F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Love

Love, What A Way To Go

by

Love Knows No Limits. (Image of "Cemetery Row," Alexandria, VA, May 19, 1990, © F. P. Dorchak)
Love Knows No Limits. (Image of “Cemetery Row,” Alexandria, VA, May 19, 1990, © F. P. Dorchak)

I’d almost forgotten about this story until working on “A Conversation With Hell.” And I didn’t remember how it ended, either, but I did remember one scene in this story, near the end, involving a projectile. Even felt my arm psychically “move” just as it did when I’d originally written this story, 26 years ago, to “feel” the action of the protagonist.

I love “undead” stories—notice I didn’t say zombie stories. To me there’s a difference. You just can’t keep a good corpse down. I also love a good love story…granted, I prefer a little supernatural/metaphysical element to the love story…but a good love story should stir the emotions and make you feel guilty for every wrong you’ve ever committed against anything or one. I don’t know that I attained that with this one…but, here it is in all it’s unvarnished gory….

This story has never been published.

 

Love, What A Way To Go

© F. P. Dorchak, 1990

 

“God, how I love you.”

Joey smiled back at her. “Feeling’s mutual,” he said, softly, squeezing her hand.

Looking into Lorna’s eyes, Joey was overcome by their passionate presence…large, painfully emotional eyes that constantly appeared to be weeping, though never actually wet.

Joey replayed the past two months of devoted togetherness that had quickly developed between them; from their first meeting as singular lonely people vainly searching the nights…to two…unable to live without each other’s touch. As far from perfect as their relationship might be, all that mattered was that they had each other.

Fiercely holding hands they both felt the internal buildup of emotion—and the tears that were sure to follow. Two months…that was all…two months and they had blended together like a lovers’ embrace. There had been the usual talk—that they’d never last, that it was all just a case of “can’t have” infatuation, but love didn’t have to last an eternity…just a lifetime.

Outside the night was steely gray, and they both shivered as they stared outside through the dirty coffee shop windows. There was a feeling of dread hovering in the air, and though neither would admit it, both knew it was there. It hung as thick as the fog they walked through.

“Think we’d better go now, honey,” Joey said, somberly forcing the words out. Lorna shook her head in agreement. Joey left the tip.

Cold. Desolate. Still that…something…hovered in the air…taunting.

Outside, the two stood beneath a lonely streetlamp, its obscure luminescence spilling out onto the sidewalk. The couple looked ahead to the fog bank before them…their grips on each other tightening. Lorna turned just in time to meet his same movement. Joey saw the tears…the soft wisps that rose from them as they channeled down her face.

“Don’t ever leave me!” she choked.

He said nothing, instead increasing his hold around her, and, smiling down to her, kissed her forehead.

They disappeared into the darkness.

Destination attained, they faced each other.

“I love you!”

“I love you!”

Both felt the chill across their faces as they now wept openly and kissed. Away Lorna walked…on up the path to her house, a dull yellow porch light whispering into the dark. Joey watched her until she got inside and turned off the light. He caught her face filling a window shortly thereafter…a small hand pressed against the glass in a beckoning, farewell call. He smiled softly, waving back.

Joey swallowed hard as he left.

Having made it some four blocks homeward, Joey reached a particular bend in the road, lost in both thought and emotion. He thought of Lorna…wondered when he would next see her. The thought turned out to be only momentary as a car came screaming around the bend and hit him full on, sending his body flying high into the air. He came back down hitting the asphalt hard, and lay crushed and face down in the rain gutter, a warm stain slowly forming a boundary between his body and the ground.

Lorna awoke abruptly.

She’d had the most terrifying dream of her life, but was suddenly unable to recall any of it—except for the uncomfortable feeling that Joey was somehow involved. Rushing out of bed, she frantically fumbled for the phone, a sickness in the pit of her stomach as she dialed his number. She waited. No answer. She continued waiting.

Still no answer. She hung up and tried again.

No answer.

Noanswernoanswernoanswernoanswer….

It never took him this long to get home before, and he always picked up by the third ring. Always.

Finding herself dressed before she was even aware of it, she flew out of the house, screen-door clattering behind her.

He was buried in a quiet ceremony. Lorna wore black. Her mom had died, she was told, from the trauma of Joey’s death, and, somewhere in the night, cruised a car with a pushed-in, left-front bumper.

That night Lorna went back to the old coffee shop and took their usual booth. Her coffee here was free tonight. Outside a car pulled into the parking slots, bright headlights beaming directly in through the shop’s high, open window panes. And they remained on, one slightly askew. Lorna was only in passing annoyed that the driver was so abjectly rude as to leave them on.

The driver entered at the distant end of the shop and approached the cash register. The diner’s owner returned a gesture, and there was conversation, but Lorna paid little attention. Only when the gun went off did she look up, upsetting the runnels of tears marking her face. The assailant also looked up, pointing something in her direction. She never noticed the .357, only the bright flash as something blew her chest all over the windows behind her.

Still wearing black she, too, had a quiet ceremony.

Her family gone, the county took care of everything. She had a nice casket. Thing was, she was buried in a cemetery on the other side of town. Clouds hung heavily, perilously low, a bone-chilling rain downpouring large, painful drops.

That night he was restless.

Something was wrong; something missing.

There was too much emptiness. He had to move. Good thing the rain had softened the earth.

Good thing, rain.

A drunk leaned against the cemetery’s rusted gates, bag in one hand, regurgitated meal in the other. Hearing a noise, he looked up, wiping his warm hand on a pants leg. Peering through the fog, the drunk spotted a lone, lumbering figure crossing the graveyard. The figure carried two objects, the smaller one undistinguishable, but the larger looking like a box the size of a man. Turning away, the drunk slouched back down onto the damp grass, nursing his condition.

A bruised car burned on through a stoplight, one of its headlights dangling. Massaging the gears, the driver raced down deserted roads. Taking one turn a little rough, the driver spotted something entering into his path…the figure straddling the center marker of the street. It was a dark figure…a box-like object behind him on the road. The driver reached for his gun, grinding down several gears for a better look. The unyielding figure held something under one of its arms. It was smaller. Slowing more, the driver strained the lower gears.

