Five Micro Pieces
“City Hues in Blues” painting by Nuala McEnvoy
by Terrance Wedin
American Electric Power
They only care when you add someone. They want to know that person is worth the risk. Over the phone they make you verify that you are you. Last four digits. Mother’s maiden name.
But to remove them? A simple request. That person’s name is gone.
One less person for power company to worry about.
Pink Days
They told me those were the pink days. I imagined the days before and after in greyscale, leading toward black. It was hard to see any color but pink. The cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. Pink athletic wear at the gym. Pink smoothies. Little victories. I knew it was just an expression.
An older man at a meeting, teeth worse than mine, pulled me aside. He said, “You’ll know what it means to get clean in about five years.”
My five years are almost up. Whatever color I am living now is the color that is every day. At the beach with my college friend, his dog Raptor bullied a tennis ball off leash during leash season. He gave up and took off toward the water. The waves lapped at a baby shark, red and pink guts spilling from a tear down its long body.
Tangerine Quartz
One time, when we both knew we were licked, we stopped at a crystal shop. In the parking lot we kept our sunglasses on, like at the sex shop or couple’s therapist. Inside it was like this: Palo Santo smoke, ambient drone, owner dialed into channels unknown. We shopped like we always did – separated, drifting, then panicking when too much time passed.
She waved me over. “Look at this.”
Nordic Talisman—sharpens the mind. Like something our neighbor’s Pitbull might leave on the steps, half-chewed.
“What do you do with it?” I said.
“You carry it in your pocket, I think.”
“People really buy into this shit,” I whispered.
She scoffed—this was part of my problem: I was hard on the world, believed everyone was waiting to gut you. The pills hadn’t fixed that venom in my heart.
At the crystal table, each stone had its purpose. Balance, positivity, gut health. Amethyst, Emerald, Blue Topaz, Muscovite, Red Tiger Eye. People filled plastic bags. She chose Rhodonite for Self-Love, Tangerine Quartz for Understanding. I picked the pretty ones.
We drove home energized, made love on the couch. The stones lived on our mantel for a month before moving to the junk drawer.
Later that summer, clothes in the moving boxes, I downed her paintings—the beautiful ones—carefully. Everything arranged for her arrival, timed while I was away.
Two Men
The bathrooms are always hidden in those stores. The vocabulary building workbook section is a good sign—they stick the books nobody buys near the toilets.
Exiting, I saw a man in a three-piece suit, shined shoes, expensive watch, admiring a book on the shelf. I split the difference, go generous, peg him at forty-five even with the hair loss. He wasn’t reading, just standing back, arms crossed, grinning. The book’s title: Living in a Van and Loving Life. Open road on the cover, headlights at night. I pretend I’m reading one of the Christianity books, but I’m watching this suited man. I want to know what he knows.
I want to know if that is what happiness looks like.
A man, probably in his sixties, sits at a public computer at the library, scrolling through an endless wall of photos of young men in wrestling singlets. They are all muscles and veins, hands raised in victory or taking opponents to the mat. Headgear always matching their singlets. This man has a 2-liter of Hawaiian Punch and an overstuffed backpack at his feet. I know he picks that computer because the line of sight is away from the library attendant walking rounds every fifteen minutes.
There are kids at this library, always. But is this man doing anything wrong?
I am not prepared to spend my days searching a public access library computer for pictures when my body turns against the world.
Different Dimension
Some nights would take me across town to the store where nothing was properly marked. The time of night nothing needed to be in its place. Pallets of brown boxes filled aisles while dazed stockers grabbed items that would outlast us all.
Before she left, she told me what was wrong: my heart was never satisfied with enough. What I loved was excess, she said. What I loved was what I could do without. It was what I couldn’t do without that I had no idea how to love.
Always at this store there was someone too awake for the world, wandering aisles like they were hosting their own talk show. Nothing without comment. Everything alive. Aisles away you were tuned to his channel. A theatre mask tattooed on his calve indicating he had endured something.
The stockers lived in a different dimension. What they could ignore was almost everything. I lived there with them. I felt that way the mornings after a bar shift, walking around as if the world was not my home, but somewhere stranger, brighter, more frightening.
The other thing she told me before she left was this: nothing in your life will ever seem as important as this, until it’s not important to you anymore.
Terrance Wedin was born and raised in Blacksburg, Virginia. His writing has been featured in Esquire, Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, Washington Square Review, Short Story Long, and other literary journals. He is an assistant professor at Texas State University. For more, visit terrancewedin.com.
Nuala McEvoy started writing and taught herself to paint approximately five years ago, at the age of fifty. Since then, her writing has since been published in several literary magazines and she has read her poems on podcasts. Nuala paints daily using acrylics on canvas. She started submitting her artwork for publication a year ago, and since then over 100 of her paintings have been accepted for publication in over fifty literary magazines and reviews. Her art has been accepted as cover art for several of these reviews. She has had two exhibitions in Münster, Germany and currently holds an exhibition in The Cavendish Centre, 44 Hallam Street, London.
x @mcevoy_nuala, https://linktr.ee/nualamcevoy
