The Authentic Life: flash fiction

“Mom, I want to tell you something,” I said to the back of her neck. She was sitting at the kitchen table busying herself with something in her hands. I don’t remember what it was, sewing perhaps. She did not turn her head when I spoke to her, but continued to look down absorbed in her busyness, removed from the weight of my words.

I sat down at the table with her and took a deep breath.

“I think the love that Susan has for her girlfriend is natural,” I said as I let out my breath.

She took her glasses off and placed them on the table. Her face screwed up with disgust and her lips were pulled tight over her teeth. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me.

“It is not natural. It’s disgusting!” She spit out and waited for the words to sink in and detonate searching my face for signs of wreckage, but the damage was internal. My face remained stoic.

“It’s not disgusting,” I said, my voice wavering. It sounded too defensive and high pitched to me. This enraged her, but instead of arguing the point she altered her strategy.

“Do you have those feelings?” She asked accusingly, raising her eyebrows.

“I don’t know, maybe. I mean, I can understand how she feels,” I replied, the sound of my heart thumping in my ears drowning out the drone of the refrigerator.

“I knew it the minute you walked in the door. Susan and her girlfriend dressed you up in those clothes,” she said looking down at my shirt and then continued in a high pitched mocking tone imitating my cousin Susan, but sounding nothing like her, “It’s OK, just go ahead and be gay!”

I felt shame, shame for how I dressed and for how my voice sounded and for having those feelings. Mother had never accused me of being gay, preferring to use another scare word, effeminate.

Don’t put your hands on your hips like that, it looks effeminate.

Those flip-flops make you look effeminate.

Which friend are you talking about, the overweight effeminate one?

I did believe that my cousin’s feelings were natural, but I was not defending them, I was testing the waters and now I was drowning. Mother could sense it as she circled with wide dark eyes, baring her teeth.

She opened her mouth to take another bite out of me. “I suppose you want to be a woman now.”

I watched my body sink as my soul drifted away. The feeding frenzy had begun and would not end until there was nothing left of me.

The moon drained the sunlight from the sky, leaving in its wake a red stain of clouds. If there had been any news of an eclipse, I couldn’t remember it. But it seemed right. It fit the occasion.

When Tommy finally showed up, he acted like he didn’t see it. That’s when I knew that he couldn’t, that he wouldn’t forgive me. So I held out my hand and said “See, its right there!” pointing along my arm at the round light with a crescent of black at its edge. That’s when he started to cry.

“Jesus Tommy don’t do that. I told you it only happened once and it won’t happen again.” I said.

This was not the way I wanted to it to go. When I sent him the text message I hoped that he would remember all of the good times and forget the bad times. He would walk up to me the way he did the first time. He’d smile nervously and say that he forgot his watch and ask me if I knew what time it was.

“It’s the Golden time of day.” I said then and he cocked his head. His eyes and his crooked smile asked questions that his voice could not. I took off my sunglasses so he could see my eyes, see the answers and said “It’s a title of a song, but it’s also my favorite time of the day when the sun creates this glow” I said pointing to the glittering ocean.

He sat down next to me on my towel then, his shoulder touching mine and asked why I wasn’t going home to take a gay nap like most of the other boys did at the end of a beach day, resting up before heading back out to the clubs late at night. “And miss this?” I asked him and let it hang in the air.

Three years later and we still used that line. We’d be at the grocery store on a cold winter day loading the car. Tommy would look at me, his brown curly hair turning white from the snow, his hazel eyes red rimmed with the cold and say “And miss this?” Or late at night while lying in bed I’d stroke his hair and whisper “And miss this?” Or the final time when my heart practically burst as we sat silently for what seemed like hours at the dinner table when he finally broke the silence and bitterly asked “And miss this?”

As the moon passed in front of the sun the world became dark, I looked up at Tommy and waited to hear him say it. But the sound of the waves became too loud and the Earth broke free from the moon’s shadow.

It’s not the pain of dying that is unbearable; it’s the truth that’s unleashed. Like the glaring headlights of an oncoming car, not an eclipse, and the shattered pieces of glass glistening like diamonds on the ocean. It’s the pain of letting go, the final release, dropping the phone and leaving an unfinished message.

There is a dark space between the sun and the moon, between what is and what should have been and if you can’t connect the two, you have to accept what is missed.

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