He came back

   Trekking the archipelago was an adventure, there’s no other way to describe it. They had always been there, available for everyone to go and just take the challenge. Technically, they were a national park but getting the permission to walk through the islands and sail was not impossible to get. The only condition that could annoy people would be the fact that a guide sent by the government office in charge of national parks would have to get a seat in the group that would be crossing the islands.

 Amak was the name of our guide and he was only the third member in our small party. I was one of the others. The second member would be my husband, the person that had initially thought of the trip. He had been dreaming about it for many years, as he had been trekking the world with his parents since he was a little kid. They were ecologists; so travelling around the planet was a common thing for him. He had a birthday on Mount Everest and his parents wedding had taken place in the Australian desert.

 Somehow, he had ended up marrying to a person like me, someone that rarely travelled more than a hundred kilometers away from his birthplace. I had only flown on a plane three times in my life and they had all been moments of a certain character, like birthdays and special occasions for my family. I had met him in college and, to be honest, I had never really liked him. He had the attention of every single person at every moment, he was the one all girls fell in love with and all guys admired.

 It was just like that until the very last semester; when we were almost forced to interact do to the impending arrival of that dreaded moment when you have to make a final paper to sum it all up at the end of the career. The problem, which I now see as a blessing, was that we had similar projects and we were convinced to do the work together and surrender it as a duo, instead of doing it all by ourselves. So we had to start seeing each other often and it was then when everything changed.

 We started seeing each other differently and I discovered he had an image of me, as I had formed a picture of him. Of course, both ideas were not complete or accurate, so it was kind of interesting to uncover that slowly. We became friends after the first few months and then we really got to working on our thesis. We came up with a lot of things together and, by the end of all that process, we discovered we had something very precious between each other, something that was much more special than a newfound friendship. It was the time we knew more feelings were involved.

 After college we separated for a while though, because he needed to go back to his parents who were living in Nepal in that time. I was sure that he wasn’t coming back to the city, so I decided to just be a nice friend before he left. He didn’t say much during those days, preferring to be silent and a little bit distant. When he left, I caught myself crying sometimes, in the most strange places and moments. I just dried the tears and pretended nothing was going on, lying to myself because it was easier that way.

 To my surprise, he appeared in my life again six months later, after a long time without communicating to me. We agreed on talking on a bar and the moment I saw him I felt everything again, as if he had never left. It was strange, so I decided not to act on any feeling and just enjoy the moment. And we did. He told me new stories about his parents and also some of his own, helping people in remote areas and enjoying nature and life at tits fullest. He seemed to have had a great time there and it was obvious he wanted to be there.

 So I asked him why had he came back? It was obvious that he had everything he wanted back with his parents, traveling the globe and enjoying life near nature. And he now had a career to help himself and his family, so it did not make any sense to come back to a place he didn’t like or appreciate it beyond some friendships and the career he had gotten. I turned a bit angry as I said that, but I tried to control myself as much as I could. My voice trembled and my hands were shaking visibly.

 He did the worst thing he could have done in that moment: instead of talking, of explaining himself, he put his hand on mine. I jumped from my seat, almost knocking over my glass full of beer. Everyone turned around to look at me and I was too embarrassed, so I left him there on his own. I walked back to my house, not that far away from the place we had been drinking in. I was enraged and on the verge of crying, my fists tightly closed and my jaw closing violently as if I wanted to destroy my own teeth.

 However, he ran to get to me. Again, he grabbed me by the wrist and stopped me. Instinctively, I launched a punch towards him but he dodged it and made me get closer to him, in a weird hug that he forced at first but then I corresponded slowly. I finally cried and asked him again why he had come back to that place, to me. Again, he answered with no words, something I’ve learned that he likes to do quite often. He kissed me right then and there, in the middle of the street and of the night. It didn’t last long but it was enough for me to let my defenses down and finally get calm.