The figure suddenly raised its burdened arm, sending the object in a non-curving arc through the air…and impacting the driver’s windshield. It struck the driver square in the face, neatly slicing back the top-half of his head.

The headstone continued on out the rear of the car.

Careening, the vehicle slammed into a street post; shuddering, the light blinked on and off several times before going dead.

The next morning found people gathered around a burial plot. The Caretaker noticed it first, and he was not tight-lipped by nature.

Where she lay, at one time alone, now she had company, freshly turned earth and an accompanying gravestone alongside. They lay together.

One fathom into the ground, lay two bodies side by side, two hands clenched, tightly.

Love doesn’t have to last an eternity…just its lifetime.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

 

All Around The Fire Pit

by

Dad's Fire Pit. (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, August 13, 2016)
Dad’s Fire Pit. (Photo © F. P. Dorchak, August 13, 2016)

What is it about fire that we so love?

I don’t mean all those massively destructive ones that ruin lives, but the far smaller, controllable ones that we love to sit or stand around and stare into.

The ones that seem to enrich our lives.

The ones around which we talk and weave stories and take in the crackling wood, dancing flames, and shooting sparks that fly off into the night?

I’ve read that fires bestow healing qualities to those who stare into them, and I do believe that must be the case. Maybe not so much a physically healing quality—but maybe so, who knows?—but certainly emotional and psychic healing. I love to hang around those kinds of fires. The fire pits…the camp fires. And my dad having one of these (I have to get one!) was really neat.

As the lot of us converged at my dad and stepmom’s place for our summer vacation and my dad’s 80th birthday, we hung out at the fire pit. Standing…sitting…trading stories. Conversation. Enjoying the night and the company (and Alek, Greg’s son, did a fine job of getting it started and keep it running—thanks, Alek!). On one of those nights, I stood and conversed with a friend of my dad’s who’s had a fair amount of paranormal experiences that he’d been wanting to talk about with me for some time. Every time we’d met, over the past few years, he’d bring up some really weird stuff…about how doors open or close without people doing it…or hearing footsteps in hallways while no one was there. That kind of thing. But he’s always been on his way, or we’ve been on ours. We’d always begin talking about the experiences, then would never really complete those conversations and I always got the feeling there was so much more he’d wanted to talk about. Anyway, it was fun finally getting to swap those stories in a continuous, uninterrupted conversation with him about both of our experiences!

But, it was also neat being in the “atmosphere” of the fire pit, where my other family members were also talking and laughing among themselves! While I was in conversation with my dad’s friend, I was also pleasantly conscious of the other conversations and laughing going on with the others, and it warmed my heart. Family members with whom I don’t get to see nor be physically around with much anymore, though we do communicate with in all the usual, technological ways of today. We were all standing and sitting in the backyard…in the night…around a warmly burning fire….

I felt the love…I felt the emotional and psychic “healing.”

What is it about being around fire pits?

I’m not sure…but I love it.

Related Posts

 

Freefallin’

by

Into the Clouds. (Image by Radikaltech; [CC BY-SA 3.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0], via Wikimedia Commons)
Into the Clouds. (Image by Radikaltech; [CC BY-SA 3.0, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0%5D, via Wikimedia Commons)
I’ve done three static-line skydives, never done the freefall, but still was intrigued with the possibilities detailed within this story. It still gives me the heebie-jeebies re-reading it. Yeah. My palms are still sweating….

This story originally appeared in Black Sheep #60, August-September 2004

 

Freefallin’

© F. P. Dorchak, 2004

“Crazy my ass,” Ronny Flynn hissed, as he hurtled his body out the Beech 18, at 20,000 feet. The day was gorgeous, with puffy, billowy cumulus clouds set against an intense, deep blue sky. Skipping the standard arch, Ronny set himself rigid as a board and angled his head downward, trying to escape the other jumpers as quickly as possible.

I’ll show them who’s crazy!

Ronny, arms tucked tight against his body and legs together, shot like a bullet for the ground. Just because his wife had perished in a skydiving accident on this date last year and that he swore he kept hearing her voice since then didn’t mean he was crazy. Just because he kept having dreams about her did not mean he was insane. Just because—several times—he’d remarked to others how he couldn’t always tell fantasy from reality…tell real life from a dream…did not mean he had to be locked up. Many times he’d swore he was dreaming, but was actually awake…or thought Angela was still alive, because—in his dreams—she was. It was other people who kept bringing him down, bursting his bubbles. People dreamed about their dear departed all the time and were never declared crazy. Why was he any different?

Oh, right…something about his friends meeting him in a restaurant while he kept insisting Angela was just visiting the Ladies Room and would be returning any time now….

Well, what did they know.

Why, they’d seen her auger in, is what; they all had.

Angela wasn’t in the Ladies Room and she wasn’t ever coming back, and he’d better seek help or they’d be forced to take more drastic measures.

No, he would not allow himself to be locked up. Would not.

But he kept insisting that he saw her everywhere…and that had led to the intervention…the psychiatrist. Those words—not from the doc, that wouldn’t have been professional—but he knew he was thinking them. Of course he was, or else he wouldn’t have had to come back. Again and again and

Crazy?

He’s show them!

Glancing to his altimeter, Ronny angled toward a bank of clouds. Sport rules declared skydivers had to be able to see their dropzone and had to avoid jumping through clouds.

But he tired of rules.

Ronny disappeared into the cloud.

Whether because he was lost in his thoughts…or the pleasantly vertigo-inducing complete whiteness enveloping him…Ronnie lost track of exactly when he was promptly smacked—hard—in the gut…and bounced off something that couldn’t—mustn’t be—solid.

Not once…but twice.

Ronny abruptly found himself sliding down the length of the inside of the cloud’s bright white, homogenous interior, his hands and arms up and out before him like he was still falling. He slid for what seemed an eternity before coming to

A stop.

Either out of the fear–response habit, or reflex, he jerked his ripcord. The parachute popped out of his rig, then gently fell into a pile on the cloud beside him. He watched as cloud fog calmly swirled around the deflated chute.

