Veritossed

in case you haven’t heard, jason over at clarity of night is having another short fiction contest. i highly recommend checking it out – always some really great reads.

since he's got a new contest, and since i'm currently buried to the point i haven't writen anything for almost a month, i thought i'd post my entry to the last clarity of night contest – technically not “new”, but new here – and this is the longer version, before i had to pare it down to 250 words per the contest rules. if you are a comparer / contraster, here is the – well, not short, but sanctioned version i submitted. (and don't miss the winner of the last contest)

So you let yourself in early
to surprise him when he woke
but the bed was made – unlike him -
so you stepped out for a smoke

and you couldn’t help but notice
as you wondered where he’d go
atop the trash, the empty bottle
of a ’64 Boudreaux

he once told you he’d been saving
for that sometime special night
and your final drag was shaky
knowing something wasn’t right

so you grabbed your phone and called him
but you heard it ring inside
and you found it in the kitchen
on the counter, right beside

broken bits of silver ribbon
and a scrap of shiny paper
and the breath you fought to draw
quickly vanished into vapor

as you glanced down in the basin
and discovered in the sink
a pair of dirty crystal glasses
with a foreign shade of pink

telltale lipstick in a crescent
like a smile, near the rim -
though the tears impaired your vision
you could piercingly see him

as the puzzle came together
faster than each piece could fall
and you retched onto the dishes
at the writing on the wall -

eleventh-hour client dinners
and the weekend business trips
when you simply couldn’t reach him
and the stutters and the slips

and you fumbled in a stupor
of revulsion, hurt and ire
and you tore and threw the necklace
he had given, and a fire

was still smoldering in cinders
in the hearth, and you saw red
and an earring on the carpet
which, of course, explained the bed…

***

In the rearview, from the freeway
dusky plumes began to dawn
like exclamation points that
both his house and you were gone;

in your ears he was a sparrow
on your neck, an albatross;
love may cast a
blinding brilliance
but in vino
veritas