 And now, year later, he convinced me to travel like he once did. I had no commitment with nay kind of work or with anyone, so he convinced me to work with him and his parents and sometimes only with him. He was the kind of person that helped remote communities stand on their own two feet. He helped them communicate with the world and get access to everything they needed to survive. He convinced me to go with him and I accepted, feeling maybe I needed to change my life decisively.

 That trip crossing the islands was just part of the fun, something to do before and after helping people. The first night, we hugged tightly and Amak slept as if he had never done that before. I realized it couldn’t be that bad to be in the middle of the wilderness with the one person that came back to me, looking precisely for me. He loved me and I felt that every day I was with him, even if he made me do things I didn’t particularly liked doing. I guess he felt I was able to do all that and he wanted me to dare a bit.

 I spent all of those days holding his hands, sometimes for some minutes, sometimes for much longer. I realized I really loved that man and I loved the way he did things and how he trusted in me much more than I did myself. He made me feel better than special. He made me feel I was worth it.

This one is a short story

   This one is a short story. Because stories don’t have to be long to matter. I bet you can find many examples of this, maybe all around you or in the lives of people you know. Maybe you are one of those short stories. Don’t be scared. It’s nothing bad, not always at least. One would think of death right away but that’s not what it’s all about. Sometimes a short story is only short because there’s not a lot of tragedy and drama to tell. Maybe it’s just a nice little story, one to read children when they feel hopeless.

 Being a short story is probably difficult but getting used to it can be fun and interesting. After all, you don’t have the large amount of layers that other stories have. And again, don’t be sad. Having layers does not mean you are less deep or profound in any way. It just means that people can really get to know you easily, and don’t have to be constantly digging for something to find. Simplicity here is key and, again, it is not something good or bad. It depends on what your story tells to others.

 Maybe your story is a short one because everything happens in a fraction of time, a tiny piece of a huge ocean of things that happen. That makes it special, it makes it one of a kind and it certainly makes it interesting for people that know how to appreciate things that have particular characteristics. Yes, I know we all want to have twists and turns and many surprises in every single corner. But not every story has to have them, just as not every person in the world has to have the same kind of life.

 Sadly, we have done with the short story the same thing that we have been doing with people. We only value them if they are appealing from a distance, as if we were choosing fruit in the supermarket. But stories are more elaborated; it doesn’t matter if they are short or long. We all have a value, we all have something someone can see and find appealing. Some people say there cannot be books about tastes and what that means is that you cannot put everyone in the same group just because you want to.

 No, short stories are filled to the top with magical things that we can see in plain sight, maybe they are even common but done in a new way, so we appreciate them as if they were new. A short format, in any kind of way, makes it all much more fun: it makes us explore and learn from things we already thought we know. It makes us feel as if something tiny and personal can also be ours. Its obvious big things can be for everyone. Their size helps. But it’s not always that smaller things can become something for everyone, making us feel a little bit more special than we already are.

 I know what you’re thinking: I said this story was a short one. And it is. Because I’m about to sum it all up and tell you what it is about short stories that I find so appealing, so great. And it’s very simple: they enable me to create entire worlds in one second and it gives me the possibility to give those worlds to other people, that could read my story once and again, but they could even continue from my words into theirs, creating the perfect work of art: one that reunites more than one person, more than one world.

 Of course, anyone knows that writers are creators of the universe. We make sense of everything that is around us and we use all of that to create new things. Maybe some of those things are not really that new or interesting, but our goal is to make anything turn on its head and become something else. That’s the magic of writing, of creating in any type of art. That’s why we do it: because we are able to bring into the world new and exciting things that first appear in our brains and that we then translate into words.

 Short stories are all around us, in poetry and painting, also in dance and cinema. So many art forms use the concept of a short story to tell whatever it is that they want to transmit to their audience. And they use it because it works, because when people hear or read or see one a short story, they can instantly imagine it all. They don’t have to be awfully educated, or live in a certain way or in a certain place. All that is required is for them to be part of the human experience and they will understand it all, in a heartbeat.