Ronny lay there on his stomach, arms outstretched before him, mouth open and eyes wide. His senses told him he’d stopped moving…but his mind, his inner equilibrium told him he had to still be falling.

Had to.

He was (again, looking to his altimeter) still at 15,000 feet, but was, indeed, no longer moving. He should be screaming earthward at 120 miles an hour. Should still hear the howl of the wind in his ears, feel it against his body. Should feel his face contorted by the pummeling airspeed. He flicked his altimeter several times, but nothing changed, and realized that though he was as if lying on his stomach, he was still able to reach beneath himself as if he weren’t. Frantic, Ronny shot his arms beside him, sending more puffs of cloud vapor dancing around him.

He yelled out.

Nervously shot up to a one–knee kneeling position.

Confused, he mentally tried to retrace his actions and mentally reach out to the exterior of the cloud—to what he knew existed out there, outside all of this blinding white that surrounded (and now, somehow, supported) him. His surroundings looked exactly like common ground fog, key word ground. Solidity was now where it should never be. He should still be hurtling earthward by force of gravity, dammit, not suspended in the stuff of dreams and insanity.

Crazy?

He again smacked his gloved hands down beside him, but they still did not pass through the vaporous moisture, hitting soft, enigmatic solidity. More swirls of cloud vapor puffed up around him.

“No–no–no–no–no. This can’t be….”

Ronny shot to both feet—cautiously crouched—hands out before him like a blind man.

Any moment, now, any moment and he would continue on his downward journey.

He glanced warily about him. Felt the sweat, cold and copious, begin to pour out of him like a squeezed sponge.

This was scary.

Jumping out of a plane with a parachute was nothing. His entire body trembled, and he took several furtive steps about his position, circling and staring down at the damned white “surface” he stood upon.

(not falling!)

“Oh, my God….”

Clumsily, he again spun around, got tangled in his deployed chute’s lines and looked to them. They didn’t dangle beneath him, but also appeared held up by whatever buoyed him. He checked his harness. All still good; nothing loose. He felt for his reserve chute; still there, of course, but, why wouldn’t it? The only thing missing from this equation was sanity. He slowly stood fully upright, lowered his arms, and again stomped about in a tight circle. Again, more puffs of vapor but still no falling. He was undeniably stopped dead in mid-air. It was all white, blinding white, and he could actually see the cloud particles drifting about before him. Feel their moisture kissing his face, even beginning to fog up his goggles—which he couldn’t quite bring himself to remove.

Tentatively, he stuck out his feet, one, then the other, and edged his way forward. Where, he had no idea, it was all white. All…eerily solid. Cushiony, but solid. He was expecting Rod Serling to step out before him any moment now, taking a puff on his cigarette as he introduced him to his world and welcome to it, with that sardonic smirk.

“This is stupid…this can’t be happening,” he said. “I have to be falling, have to still be in descent…this–this—it must be hypoxia, that’s all—”

But, he thought, if this is the case, then…then, what if I don’t open my chute? What if I don’t see the ground coming, because it’s one looow cloud…and I won’t break out til 500 feet? The automatic activation device…the AAD’ll open my chute at 1300. I’ll be fine. But what about…what about….

All this.

How could any of this be even remotely possible? Even clouds didn’t go on forever…he simply had to keep walking until he found the end of it, then, what…jump?

But if he found himself where he presently was, what made him think he’d ever find an end to this freaky affair?

Ronny popped the harness’s D–rings to his main chute and released it, then sprinted into an all–out run. He closed his eyes, held his breath—and leapt.

And once again landed hard on his stomach, again knocking the air out of him.

Maybe I’m just too messed up, maybe they were all right and I am crazy—and I’m actually still hurtling toward the ground right this second and just don’t realize it—

Ronny stared into the swirling cloud.

“This can’t be…it’s all got to be a dream, that’s all it is—I’m dreaming again….”

 

Ronny was not much of one to scare easily, but taking off his rig to repack his chute—here—gave him the heebie–jeebies like nobody’s business. He pictured himself still falling out of the sky, hypoxic, and those on the ground observing his flailing body as he tried to remove himself from his rig. It sent shivers all through him, made his palms sweat, and his gut clench. What if—

But, he’d decided, what difference would it make? If he really was crazy and he really was still falling, then he’d never know it, would he? He didn’t know it, now, did he? Well, there you go. And if he wasn’t hurtling earthward and really was…here…then he’d better either repack it or forget about it, and since he was fifteen grand into the air (or somewhere) why not at least go through the motions—even if it all turned out to be some hypoxic mental aberration…or all in the dreamworld.

Ronny took off his rig, lay it on the fluffy white firmament that appeared to be solid, and went about the task of collecting and repacking his chute.

“Ronny?”

The voice came soft and sweet…like it always did.

“What do you want,” he asked, continuing to pack his chute without looking up.

“This really is real, you know. All of it.”

“Yeah, right. I’m just having another dream. A nightmare, and you’re part of it. All in my head. Can’t tell reality from fantasy anymore. Have a history of it, you know.”

He carefully placed the chute back into the pack, avoiding to look the voice in its face.

“But, I’m real, too. And I’m right here.”

Ronny chuckled. “Now, tell me, how can I really believe that? I can’t believe anything anymore. I mean, look at me! I’m putzing around inside a frigging cloud, for chrissakes, my cheeks should be flapping in the breeze!”

“But I’m right here. Look at me. See me.”

Ronny looked up. Saw her. Or at least a shadowy outline of her obscured by the cloud. She came closer.

“This doesn’t mean anything, you know,” Ronny lied. He felt the tears. Always the tears. “I dream of you every night. See you every night.”

“But this is different, honey, this isn’t a dream.”

Ronny chuckled, just about to expel a sarcastic comeback, when he froze as Angela emerged from the cloud vapor to stand directly before him. She was as he always saw her—only better. Ronny came to his feet. He could smell that hint of Red she always wore when she wasn’t going gonzo. And she had that little scar she earned from rock climbing on her left eyebrow, which he never seemed to notice during his dreams. And—by God—her freckles, her cute little freckles were even there, another thing overlooked in his dreams.

