Fissures – Jayne Martin

 

The new people had rebuilt from our ashes, from the scarred land to which we could not bring ourselves to return. The foundation had weakened over the years and the house had begun to sink on one side. Spider web-like fissures had creeped silently across the wall above our headboard as we slept.

We stood in only our robes, our feet bare on the cold pavement. The heat of the flames blew out the window of the second-story bedroom we’d planned as a nursery for children never born. The chimney collapsed onto your study where you buried your disappointment in work, while I buried mine in the kitchen growing larger with food that never filled the void. I may have reached for your hand. They said the fire was caused by faulty wiring. It’s true we had let things go. So many things.

I sit in my car across the street from the modern new design; all glass, sharp angles, and promise. No bicycles hastily discarded in its driveway, no toys forgotten from play on its pristine lawn. A gentle psst-psst-psst of a rotating sprinkler the only hint of life.

I wonder about the people inside and who they will become when the first cracks appear.

 

 

Jayne Martin is a Pushcart, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfictions nominee, and a recipient of Vestal Review’s VERA award. Her debut collection of microfiction, Tender Cuts, from Vine Leaves Press, is available now. Learn more at www.jaynemartin-writer.com.

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July 19, 2020 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, Prose, UncategorizedTags: ashes, change, creative, creativity, fiction, fissures, flames, flash, flash fiction, foundation, house, Jayne Martin, land, loss, Prose, relationship, scars, short, short story, story, void, wall, writing 2 Comments

Pinky Swear – Jayne Martin

 

The caustic odor of rubbing alcohol burns my nostrils, settles on my tongue. A nurse paints Vaseline on my parched lips. I can’t remember the last time I was kissed.

I am tethered to tubes, encased in a coffin of flesh and bone that ignores all commands.

The growing cries of gulls, boardwalk barkers, laughter and shrieks of excitement begin to flood the room.

I sit in the car of a rollercoaster as it chugs and bumps up the steep incline toward the point of no return. Braver kids raise their arms high over their heads. I squeeze my eyes shut until it’s over; say “I want to go again,” relieved when you do not.

The ocean breeze sends salt and sand up onto the walkway where we smoke cigarettes stolen from my mother’s purse and stroll looking for boys. We make up names, Bridgette and Marilyn. Names that sound older and sophisticated unlike our own. We fool no one.

A pipe organ bellows. With fingers still sticky from cotton candy, we board gaily-painted steeds, ride round and round, each time stretching as far as we dare for the brass ring, each time finding it just out of reach.

Our bodies distort in fun house mirrors and we wonder who we will become.

Pinky-swear friends forever.

We do not anticipate the power of decades to divide.

The nurse rolls my body onto its side to slip a fresh sheet beneath, and I see you next to my bedside. You wear our favorite sweater, the rose one we passed back and forth until it unraveled, your smile still a mouthful of braces, your hand outstretched to me. In it, a brass ring.

 

Jayne Martin is the 2016 winner of Vestal Review’s VERA award for flash fiction. Her work has appeared in Boston Literary Magazine, Literary Orphans, Midwestern Gothic, f(r)iction, Blink-Ink, Spelk, Cleaver, Connotation Press and Hippocampus among others. She is the author of “Suitable for Giving: A Collection of Wit with a Side of Wry.” She lives in Santa Barbara, California. Find her on Twitter @Jayne_Martin.

August 22, 2017 by foxglovejournal Categories: flash fiction, ProseTags: change, creative, creativity, decades, fiction, flash, friendship, humanity, Jayne Martin, life, memory, ocean, past, relationship, rollercoaster, salt, sand, short, smile, story, sweater, time, writing 8 Comments