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Short Stories, by W.V. LaceyW. V. Lacey is an artist I have known since childhood, but have only recently discovered is a writer as well. I have given a forum for these stories to be read here, and hope to include other authors in the future. You can contact W. V. here, by emailing wvlacey@firewalkdigital.com
Some of these stories have been previously published, and all are copyrighted and protected. Please respect the artist and do not reprint without prior consent from the author.
Copyright © 2002 W.V. Lacey. All rights reserved worldwide
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The Younger of the two sat picking flattened pink gum off the arm of the bench. She covered her prize with her skirt whenever the Elder looked her way.With a shrill voice the Elder besieged the passing crowd. Her incessant bleating parted them before her, clearing her a path as they tried to dodge her presence. The Elder jabbered on incessantly about loose change, flailing her arms. Then she would sit muttering in her throat, stiff and gray, a shard of bark long since torn from the flesh of the mother tree.
I could see them from where I stood, waiting in line at a lunch wagon. I began to perspire just looking at them, wearing most of what they owned in shades of color no longer visible. They guarded a shopping bag between them.
The Elder was shrieking again, following people in either direction, never going more than ten feet from her bench. She was withered with age, and her skin was the color of the sidewalk. I could see that her rags fit her well. I remembered once hearing the petite are fortunate in that their size gives them little competition for used clothes.
Someone, I couldn't see who, threw a quarter that hit the Elder in the face. It rolled away under the younger ones foot. They both dove for it instinctively. The Younger yielded to her older companion.
"Give me that! Get away, get away!" the Elder screeched. "I take care of the money!" The Elder shook the coin in the Younger's face. The Younger fell to the ground in a ball, leaving the gum exposed on the bench. "What are ye doin?!" cried the Elder. "Give me that!" She snatched the gum away.
"But it's still sweet," protested the Younger.
"Yer can't eat it! Yer can't eat it! It ain't good fer ya!" The Elder spat on the ground and stuffed the gum in her pocket.
As I waited for my order to be prepared, I watched the Elder work the traffic. The Younger stood perhaps fifteen feet away from me, rocking the shopping bag in her arms. She was about an inch taller than the Elder, and I could see mucus caked to her flat nose and a shine on her upper lip and chin. Her round face was drawn into a frown.
The Elder was having no luck with the traffic and the smell of food drew her closer to where I stood. I had my order of juice and an overstuffed chicken sandwich in my hand, more food than I could easily handle. A morsel fell to the ground, and the Elder saw it before it landed. She crept closer, one eye on me, until a pigeon made off with her prize. The pigeon took it's treat to a ledge a few stories up where it could leisurely eat while it watched for more.
The Elder spat on the ground again. She pulled the Younger by her sleeve to my side. The Younger stood smiling up at the pigeon. The Elder peered up at me.
"A quarter? she said. "Yer got a quarter?" The vender yelled at her to go away. "It's OK" I told him.
"Don't encourage them," he said. "They drive my customers away. People can't even eat in peace," he muttered.
"A quarter?" she whispered. She pressed her knuckles to her face, her fingers wrapped around the threads on her cuffs. "A quarter? Ten cents, maybe?"
I don't have a quarter," I told her, and her eyes again began searching the crowd. "But I can give you this." I handed her a dollar and the Elder snatched it and stuffed it inside her shirt. She pulled her sweater tight around her throat.
I handed the Younger a dollar. She took it just before the Elder saw it and tried to snatch it away. In awe, the Younger clutched it to her cheek.
"What did you do that fer!?" the Elder snapped. "Why did yer give it to her!?"
"Why?" I asked. "Why shouldn't I give her one?" It was a genuine question. The Elder looked at me as if I were a fool.
"Yeah, why can't I have one?" said the Younger, coddling the paper to her chest. Her speech was thick.
"Cause ya don't know what ta do with it!" cried the Elder. "Yer don't know what's good fer ya!"
"Yes, I do. I know what to do with it," the Younger retorted. She stuffed the dollar in her shirt and turned to walk away.
"No yer don't! No yer don't!" cried the Elder and followed her, flailing, down the street.
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I felt the bullet rip through my brain and shatter my skull on the other side. I stood there a moment savoring the sensation. The experience was enlightening, something that few had shared and one I would probably never have again. The split second searing heat was not enough to burn, but left a trail of slowly radiating warmth behind that turned to cold as it dissipated.I reveled in it. The hot and cold was rejuvenating. The room appeared suddenly sharp and clear. The window light grew bright as the walls receded in the shadows. I realized my perspective had changed. In flash frames in angles askew, the windows moved above me, showing only sky as I crumpled to the floor. It had not been my intention. It was as if I was powerless to resist.
The floor was dominant now. It had lured me to it, captive, and cruel. It sucked my heat away deep into its cellar until it was warmer than I. I was helpless and freezing. I clung to the floor for its heat as it clung to me, praying something would warm me, tear me free, disimprison me from this devouring floor. But all voices were distant, and the hands slipped through my wrists, too weak to hold me, pale against the floor's possession. Eventually no more hands came.
I lay there an eternity, cold and immobilized, while scents and whispers changed around me but the cold and darkness remained. Seasons floated by in echoes and images, springs and summers and winter holidays I spent with many families whose only acknowledgment of my presence was some dark illusion to the past. I was the history of this house until the house slowly crumbled around me and my seasons and holidays were spent empty and utterly alone. Drifting helpless, frozen to the floor, and numb to everything around me, I grew bone weary of the cold and prayed for warmth, any warmth. I would sell my soul even for the heat of the bullet to return.
I sobbed with no tears. Gagging, gasping for no breath. A compression on my lungs forced the rotting fluid from my lips in a rhythm too fast for recovery. A screaming outside burned my ears, a moist heat sucked at my limbs. I was crushed through a channel, inescapable and black, my lungs wrung empty and weeping for air. The light seared my eyes in a blur of pain, and I screamed in terror. Cold metal tools, many hands gripped me. They bound my limbs in a blanket, and crushed me to my mothers breast.
(back to top)Copyright © 2002 W.V. Lacey. All rights reserved worldwide