Angela took his hand. Squeezed it.

“See, silly, I’m real. I’m really here, not like in your dreams—though, to tell the truth, they did keep me alive. This time this isn’t a dream…it isn’t all in your head—I really am standing before you, and I really am real.”

“How—”

“I can’t explain it, honey, I only know I exist. Here, now. I don’t fight it and neither should you. Just give in to it—us—before whatever did this and put us together takes it away …okay?”

Those pleading eyes, that heart–wrenching voice….

Angela came in closer, bringing him to his feet and took both his hands into hers. She planted the softest, most loving kiss on his lips. He could smell her, dammit, smell her and feel her. And those sensations brought back all the longing and emotion that had been so severely cut off during that—that day….

Angela shook her head, placing a gentle hand to his. “Don’t think about that.”

“But…why?”

“Honey…you know why…please, don’t make me talk about it. It doesn’t matter anymore. You’ve more than made up for it, now.”

“But, why did you have to kill yourself? We could have worked things out…gone back to therapy. If I’d known how badly it affected—”

Angela smiled quietly. “You know yourself better than anyone else. Would that have worked? Honestly? You’ve always philandered. Nothing made you stop—until that day. I was the closest thing that kept you even close to honest—and I cherished every moment of our time together—like I do, now. Please…all that’s over. You’re a new person, now. A better one.”

Ronny collapsed back to his knees, sobbing. Angela knelt down beside him and cradled him in her arms.

“I really don’t know what to tell you, honey. I’m also deeply sorry about what I did. If I had the chance to do things over, I’d do things differently. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But I loved you so much, so damned intensely that I didn’t want to live if I couldn’t have you totally, body and soul.

“Look, we’re here…now…please, let’s not waste this time by rehashing old wounds. I don’t know how else to impress this upon you. Look at me. Love me—now. Let’s no longer waste the time we now have together….”

 

Ronny and Angela walked hand in hand through the swirling cloud bank, Ronny, his rig now packed and slung carelessly over a shoulder.

“So, that’s all you’ve been doing since…?”

Angela nodded, guiltily. “Yes. I’ve been reliving our lives over and over; my death, over and over. Emotionally trying to will things differently. Like you are in your dreams. A couple times I found other threads…probabilities…in which I pulled that ripcord, but they still never turned out to change the past I had already created in that life. But your dreams…your emotion and love…keep pulling me back…to you. Sometimes your emotion is so strong I don’t even know where I am. It…clouds my mind, I guess you could say. And then…one moment—because there is no time where I am—I find myself here. You here.”

Ronny smiled, tears filling his eyes, his face red and hot. He squeezed her hand harder. Felt the warmth of her palms. “Good God, we humans create so many needless problems for ourselves, don’t we? I am so sorry for everything—everything—I’ve ever done. I am so sorry you’ve had to relive all those moments of ours—I don’t ever want to live without you again!”

“But you must. It isn’t your time yet. You have to continue on with your own life, with the past we’ve created, the both of us. When it is your time, I’ll be there, know this!”

“But, what about all this? If we can do this now, might it mean we’re meant to be together? That we can be together, again—forever?”

“But at what price? How long will it last? I feel…something strange…about everything…unfinished. Like I said, sometimes your emotion is so strong, I get confused about whether or not I’m really dead. You’re so strong and you don’t even realize it. But no emotion—none—can ever be maintained forever. Eventually, it tires, exhausts itself out, gets…diverted. Just like life everything dies. Sometimes I feel that maybe—maybe you should let me die—”

Angela choked off and stopped walking. Ronny stopped and turned to her, taking her sobbing form into his arms.

“How can something so real as this—even if so utterly unbelievable—not be true? Not be lasting? I can feel the hotness of your cheek, your tears, smell the sweetness of your breath. I may have been diverted before, but this…this is different. I refuse to believe that this cannot survive the moment. That we can’t make it survive forever. I refuse! I will not lose you again!”

Ronny buried his face into her neck and hair, his gear falling into the mist at their feet. Just before he closed his eyes he had an instant’s surge of panic—that his rig had actually, finally, fallen through the cloud and he was left without it, holding onto his dead wife, three miles into the air with nothing more than his imagination.

But did he really care?

No.

If he couldn’t live with her why live at all? She had enough guts to at least do what she did—why couldn’t he?

He closed his eyes and let go…and all was right with the world. He once more held his loving, precious wife tightly in his arms. Felt their love for each other intertwine in ways he’d never felt before. If he truly had gone off the deep end, then he never wanted to know about it. Never wanted to wake up. Never wanted to leave this cloud—be it in his imagination …or reality.

Ronny sobbed uncontrollably into Angela’s shoulders.

 

“So…what do we do now?” he asked, as they both sat beside each other in the swirling vapors. “Do we know how long we’ve been here?”

“I don’t know, hon. I just know I’m happy to be with you, again. I love you so much. I was so lonely. So angry. Missed you like I’d never, ever missed you before, even though I know there’s this bright light out there waiting for me. I just can’t go to it, yet. I don’t know how long all this lasts, but I never want it to go away. I’d gladly wait an eternity, here, for you.”

“I’d rather die and be with you now then go back.”

Angela smiled.

“What? What’s this?” he asked, as he hit something in the vapor. “Oh, my God—my rig. How’d that get here? I left it way over—well, wherever.”

Angela looked to it. “You knooow…I always used to think you looked quite sexy in your gear.”

“You did?”

“You knew that. I told you all the time.”

Ronny smiled sweetly. “I’m just playing.”

“Hey, why don’t you put it on, again…one more time?”

“I don’t really care to.”

“Oh, come on…just once more. Then you can toss it over the side. Forever. You’ll never need it again, you know, if you stay here. Humor me. Goggles and all.”

“Could we, you know…if I do this?”

Angela, smiled coyly. “May-beee….”

Ronny found all his gear in a pile beside him. Something felt different about reaching for the equipment this time, but he did it anyway—for her.

He did it all for her, now. Everything.

