Hey guys! For this blog I thought we might have a little change of pace with a short story I recently wrote. Any of your comments good or bad will be appreciated. I don't think I need to tell anyone that I've recently become a budding writer, dealing mainly in poetry but this is my first short story. Please be aware that not all of this is from my life, some of it is from my imagination. Read on, gentle reader, read on. Shannon
I pass the Babas on the way home, their backs bent from planting potatoes, picking out weeds, years of Soviet rule. I can hear their disapproval, their disappointment. "And such a pretty girl." They don't know I understand. I understand much more than I can express. "Zdrasvoystya", I say. They nod, reply in kind, like they hadn't been talking about me. Just some daily business. I smile. When I walk into the apartment, I sigh, thankful to be back in my world: a world of beef jerky, peanut butter, Siracha, filled with amenities sent from America. "Why is she here?" they ask. They wonder why I left the land of plenty, the land filled with houses made of glass, 24 hour movie theatres, and paved roads. "Exactly", I'd say but they wouldn't understand. When you have everything, you go looking for something different, something more....real. I pull a cigarette from my pack and step put on to the tiled, broken down, barely keeping itself up balcony and give myself a light. I'm tired, worn down, yet strangely energized by what's around me. It isn't mine. It's like I'm looking into someone else's dream. Vaguely voyeuristic, yet, at the same time it's mine. My dream. The storm starts suddenly. Somehow, here, it always seems to rain out of the bluest sky. I laugh, hold my hand out, flat, so the raindrops hit and splash back into my face. Everything seems so green. I wonder, briefly, what I would be doing if I were back in America. Would I be back at work, playing video games, watching some inane show on TV? Why is it that, here with the sweet summer rain, there is always the sweet, sickly stench of garbage? I hear thunder in the distance: something rare. It's really coming down now, and I consider all of those people out there in the market, surprised by this summer shower. How unexpected. How lucky. I'm sure they don't think so. I remember how a couple of weeks ago, I had been caught in one. It was a beautiful day, the trees were so green, so happy to be out of winter's frosty grasp when the rain started. I had not yet bought an umbrella, my suitcase being too full to pack one, or to be more honest, I hadn't thought to bring an umbrella to what I thought to be a land of ice and snow. Women were huddling under awnings, pulling their jackets over their heads to shelter themselves from fat, cold drops. But I, I was smiling, walking with my hood down, head uncovered, kicking at raindrops as I passed, gaining strange looks from the Babas under cover. "You know she's not married. 25, too." I imagine them saying. "Zdrasvoystya!" I yell. It's obvious I'm not from around here. That's fine with me. I put my cigarette out, but I don't go in just yet. I stand, reveling in the raindrops that so lightly beat my legs as they hit the side of my shoddily constructed balcony. I look out at the flowers blooming just outside my apartment, marigolds, poppies, tulips, and, my favourites, irises as they are battered by the rainfall. A rainbow, summoned by the sun mixed with the rain forms on the horizon, and I laugh, running in to get my camera to share my moment with my family and friends back in Detroit, where it's 65 and cold, dark, dreary. I hop up on my tiptoes to glance down at the Babas now huddled on a bench outside my apartment under a canopy of shared umbrellas. One of them looks up. "Hey," I can almost hear them whisper, "the American! Already 25. What a pity. What is she doing here?"
