TROUBADOUR

Flash Fiction by Joseph Young

That girl's at the beach again. She lies across the sand taking heat and then moves toward the water, hips rocking like waves. One foot the color of a shark's belly breaks the surface and then she's in motion—hands, elbows, neck, and legs become weightless within the cool of the sea.

I say to Gail, "I could die for her. I could just die."

Gail shakes her head and snorts. "Oh, please. I hate that."

"You don't believe?"

But she turns away, a flash of red signalling in her ear. She pushes at a cuticle with a blunt fingernail until she raises a sliver of blood.

Later, I lie beneath a cottonwood as the fluff breaks for the sky. A cicada sings a song full of longing, and my blood pushes through my arteries with a terrible whoosh.

"Oh lord," I say. "God help me."

Gail puts her book down. "You have any idea how rude that is? How that makes me feel?"

I sit up and look at her, and when I do, a scrim of tears collects at the bottoms of her eyes. She's trying to hold them back, and the strain tightens the muscles of her face, makes her almost pretty.

"Yeah, I guess I do."

"Then why? Why be so thoughtless and cruel?"

I look inside for an answer and what I see is an ocean. It's night, and the ocean is huge, breathing, under the cold of the stars. That girl from the beach, or any of a hundred beautiful girls, holds the bend of my elbow. I feel the warmth of her breast against my arm, in my groin.

"I don't know. Because I can't help it?"

She looks at me with scorn, like I'm the dumbest fool in the world. "You know what, Rob? I dislike you. I really do."

She sits across from me, clouded with misery, eyes sunk in dark water. With the dark of her eyes, I could paint a landscape of night for my lover to see.

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Joseph Young's work has appeared in a number of journals, including LitPot, Blue Moon Review, Eleven Bulls, The God Particle and others. Visit him at www.josephyoung.net

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