He wished it hadn’t cost her her life for him to learn his lesson. He supposed if she wanted to see him one last time in his jumping rig he could certainly do that. After all, what else did they have to do…where else did they have to go?

Ronny put everything on, Angela assisting, and when he had one glove on, Angela stepped back, soaking in every last bit of him. Ronny, smiling, looked up just as he slid his hand into the last glove—but saw a suddenly sorrowful expression descend upon her face. She reached up a trembling hand to her quivering mouth.

“What is it? Honey? What’s the mat—”

No sooner had he put the glove all the way on than he fell through the cloud—all the air, all his will to live knocked out of him like a sucker punch.

He plummeted away…away…from his wife….

“NOOO….”

I love you, Ronny, forever….

 

Ronny hit quick and hard, landing with the wind at the airport’s dropzone. He (again) popped his D–rings and hurried toward the tarmac. Another plane was queuing up for another round of jumpers and he was going to be on it. The jumpers he’d jumped with were all around him, collecting their chutes, and also making their way toward the tarmac. No time had passed.

He’d landed with the same crew of jumpers with which he’d exited the plane.

Ronny was the furthest out of all of them and broke into a run, gruffly shouldering past those he used to include among his friends. Several heard him mutter about having to “get back up there.” Back to a cloud. To Angela. That’s when everyone tried to stop him, but Ronny wasn’t about to be stopped and swung out at the closest interlopers, knocking several to the ground. Then he all-out sprinted for the revving Beech that was making its turn onto the runway, with its new load of jumpers. Ronny reached the plane, leapt at the opening, and yanked out the jump instructor, who sat just inside the door. Wiping away tears, Ronny commanded the others to also get the hell out, then forced the surprised pilot to continue, his hook knife effectively placed against the woman’s throat. The crowd on the ground could only watch as the aircraft disappeared into the clouds….

* * *

Nothing came out of the sky, after that delivery, except for the Beech and pilot, and when the pilot landed she related the following:

Ronny had apologized for his actions, and said he wasn’t going to hurt her. He just wanted her to take him over to a particular cloud formation, that’s all, and quickly, before it dissipated. He was very specific about which cloud, the pilot added. He also kept mumbling Angela’s name…and how he was coming back so they could be together…forever. The pilot mentioned how she’d noticed that Ronny only wore half his rig—his emergency canopy—while his main chute’s compartment was empty. Once they got to the specific formation—Ronny calmed—appreciably—smiled…then leapt out of the Beech and disappeared into the cloud.

The pilot said his smile was the most peaceful, most serene (and unnerving) thing she’d ever seen on a man’s face.

She then circled around and under the cloud…but never found him.

“Did anyone see him land?” she asked. “Anyone?”

All shook their heads.

“Hey!” someone shouted out on the tarmac. “Come quick—look at this! Hurry!”

The crowd ran toward the field, looking skyward, when they saw it…tumbling, end over end—a parachute rig. No jumper in it…just an empty rig, falling dirtward. It had just appeared, suddenly out from underneath one of the fair–weather cumulus cloud formations that drifted lazily overhead….

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

 

 

 

 

Casa

by

Sometimes You Really Can Return Home. (Image by By Chris Light [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Sometimes You Really Can…. (Image by By Chris Light [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons)
Yet another (short) story I don’t remember ever having written, 16 years ago. The plight of the separated. War. Redemption. Perhaps it’s more of a “meditation” on the separation of two souls. The inspiration is obvious…and, in today’s world, all-too-common, unfortunately.

Why is it that there is the “evil that men do”? If there is more good in the world, why can’t we redirect our collective energies and rid the world of this “evil”?

That, I firmly believe, lies within each of us. We may think it lies with “other people”…but in reality, it lies within each of us not only to answer those questions, but to bring about the better world that we all give so much lip service to.

But this story is not about that. It’s about two souls…forced apart.

This story has never been published.

 

Casa

© F. P. Dorchak, 2000

 

There comes a time in everyone’s life when you must face the music.

To think back to your childhood…when you were basically not held accountable for much. Those were the fun times, happy times! Happy and carefree. Life was your amusement park.

You had no real responsibilities, aside from school and a few chores. If you had a bike, you were mobile and that meant freedom! The world was literally at your feet! And the challenges! Nothing went unchallenged. Everything was suspect, from your home to your school. You’d try to get away with as much as possible, testing the system. You’d steal that candy bar just to see if you could get away with it…stay out later and later on dates.

It was all part of being a kid.

The excitement of being a kid!

But then things begin to change about mid-way through high school.

Slowly but surely more responsibility was added to your life. No longer did things remain just mere “unaccountable challenges”…and if you became one of the few to go to war, you witnessed the atrocities of mankind. Things that seared your brain with an intense anger and hatred.

Sadness.

It was an anger at the cruelties and callousness of conflict. At how the Human Condition could inflict torture—mental and physical—upon another. You wondered how could such things be? How could—can—people be driven to perform such atrocities—horrible, unspeakable acts upon one and another.

How God could allow such things.

But it was and is real…and won’t ever go away.

The worst part is that it isn’t just confined to wars: it breeds…finding other ways to manifest…unleash itself. War (you find) just becomes a convenient excuse.

And while you’re in the middle of it all, you may find yourself thinking back to a particular girl you knew…before you left and everything went crazy. You think back to when you and her were an item.

Inseparable. In love.

You think back with a sadness that bites deep. You think back to when you told her not to worry…you’d be back.

She says, well what about all the others who’ve said the same? You look her in the eyes and tell her—with all seriousness—that you’re different.

Yes, you think back to that time…and how you began to doubt your own words. She was the one you really cared about.

You remember that when that night was over so was your relationship. No one said anything, but you both felt it. And it wasn’t that you would necessarily never come back…no that wasn’t it. It was the waiting…and what you might become….

She never wrote you and you never wrote her—well, maybe once. You did write her that one time just to let her know you were okay. But that was it. When there was no response, you knew why.

There was no animosity. It was just something that had to be.

And you did come back…all limbs and mentality intact. At least you think so. Maybe you are a little rougher around the edges—there was no part of your being that was not bruised from your “experiences,” “they” call them—but you were still you.