 So that is all. This is today’s short story, about short stories. Always remember that there is more than only one way to do something, anything. Don’t ever let anyone tell you different. And, like me, just keep going. Not for them, but for you. Because you won’t forgive yourself if you don’t.

Sunday morning

  The first thing I noticed was the smell of his hair. It had notes of coconut and olive oil, but also a sweetness that I blamed not on a particular shampoo but on his very personal scent. As I woke up, I couldn’t see his face as his back was against my chest. But his smell was enough for me not to move too much and just enjoy the moment. It was then I realized no man had ever stayed all night in my house, let alone in my bed and with me by his side. I smiled, as I closed my eyes back and tried to enjoy the moment a little bit longer.

 I used to wake up early on Sundays, as it was the only day of the week I could actually spend in things that I couldn’t do any other day. I would go to the gym for about three hours, then come back home and clean the place up real good, get in the shower for a good ten minutes and finally head out to the supermarket and buy any groceries I would have any need for. After that, I would just go back home, put everything in order, cook something fast and put on a movie, possibly one that I had already seen numerous times.

 But that Sunday, I wouldn’t be able to do the same thing. He was there and I wouldn’t like to be the kind of person to kick someone out just after spending a night together. I wondered if I should stay there in bed with him or just go to the kitchen and make some breakfast. Maybe he would be in for some time at the gym… But I then thought that was a stupid idea because the point was probably to spend some time together. Although that would maybe send the wrong message and I didn’t want him to be confused about anything.

 He then moved around, in order to face me. He was still asleep, that was obvious. He proceeded to get closer to me and then go back to being still right next to my chest. I caressed his head a little bit, now that I could move my arm freely. He was really cute, something I had already noticed but never really appreciated in its entirety. His eyebrows were thick and very black and he had long and luxurious eyelashes. His eye color was brown. I knew that. A beautiful brown that almost seemed liquid caramel.

 I stayed there for a while, just caressing his hair and smelling that beautiful coconut scent. I had no idea what to do with him, except looking at his face and feeling his body. He was a bit shorter than me, which was odd because I had rarely met men shorter than me, and had never had a crush on one. But there he was, and I could feel his warmth and that was great. I hugged him, not to tight in order not to wake him up, and then kissed him in the forehead. It was just something I felt like doing at the moment, no idea really why I did it. It just felt right, like the perfect thing to do.

 He opened up his eyes and looked at me. He gently got himself to the same level and then kissed me. His lips tasted a bit like tequila, which we had drank the night before, but also like those sweet worms that come in colors and are covered with sugar. He reminded me of those, sweet and kind of sour too. We kissed for a long while, maybe almost half an hour. For a moment, I felt self-conscious about my looks so early in the day and my breath, but then just enjoyed the moment kissing a beautiful man in my bed.

 After our kissing session, we stayed there without talking a single word. I put my chest against the bed and he faced the ceiling, looking up as if he was appreciating the sky. We stayed like so for a long time, right until he got out of bed because he wanted to pee. I let him go and stayed there for a moment, realizing then that I was very hungry. We hadn’t had anything to eat the night before; we only drank like sailors and had some peanuts, which really wasn’t any kind of substitute for real food.

 So I stood up and walked towards the kitchen, realizing half way that I was completely naked. I stop right in the middle of the aisle and looked back but then I realized how silly it was to be ashamed or something. After all, we had being having sex for a while and we had slept together for the first time. Being embarrassed didn’t make any sense. So I headed to my kitchen, a tiny space with a bar, which worked as my dinner table. The place was more like a hotel room than like an actual apartment.

 I took out a lemon juice from the refrigerator and poured some in a glass. I was about to pour some for him but then realized I had no idea if he liked lemon juice at all. For a minute, I was all confused and had no idea what to do, as if the concept of lemon juice would destroy anything that we had built up to that point. But then, the answer came by itself: he had come out of the bathroom and saw me with the bottle in my hand. He just grabbed the glass I had poured for myself and drank all of its content in a heartbeat.

