Who was it brought that bottle into our lives and went and ruined everything is what I want to know. Was it not there, it would have never once occurred to us that we have nothing to drink to, and are therefore in trouble, as far as our relationship is concerned.
It’s like that bottle in that closet has a stink. Did you notice? Do you smell it, too? We do. Much as we use air fresheners—metaphorical ones, as it is a metaphorical stink—we just can’t make it go away.
And, we try.
In three days, my wife will leave me because of that Goddamned bottle. I know this because I had a dream. My dreams, they all come true exactly like I dream them. My marriage has a count down. My wife wants to know why I’m making red X’s on the calendar.
When she goes, I’m going to open the bottle, and drink it. All of it. And, I’m going to use it to chase a bunch of codeine-spiked aspirin I got after I had wisdom teeth pulled.
Here’s a terrible thing about my upcoming bottle-caused/bottle-related suicide attempt: Though I’m going to be brain dead for five whole minutes, they’re going to manage to revive me. I’m never going to be the same, but I’ll live another 35 years. And then, I’ll be hit by a city bus.
Wifeless and stupid, that’ll be me.
I’ll still have the dreams, the ones that tell me how things will happen, but since I won’t be right in the head, I’ll never understand that my dreams of the future are bound to come true. It will never occur to me that I have this great gift, this terrible curse.
I am doomed.
My wife just asked me why I’m locked in the bathroom and why it sounds like I’m weeping. I pushed a note under the door that has on it the new phone number she’ll get when she moves out.
I don’t even remember what’s in the bottle, truth be told. Could be whiskey. Could be vodka. Could be gin. Hell, it could be vermouth. I’ll still drink the whole thing when the wife exits, stage left.
She has hazel eyes. She is five feet, three inches tall. She has a womanly figure. I will remember these three things about her for the rest of my life, and will, in fact, be repeating them to myself—mumbling them to myself—when I drink the bottle, and when I walk out in front of the city bus. The first time, the mantra will tear me up inside. The second time, it will be a subconscious refrain, practically meaningless.
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This was published on Hobart, and then part of a chapbook I made called Creation Stories.
My parents had a box of leather and winter gloves on the top shelf of every hall closet. I think it was the same box in each town. They would just tape a lid to it, and put it on the truck. Then we'd get to the new house, and put it on the top shelf of the new hall closet. Every hall closet I went in to when I was a boy smelled like the box of gloves.
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Oh this is such a sad story, Matthew. The penultimate paragraph clobbered me.
Holy cow! Beautiful sadness.
Well, you need to expand this. There are moments of honesty. Take those moments and use them as catalyst for what u wan to say. Quit holding back. You buffer a few things. Just rip it.
Matthew, of course, when artists share their stuff they are inviting evaluation...whether it's a short story of personal tragedy or a painting or a song they wrote and people are going to read into your psyche whether you asked for it or not. That said, I enjoyed it and it resonated as being "honest." Only you know if you are holding back (the comment above maybe dead on right. You know what? Maybe not.). Look forward to your next piece.
I love this just as it is! Please don't expand it unless that was your original intention! Of course, I'm not a teacher, just a writer and reader.
Oh, I'm just giving 2 cents. Please ignore it. I'm just saying what I feel, which is really what a writer wants from a reader anyway.
S
I like how time slips in this piece, which is something I like to see in short-shorts.
I like this bottle, how he can't get away from it. I like how you wait to tell us the color of his wife's eyes and her exact height until the almost-end of the story.
Smells are hard to forget. Is this true, your story about the gloves?
"We just don’t have a damn thing to celebrate."
I like this line, it has a spin force that folds the story upon itself and makes it feel complete and yet always living or restless.