So you found your way to her place, that lone porch light still on the way you remember it. You knock at the door…her father answers. At first he’s glad to see you…but knows your real intent and you see his head slump forward just a little as he leaves to get her. You however, straighten yours up more.

You’re prepared.

You couldn’t have been more prepared.

You turn back to the street…your thousand-yard stare catches you off-guard…recall the fire fights…the carnage…the smell of death and destruction…but also the life you had before the war…before…before you’d changed….

Then a hand reaches out for you…and you turn.

You come face to face with her. You’re knees buckle. Something unhinges inside you.

Tears…pain…in both sets of eyes.

You weren’t the only one who’d changed.

You thought you’d forever lost her…and she you. Sure, she had her “experiences” (“they” call them) while you were gone…but she’d always held you closest…never really wanted to let you go. You can see it in her eyes. Feel it in the electricity between the both of you.

You were back…and so was she.

Back for you.

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

 

Rewrite

by

Profound Love. Profound Angst. (Image by Leonid Pasternak [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Profound Love. Profound Angst. (Image by Leonid Pasternak [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
This is my newest effort! A brand new short story I was inspired to write April 8th, and wrote April 9th. I’ve since been polishing it (including having Mandy Pratt, my tireless, proofreader/editor, go over it). It’s a dark, troubling tale about what not to do in a relationship.

I was mentally pummeled with the idea while working out at the gym that previous Friday afternoon. This is perhaps the worst time (in my mind) to get inspired to write anything, because, well, I’m working out. I don’t have time to just stop what I’m doing and start scribbling notes for 10 or 15 minutes. It screws up the workout’s momentum, kills the cardio, and puts me in a different frame of mind (I’m in AGF mode at the gym, not Writer Guy mode). But, in this case, I was done with the iron and transitioning into cardio, so I grabbed a pen and paper and scribbled the steady stream of ideas as I used the Elliptical trainer….

This is a story of questionable redemption. This is…#WeirdFiction.

Thanks also go out to Marc Schuster for some literary fiction “technical support,” and to Karen Lin for some “grammatical consultation” on a particularly vexing phrase that I ended up using.

I feel I must also mention Stephen King’s short story “Nona.” This story used to be one of my favorite King short stories. I was not thinking of it when I wrote “Rewrite,” but afterwards the tone of “Rewrite” certainly reminded me of

Do you love?

“Nona.” I have not read “Nona” in something like 15 or 20 years.

So, this is “Rewrite’s” debut! My newest effort! It will be in my short story collection I am planning for release by early 2017.

 

Rewrite

© F. P. Dorchak, 2016

 

Do you love me?

Yes, there were the affairs.

Do you?

The shame.

I can’t live without you.

The disintegration.

How could something that had been so right…so beautiful…turn so hideous, so…obscene?

Whose fault was it?

Does it matter?

 

I was a writer. A literary author, if you must know the truth. Authors are published. Writers aren’t necessarily. I wrote and got paid for it. Rather well, for one in my capacity. But I didn’t want to be like most of my peers, writing about affairs and incest and abuses of substances or the body. I wanted to write about the metaphysics of life. Its philosophy. Things Humanity overwhelmingly thirsted for. Things we could get some use out of…provide application to our daily lives to make them better on a far more expansive scale, thereby improving Humanity’s Collective. Writing about one’s body ink (“tattoo” was far too vulgar a term for my employment) or the evil that men and woman do does not advance the race one bit. Sure, it might be cathartic to the author, stir emotions in the reader, and make both rail against the injustices in the world…but how did it fix anything?

Yes. I wanted to fix Humanity.

So I wrote about hard questions and troubled people. Those looking for something more. Asking and finding answers greater than themselves that transcended societal constraints. Wrote of examinations of the soul and how we can all apply our newfound epiphanies. As a public figure I also attended conferences, spoke at luncheons and banquets. University graduations. Received thunderous applause. Bookers, Faulkners, a Pulitzer. That kind of thing. I say this with no measure of pride. It just was. It was my life.

I’d grown up in a well-to-do family, both parents well-regarded Princeton professors. I attended Princeton and did not disappoint. It seemed writing was what I was born to do. I was born to arrange words and profoundly manipulate their order…able to peer into the hearts and souls of Humanity. Mainly, it seems, those of the long locks and graceful curves (and I did have quite the thing for the ladies)…men, it appeared, were not interested in my words. At least, not straight men. And those were the ones who most sorely needed my words.

I received my doctorate in English, Literary Theory. Conducted writing retreats that quickly became boring. Won many awards that really meant nothing, when you got right down to the writing. The writing stands on its own. It must. To write with honors in mind is to wax mendacious. I cared not for awards. I cared for words. I cared for people.

Like most of the women I met, I met my wife, Emelia, at a literary conference. She was of the aforementioned long locks and graceful curves. Long, dark hair and eyes…eyes that questioned God. She, I’d noticed, had always hung back from the crowds that had gathered around me asking about my sources of inspiration…my deepest, darkest secrets…and whether or not what I’d written had actually happened to me. Many would reach out and touch me, “casually” brush past, while making intended contact. I’m sure they also tried to inhale my scent. But she…this Emelia…would always hang back behind the others who kept trying to get closer and closer…she…kept her distance.

Observed.

I should have paid this greater regard.

We finally met at the conference’s banquet, and my “thing” for other women evaporated. She’d lingered around the table where I sat, one with my name embarrassingly emblazoned upon a tall placard. I invited her to sit in a chair I had secretly “saved” just for her—tipping the chair forward into the table—hoping to again see her. I was incredibly taken by her. Mysteriously so. With some hesitation, she took my offer. We were in bed that night.

We

Do you love me?

married a year later.

I loved her…loved her pain. She was a struggling artist who worked at an art gallery and had read all my work. My work was similar to what she was trying to do with her oils and acrylics. She had a sullen, brooding way about her that belied her desired optimism in Humanity.

Desired.

I deeply loved her.

As our lives progressed, I got more successful, while her artwork languished. But she was good at managing other people’s work…running an art gallery…and perhaps out of some measure of self-pity took the promotions until she was running the gallery when the owner unexpectedly passed.