 I was frozen in time for a moment but then I just poured some more in another glass and drank that, much slower. He said he was very thirsty and also very hungry.  He didn’t want to impose but he proposed to cook breakfast with me in order to make something faster. I agreed and we decided on something rather easy: eggs, sausage and toast. It was a protein filled breakfast and it would certainly satisfy our hunger. We could have pretended to only want granola or fruit but the truth was we were very hungry and we needed something big and full of everything to really feel good.

  We started cooking right away and breakfast was done in no time. We didn’t bothered to make it look good or anything, we just sat down naked and ate everything on the plate like a couple of vacuum cleaners. We didn’t even talked or looked at each other during that time. We just ate and filled our empty stomachs with something more than tequila. Once the plates were almost as cleaned as before we had served the food, we did stare at each other and shared a smile that seemed to be much more than that.

 I then decided to, again, follow what everything inside me was telling me to do. I stood up, grabbed his hand and took him back to my bed. We got it again and just started kissing and touching each other. However, it was not as sexual as all other times we had that exactly that in the middle of the night. For once, doing it in the daytime seemed bold and amazing, much different that the secrecy and forbidden pleasure behind the nocturnal shadows. It was something much different, in a good way.

 We did that for a long while and then just stopped, hugging each other tight. Through my head passed several different things to say or ask or do. But I couldn’t decide on any so I just stayed still, wrapping my arms around him. I did think about us, about the nature of our relationship. We had been “fuckbuddies” for a while now and that was okay but now something felt different and I couldn’t really just ignore it. It had to be addressed and talked about but I had no idea if that was the time and the place.

 It was him, again, who talked first and proved to have more guts than me. He asked me if this meant our relationship had changed. And I just asked what he thought of the nature of our relationship. He looked at me, with those beautiful eyes, and said that he had always felt something for me, from the very beginning. He confessed he had never done many of the things he had done with me with anyone else, including staying at their place on a Sunday. I smiled and just caressed his face gently.

 We stayed there in silence for a while and then we decided it was best to shower and do something that day. So we got in the bathroom together and also into the water. It was nice and warm and it felt just perfect. So I decided to tell him I really liked him to because he was nice and beautiful and so much more.

 We then kissed again, more passionately than ever and made love under the water. It felt very different, very good. And I could tell he felt exactly the same way. Something had changed that day and it was something better than I had ever expected. Finally, after so much wondering and time, I was in love.

La Vérriere

  The sound of a piano being played could be heard on the staircase that led to the each one of the seven floors that made up the building. In each floor, there were two doors: one for each apartment. Nevertheless, not all of the apartments in the Vérriere building were used as homes. Some of them were offices and others, like 7B in the upper most floor, had been in use for thirty years as a teaching hall of music. Some days you could hear a piano, some others a violin or even a flute.

 Below 7B lived an elderly couple, Ava and Michael. They had been living in Paris for almost seventy years, from the day they had visited as a recently married couple and had fallen in love almost instantly with the city. They loved the architecture and the vibrant artistic movements that you could see and feel all around. And the food, of course, was one of the big reasons for them to stay, as Michael had always wanted to become a professional pastry chef, and Paris was the perfect city to achieve that.

 They decided to move into the Vérriere less than a month after their marriage and announced their decision to family members and friends back home in England with a postcard of the city seen from the Eiffel Tower. Of course, everyone was surprised by their sudden decision. Yes, maybe Michael had always wanted to be a chef and he loved everything that had to do with pastries and bread, but they no one really thought he would follow the dream. And Ava… she was much too young.

 When they moved, Ava was seventeen years old and Michael was nineteen. They started working right away, Michael in a bakery and Ava in a bank. They didn’t ask for experience back then, just the language, which they had to learn bit by bit at nights. It was a hard life for a long time but they eventually moved up in their respective fields. Michael got enough money to enter school and become the chef he always wanted to be and Ava was able to be the accountant of a very prestigious chain of stores.

