too, but it doesn’t mean I want to live there,” he said.
“You’ve never been to Spain, Dad,” Maggie said.
“You don’t know what I did and saw before you were born. I don’t tell you everything.”
We sat down on the steps, one on each side of him. It was a tight squeeze, but he didn’t complain.
“Do you think Mom would want you to stay here like this?” Paul said.
“Like what?”
“Alone. Sick,” said Maggie.
Dad looked up, gestured towards Banks, our seven-year-old beagle patroling the fence line. “I’m not alone.”
“Banks can’t call someone if something happens to you, Dad,” Paul said.
We sat there with him for a long time. His body grew tenser with each passing minute. He didn’t like when we ganged up on him like this. We knew he felt both relief and regret that Shelby, our younger sister, was not here. She was his baby girl, the child that always took his side. But with Mom being gone and his being sick, a part of him knew there was a possibility that this time she wouldn’t.
Shelby didn’t know that we were here, or that moving Dad to a nursing home was an option we were considering. Finals were next week and we decided it would be best not to add to her stress. Last fall, Mom passed right before her finals and she had to repeat the semester.
We glanced at each other behind Dad’s back and exchanged a nod that meant we should give him some time. He hadn’t flat out said no, and his considering the idea seemed like a good sign.
Maggie stood up first, then Paul. “Sleep on it, Dad,” Maggie said. “We’ll talk about it some more in the morning.”
Inside, we shared a bottle of wine.
“What do you think he’ll decide?” Maggie said.
“It’s hard to tell, but it’s clear he’s conflicted. I don’t think he wants to be put there, but I don’t think he wants to be alone here either.”
“Maybe we should have called Shelby.”
“You know what she’ll want to do,” Paul said.
Now that school was going to be out for summer, Shelby would suggest that she come move in with Dad, just until fall semester starts. But we both knew that if we let her, she wouldn’t go back. And we wanted her to have the education we missed out on.
“We’d have three months to warm her up to the idea of Dad going to Glen Oak. And when she sees how sick he is, when she really has to deal with it first hand, we won’t even have to really convince her. She’ll know for herself that it’s best.”
“I think you have our sister confused with someone else,” Paul said. “Remember how guilty she felt for not being around when Mom died? She’s not going to let that happen again with Dad.”
“And Dad won’t let her drop out of school to take care of him. He’d drive himself to the nursing home before it came to that.”
And that’s how we knew that Shelby was what we needed. Shelby, whether she agreed with it or not, was the only thing that would get Dad to go to Glen Oak.
We picked up the phone and dialed.

Translation From the Same Language (4 A.M., #45)

Translated piece: "A Very Short Story", Ernest Hemingway

One cool afternoon in Del Mar, she and some co-workers took their lunch to the park. She sat on a bench looking over the ocean. There were runners on the beach. In no time, they finished their sandwiches. The others went back to the office. She and Gabe could hear their cars starting in the lot. Gabe sat on the grass. He was warm and balmy in the cool air.

Gabe was the office “go for” for two years. It went unnoticed. When she needed coffee or copies, he took care of it; and their co-workers made a sound like the cracking of a whip every time. She kept her eyes focused on her computer when she made her requests. After the office got an espresso machine, she made her own lattes so he wouldn’t have to go down the street. The others brought coffee from home, so this too went unnoticed. No one much cared for Gabe. She didn’t think of him at night as she gathered her things to go home.

After she was promoted to another floor, she rarely saw him. Her new office was bright, and she didn’t have to share. He wanted to date her, but he’d missed his opportunity to ask. To her, he was a stranger. To him, she was his closest friend.

Gabe sent her dozens of e-mails. She marked them as junk, and thirty-four floated in cyberspace unread. He’d told her about his new boss, how much he loathed him, and about the new coffeehouse on 34th Street.

A year later, she was transferred again, this time to the company’s international division in Europe. Gabe applied to be her assistant. There was already one assigned and waiting for her in Europe, but he didn’t want her to forget about him. Gabe wrote up a proposal about why he would be a better fit for the job, pleading for the company to send him instead. It was interpreted as an obsession and classified “sexual harassment.” Gabe was fired. On her doorstep, he banged angrily on the door begging to be allowed in. He wanted the chance to explain, and hoped to kiss her. She felt scared and called the police.

She went to Europe by plane. Gabe went to jail, and later to a mental facility. It was gray and quiet there. Laying in his room with just a bed, he was visited by a petite nurse that resembled the business woman enough he convinced himself it actually was her. He told himself that she had realized her mistake and come back for him. He raped her on the cold, tile floor. He enjoyed every minute of her pain, and he knew that now she would forever and always be his, as he believed he had planted a seed inside that would blossom into a child. They now, of course, would have to be married, and he smiled at the thought of leaving the hospital. He kissed her hard on the mouth, but it was tea and not coffee he tasted on her lips. He realized his mistake. She was not here, and now he wished her dead. He hoped that she’d be attacked and brutally murdered in an alleyway in that beautiful country.

The nurse pressed charges, and he was transferred to the state prison. The business woman continued to advance in her career, bought an extravagant villa, and married her assistant.

The Bunny Planet (3 A.M., #81)

The smell of damp, rotten leaves permeates the evening air as another storm swells in the distance. The hammock is twisted between two oaks standing tall and naked in a corner at the far end of the back yard. Dark, muddy pools of water from yesterday’s rain look like a series of stepping stones leading out from the back porch where I am standing, across the expanse of sodden lawn to what was once my safe haven.
Now, the dark, slick branches of the trees look like thousands of burnt hands reaching toward heaven in a desperate attempt to be saved from purgatory. I close my eyes and try to remember the magnificent yellow and green hues of the leaves that dress them in the spring and summer—but all I can see is a thick, gray blanket interrupted by small bursts of crimson timed to the throbbing of my head.
I feel like the hammock looks—the threads, now thick and heavy with water, wound tight. They will soon become rotten, brittle, and ready to give at the slightest touch. It will have to be tossed out, as it can no longer hold anyone safely.
The air is icy and sharp against my skin, and I know I should go in and pull a sweater over my thin nightgown. But I stay, because soon enough my flesh will go numb and I won’t feel the pain at all.
I can no longer remember what brought me out here, so I scan the yard for movement and listen for unfamiliar sounds. Suddenly, I am very tired. I move forward, and it begins to feel as if I’m underwater. It takes every last bit of strength I have to propel myself forward, down the steps, and out onto the steeped lawn.
That is when I see him. He trots out from behind the primordial oaks, the shine of his yellow coat forcing me to finally take notice of what has been illuminating this previously dismal scene—the light of a brilliant, full moon.
I look down at my body, my skin radiant in its phosphorescence. It is then that I feel a cold nose in my palm. My hand brushes up over his head and down the long line of his back, the tip of his tail the last thing I feel between my fingers as he moves by. I am surprised by how dry and warm his body feels despite the damp blanket of air enshrouding us.
I turn to follow him, but he is already gone. It isn’t the closed door of the house that keeps me from being foolish enough to believe he is inside. I know he is gone, and that he has been gone for some time.
He rests at the foot of the lopsided oak, the one he favored lying under as I gently rocked in the hammock with a book or magazine.
When I see him like this, I know he is here to remind me to let go—not just of him, but all the things that are twisting themselves around my insides and causing tiny explosions behind my eyes.
The storm has reached my yard, it’s belly breaking open to release a bitter downpour of biting rain. I look up and let it splash down on my face. My lips break open into a smile that reveals teeth as white as the argent moon. I strip the thin nightgown from my body and begin to leap from one muddy puddle to the next, following the path they make to the two stoic oaks—the protectors of all that was ever important.