We talked about it…how it would affect her work…but she’d already taken it. The position. She wanted more and was tired of being left behind. Tired of being…

In my shadow.

Her new position had taken up more and more of her time to the point where she no longer painted. This seemed a more distressing time for me than her. She seemed to fill her days with meetings and luncheons and showings. She’d finally “made it.” On her own.

I couldn’t tell if she was happy…or just occupied.

My schedule grew even busier, and I traveled even more. More speaking engagements, more book tours, and now, film deals—which I fought, though my agent said it was just another way to get my words out there. She said couples go to these films. Couples. That means guys. Straight guys…those who would otherwise never have been exposed to my work. Here was a way to get my message out to an entirely unexplored audience, whether or not they mentally rolled their eyes…consciously or subconsciously they would be receiving my profoundly manipulated words.

So I did them. The film deals.

As I grew busier, my wife also grew busier…and that’s when we began to

Do you love me?

grow apart. Even when we were together, we weren’t…she on her tablet or cell and I on mine. We were both providing our attention to others, not to those with whom we were with. The irony of it all was that we’d both given into these contraptions to get us out from behind our respective businesses

Do you…

to spend more time with each other. I remember one day in particular. I was in contact with my agent, awaiting a response to my next book deal. It was to be my most principal arrangement to date…Emelia and I were sitting in the living room…a fire burning softly…the lights low. She was uncharacteristically not on her tablet. Just staring into the fire, arms comfortably crossed. Quiet. As I attended to another, I heard

“Do you love me?”

I chuckled. “Of course I do!” I said, looking up and casting her an immense, tender smile.

I returned to my agent.

“You’re not growing bored with us? Me?”

I again chuckled as my tablet dinged with the e-mail I had been waiting for and the request for yet more attention.

“Of course not!” I said, amused, as I got to my feet. “I have to take this!” I said to my wife, as I left her sitting alone in our low-lit living room…a romantic fire crackling and sending my shadow across her seated form….

From that point on we rarely seemed to see each other. We’d become more like roommates. We were polite enough, superficially cheerful, even. But, one or the other of us would be too tired for intimacy…or the other had something more pressing to do that would inexplicably materialize and need to be done just then. Someone else needed something. There was always…something…else….

Like energy attracts like energy.

I had my ever-growing conference circuit to attend to. Banquets and book tours. Speaking engagements. Emelia had her gallery showings, her wining and dining of artists and “their people.”

Then, one day, while at another writers conference, I’d received an e-mail from an unknown admirer to my business number. Attached were photos of my wife. Her mouth and hands attached to another.

I excused myself from my table and went outside.

Somehow…somehow…

Do you love me?

Are you bored with me?

…I found myself in my hotel room’s shower with a statuesque woman whose name was “Juliette” or something similarly tragic.

There are no coincidences.

I allowed Juliette her exit…and spent the entirety of the evening sobbing.

I spiraled down from there. Sometimes it’s so much easier to take the wrong path. To feel sorry for oneself. I’d become everything I’d loathed in others…in other’s books. I’d become that novel’s story that everyone loved to read. Loved to hate. That story that fixed nothing.

And I couldn’t stop myself.

I found there were no shortage of women who wanted to “listen”…to…“ease my pain.”

How could I fix Humanity…if I couldn’t fix myself?

And my wife said nothing. Became more withdrawn. We rarely spoke. Our lives had become clinical. Separate. There were times I’d be awoken in the middle of the night by moaning…groaning…in one of our bathrooms…followed by sobbing. And it was during one of those nights that I’d had enough. I had decided to change the course of my story-that-fixed-nothing…to change the course of our lives.

I went to my wife. Found her upon the floor, cradling the toilet and puking up her soul. It seems she was more expressive of her love for me in private.

I begged forgiveness.

Begged to confess all of my sins…to come clean—but she would have nothing of it. She, in turn, begged for mine…just wanted us to start over. To be like we were. How things had been. When we’d been in love.

Once.

Could we—

Do you…

love each other again?

I told her I’d never stopped loving her. I had just become…absent.

We both had.

We spent the rest of the night in each other’s arms.

 

Not long afterward, I was at another engagement, the Keynote Speaker, in fact, when I got the call.

I had just begun my address when I’d suddenly clenched up inside…all my words had seized in my throat, as if a part of my soul had been ripped away.

I couldn’t breathe.

Holding a hand up before myself and my audience, I uncomfortably laughed it off…paused…took a sip of water…found a way to

Do you love me?

continue.

There’s been an accident

Do you…

the voice had said. I collapsed.

It seems my wife…the woman I loved…the love of my life with whom I’d reconnected…had been at a restaurant. They’d all been outside. A car had veered out of the way to avoid hitting another that had run a red light…and

The rest was lost on me.

 

Emelia had come to me that first night.

She’d stood before my bed. Looked at me. Just stared at me as she always did. I looked back to her. I cried. Reached out.

I love you, but the dead can’t return, she said.

I miss you! I cried. I can’t live without you!

I love you, but the dead can’t return, she again said. We can dream…but we cannot return….

And she was gone.

I’d cut off all contact with everyone—my agent, publisher. Family and friends. Women called…came to my door…to comfort me. I sent them all away.

I’d once written a story about a woman who’d died in a car crash. The crash was from a car that had veered out of the way from another…and struck this woman, this fictional character I had created.

For inspiration I’d written it from the point of view as if I’d lost my love. I’d poured all that I thought (at the time) was my heart and soul into what it would have been like….

I…knew…nothing.

I reread it. Cried. Reread it again. I went to my living-room fireplace and started a fire.

Stared into the fire.

Had I killed her?

Had my words? My metaphysics? Had they wielded that much power?

It was but one short story of many.

Coincidence.

But my entire life’s work was about the lack of coincidence in life. How all of life had meaning. Nothing was to be so inconsequentially branded and dismissed as “mere coincidence.” I’d written about lives like these. How my characters had gone on to recreate new lives in the various faces-of-loss….

But my wife was gone.

Forever.

The love of my life.