 Now, Ava and Michael are in their early eighties. They are still in love with each other and they rarely leave their apartment, for which they paid rent for many years but they were eventually able to buy it, as the owner had became a great friend of the both of them. They had two children; now living in the country they had both came from. Somehow, the love the couple had for the city had not being transmitted to their children. They rarely visited, the only foreign sound in the apartment coming from the music lessons above, which were an entertainment for them, more than a nuisance.

 In the middle of the building, in 4A, lived a young man that had recently moved from an eastern European country. It was almost a year ago that he had entered the building, only to check it out with a friend. But they hadn’t been looking for an apartment to live in. His friend ran a production company that produced pornographic content on the Internet and he was looking for a place that looked old and could be used to set various types of productions, somewhere versatile they could use.

 Both of them loved it but Karl, the boy with a thick accent, was truly enthralled with everything about the location. He liked every single little details like the door handles and the sink appliances, but he also loved the views from the windows and the fact that there were very well lit rooms and other one that seemed flooded with darkness. The high ceiling and beautiful wallpaper sold the deal for him. His friend, however, thought the place was a little pricey and that’s when Karl proposed a deal to him.

 Karl would give money to his friend, in order to cover the price of rent, but with the condition he would be able to live there, use it as his home. His friend was doubtful because he knew it could get annoying if someone lived there and a filming crew would suddenly need one of the rooms for a movie. But Karl assured him he was very used to the whole filming scene, being an actor himself, so he assured nothing would go wrong and no problems would show their ugly heads.

 Actually, he said that not being sure of anything, only knowing he just wanted to live there. But he eventually realized he had been correct: the place was not only perfect to live as it was huge and conveniently located, but it proved to be a great setting for lots of movies. Karl even participated in some of them. The incredible surprise was that the building was so sturdy, that people were not able to hear anything on the other floors. And the fact that there were offices around was even better for them.

 Eventually, Karl met a nice young man like himself during another location scouting. They talked and dated for several months until he asked him to move in with him. Karl’s friend eventually found other locations and he eventually stopped using the apartment in the Vérriere building for his films. The place turned into the home of Karl and his boyfriend, who would eventually become his husband. They made great friends in the building, including the elderly couple made by Ava and Michael but also the dozens of cats that Mrs. Laffite had taken in.

 She lived in the only apartment located on the ground floor. She was the person in charge of getting the building clean, on the outside and the inside. Mrs. Laffite was also the only person to have an actual garden in the building, complete with a small bench to sit down and several plants that made her home look like something of an anomaly for such a huge city. Nevertheless, she wasn’t the most sociable person ever, so most people didn’t even know about her beautiful apartment.

 Sometimes called Lala by other people living there, she had surrounded herself with dozens of cats. It was common to see her entering the building holding one or two cats on her hands, just as if she had came into the building with two bags of groceries or something. She always brought in new kitties, mostly strays that she found around the marketplace and other corners of the city she liked to walk around. Granted, she never went to far from the building and never spent more than two hours outside.

 The rest of the day was spent inside her house and sometimes standing in the frame of her door telling the cleaning lady how to do her job. There was always a different woman or man cleaning the place, as she grew impatient with them very fast. She never liked how they clean, how not thorough they were. She trembled when thinking about their homes, and how dust and dirt would be slowly accumulating in corners and under the furniture. Lala was a big germophobe, odd for such a cat lover.

 When someone talked to her, saying “Hi” or something, she always responded by nodding. If people started talking more, she continued answering with head movements and other gestures. It wasn’t that she couldn’t talk but she simply didn’t like to interact with people. And those who had been living there for a few months already knew how to handle her situation. And they didn’t mind and she didn’t really mind any of them, she didn’t really care too much to be very honest.

 Her happiest moment was being in her garden, tending to her plants. She would sing to them and that was the only time some of her tenants were able to hear actual words coming out of her mouth. Her voice was beautiful, soothing and simply magnificent.

 La Vérriere was a building filled with so many people from different backgrounds, doing different things and having different thoughts. It was pretty much as any other building in the world. A place where everything and nothing meets at the same time.