The woman with whom I’d sinned against…but who had taken me back.

The only hand I’d forever hoped to hold as we grew old together.

She was not some fictional character in a novel.

 

“Do you love me?”

“Of course I do!”

“You’re not growing bored with us? Me?”

“Of course not!”

 

My books…my words…meant nothing.

Only Emelia had meant anything. Everything.

And she was gone.

I brought out the story.

Crumpled it.

Uncrumpled it.

Began to tear it into pieces…when I stopped.

No. There are no coincidences.

I believe this.

 

I rewrote the story.

I rewrote our lives.

Top to bottom. Beginning to end. With what I now know. I slept and relived all that our lives had been…and what it’d meant to me.

Was supposed to have meant to us.

I created a new beginning. A new end. A chance to start over.

As I slept, I again dreamt of Emelia. Of those pictures sent to me of her and that man. Only in the dream, the pictures had come to life. Emelia and the man were sitting there…in the restaurant. Casual. Peers in the art community having a few drinks. A few laughs. Joking around with others in their party. Until they kissed. Long. Lingering. Hands everywhere. The rest of their coalition departed.

When they were done, she’d come to her feet and the man left. Simply left.

She turned to me.

But…I brought us back together. Why are you showing me this? I asked.

I’m not showing you anything. This is what you imagined. It’d never happened that way, but it’s what you imagined had.

I love you. I need us to be together again!

We cannot.

Come back to me!

I love you…but the dead cannot return.

 

I awoke and went back to my story. I rewrote it again over the course of several days. Willed it into existence. When I slept…I dreamt about it. About her. She always appeared.

You know what she said.

 

So I rewrote it one more time…then ventured out into the world I had forsaken. I would make my story work. I would compel it into existence. Live my own words and their new, most profound order. I obtained what I needed. I needed something that left no room for error. Something that would perform even if I couldn’t. Wasn’t totally up to the task. On the mark.

I wanted results.

 

I lay in our bed, in the dark. Crying. I’d lost her. Forever. Lost myself. There was nothing left. Nothing more to do. I couldn’t live without her. I grasped the weapon…regripping it several times as if I knew what I was doing…and brought it out from under the blankets and comforter.

Comforter.

I smoothed out the bedding with my hands…remembering all the warmth and comfort it had afforded us over our brief history together. I looked over to her side of the bed and remembered the feel of her nakedness beneath the bedding as she’d snuggled up beside me. How we’d held each other.

Once.

How she used to be there.

Choking sobs erupted from me! Uncontrollable torrents of rain and pain!

Oh, how I heaved!

I wiped away the tears with the back of the hand holding the .45. I closed my eyes and rammed the muzzle firmly up and under my chin, ever-so-slightly angled. The metal felt wrong, but in its wrongness felt…

Acceptable.

I undid the safety. Cocked the hammer.

Could I really do this? What would it feel like to instantly conclude a life? Would there be pain—or would it happen so fast as to feel like falling off to sleep? What was the other side really like? Was my life’s work on the mark…or was I to be damned like all the traditionalists ranted?

I would soon know.

I placed my index finger around the trigger…when I heard…

In the hallway.

Someone was out there.

I opened my eyes.

Footsteps.

I heard them. Soft. Considerate. Mindful.

Hers.

In those slipper-socks she always wore.

Is that something I would really hear?

Do you love me?

I love you…but the dead cannot return.

She came closer. Entered the room. I could feel her…feel her presence!

Her!

She got into bed with me…the bedding lifted, the bed shifted…her body slipped in beneath the sheets. Snuggled up against me.

I was again moved to tears! I couldn’t stop crying! I wailed!

Then her hand…oh, dear God, her soft, warm

(it was not warm)

loving hand touched mine! Wrapped itself around mine…

And together we pulled the trigger.

 

Short Story Links

Links to all my posted short stories are here.

If Today Was Your Last Day

by

What would you do if today was your last day?

Would you do anything differently?

Would you live every moment as if it was your last?

The sentiment of this question and questions like this are meant to get our collective asses in gear and re-evaluate and reboot our lives. To shed the unimportant.

Be kinder.

More understanding.

More loving.

More helpful.

Reconnect with what’s important to each of us.

Concerns like this usually hit people at funerals, job changes, divorces, and other major life changes. We reflect. Go internal. Wonder what has become of our lives…our passions…our goals.

Us.

We all get caught up in the minutiae of having to eat, sleep, and clothe ourselves…most of us feeling with have to “settle” for rungs of the ladder that fall far short of our lofty goals…then we fall into depressions…cultivate shitty attitudes…and grow into miserable old men and women nobody wants to be around….

But does it have to be that way? Is there a better way?

If today was your last day on earth, what would you do differently—and why aren’t you doing it now?

While each of us are still alive, we can always change our lives. It’s never too late. But (I maintain) it all starts with our attitudes. I’ve said this before, but everything exterior begins with our interior. We don’t just blindly take action to anything without first having an internal consideration: thoughts. So, to change our exterior, with need to change how we think. Our attitudes.

If we want a better life for ourselves, it starts with thinking differently about ourselves.

Sure, we’ve made decisions throughout our lives that have taken us to “this” point in our lives…but it’s never too late to change. To say “no” or “yes” and make a life (it doesn’t have to be “major”) change. We all have to do something while we’re walking or crawling this oxygenated rock orbiting an average yellow star…but, in the interim, we can effect changes to our lives by taking the first step inside ourselves. Changing our point of view about ourselves…changing the way we think about our lives, while looking for new avenues to explore. Being open to new opportunities that “suddenly and miraculously” present themselves, once we’ve changed our attitudes.

Life…if nothing else…is about change. So, why not have that change work for us?

But don’t look to others for those answers…for the answers to changing your own life…only you can do that. Each of us are the only ones who can change our own lives…and having more money or children or shiny new anythings won’t change any of that.

Giving things away isn’t the answer. Sending philosophical confetti upon the masses won’t do that—though makes for great music videos.

Understanding who you are…taking a concerted stock in your own life…

Feeling loved.

Loving others.

If today was you last day?

Make it the beginning of an entirely new life.