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Everything's Falling Into Place
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TITLE (EDIT)
Everything's Falling Into Place |
DESCRIPTION
As his girlfriend throws all his possessions from a balcony, the man realises the order in which they are discarded reflects their story relationship.
[946 words] |
TITLE KEYWORD
Relationships |
AUTHOR
Paul Leighland MacLaine |
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR
-
[September 2023] |
AUTHOR'S E-MAIL ADDRESS
[email protected] |
AUTHOR'S OTHER TITLES (13)
A Pocket Full Of Stones (Short Stories) As he walked through the darkest part of his town, he allowed his thoughts to get the better of him. They stepped in time with his feet, and slowly covered his face with a gentle regret. [929 words] [Relationships]
After She Left (Short Stories) When a relationship ends and partners go their separate ways, the memory of the lost love begins to fade. The half of the brain they once occupied is gradually reclaimed so a person returns to being a... [708 words] [Suspense]
Anything Has To Be Better Than This (Short Stories) Nixon lives a quiet life, he minds his own business, keeps to himself...it�s his neighbours who are warring. The paper-thin walls of this hotel reveal everything and one night, as the battle rages nex... [952 words] [Relationships]
Cancer Of The Circumstance (Short Stories) When a man meets a friend in the street, a long lost friend, he sees that he is dying of cancer. The signs are all there, he is thin, his eyes have dimmed from their once brilliant blue and his hands ... [1,424 words] [Mystery]
Close? Only When We Danced (Short Stories) Secrets and promises are often the hardest things to keep. They have a habit of slipping out in conversation. Phillip, a boy on the verge of manhood, tells all his secrets to a man he�s just met in th... [908 words] [Relationships]
Dropping The Red Doll (Short Stories) He hadn't seen his ex-wife in three years. Now, suddenly, she is back in his head and back in his life. As he sits next to her while she is dying from injuries sustained in a car wreck, he observes th... [820 words] [Mystery]
Especially Brilliance (Short Stories) A little bit of heaven has just come back to earth [2,340 words] [Spiritual]
Involution Melancholia (Short Stories) Mead wakes to find he has been sleeping on a bar. The room is filled with people and smoke..just another night on the tiles? Only this time things are happening that don�t make sense: the barman takes... [1,859 words] [Horror]
Remington, Underwood & Royal (Short Stories) Will Kingsway has just purchased the solution to his writer�s block � a black, Remington typewriter. The only problem comes when it asks him to guess its name in exchange for fame and literary success... [4,378 words] [Horror]
Renting (Short Stories) Sometimes letting go can be harder than holding on. [390 words] [Relationships]
Sweetchild (Short Stories) Sweetchild is the story of interracial love, a tragic story of a Romeo and Juliet. [2,387 words] [Romance]
The Legacy (Short Stories) Abandonment is a terrible way to end a relationship, especially when it is in favour of your best friend. But John, a hack, horror writer, has just found the solution to his woes in the pages of an ol... [3,561 words] [Horror]
The Spirit Tree (Short Stories) A small boy was living with his Aunt and Uncle on their farm discovers a magic tree, and a miracle of nature. [4,197 words] [Spiritual]
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Everything's Falling Into Place
Paul Leighland MacLaine
everything�s falling into place
a short story from the collection:
the tales of socrates dancing
by
paul leighland maclaine
...and sometimes my body moved so fast, I�m sure I spent half my life waiting for my head to catch up.
The thought of time alone appealed. It did right from the very beginning: nine-fifteen in the morning, exactly the moment my foot left the frozen earth and I crossed the avenue curb two blocks from Michelle�s apartment, and witnessed the flutter of clothing catching a thermal draft.
The only intact shirt I possessed steadied at the seventh floor window box belonging to the man living in 27a � who was at this time � standing on his balcony in a tattered, orange smoking jacket, holding his tattered orange cat. I�d always held to the theory they�d been purchased as a set.
Both were observing an occurrence down in the street.
��
My expensive, blue silk shirt flapped the pair a polite good morning as it passed by. It filled with a fresh, cold draft, lifting the collar to somersault. Then it folded into itself like a big blue umbrella...dipped a floor...held steady, and finally roman-candled to the pavement.
��
The only good pair of pants I owned - navy pants, sailed across a sandstone ledge, flying by current animation. They danced against the free-fall. Their empty, flat legs flapped mortally against the gravity, pausing only for one final grasping attempt to hold onto a balcony railing...
trying...
reaching...
but failing, and yet it seemed to me, standing below, the eyewitness in the street, it seemed to me that they somehow appeared over-eager to reach the ground.
��
As I rounded the corner, and faced her apartment block, I understood why my pants had chosen their hurried decent, urged on as they had been by the other fashion corpse waiting patiently on the sidewalk below.
I looked to the apartment window.
��
The only decent thing I�d ever written was airborne, launched without ceremony or signing from Michelle�s lounge room window. It divided into one hundred and thirty-seven flat, white doves, see-sawing past the man and his cat. Mr 27a snatched at a page as it passed and started to read; his cat pawed at the air from under his arm, hoping for something worthwhile to peruse...a love scene perhaps.
��
A salad of eight books, each chosen, purchased and read on the first Sunday of each month:
The Ideal Genuine Man, Girl with Green Eyes, Generation of Swine, This Perfect Day, Looking for Mr Goodbar, Of Mice and Men, The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Frenzy were tossed through the French windows into the morning air. The paperback skyscraper from next to our bed rose a little at first, but finally, smothered by its own weight, descended to the earth separating into title floors seconds before striking the snow.
What represented thirty-two weeks work, eight pay check achievements, was now out of her life forever.
��
The single potted palm, card still attached, whistled to the hard earth near my feet. The wind of descent had whipped the fronds bare. Pieces of clay pot, soil and tree slapped at my face on impact.
Three feet to my left had been a certain death. Murder by present. It was my stroke of luck she had never been fond of tropical fish.
��
Stuffed toys were ejected in date-purchased order. The representation of hours satisfying a machine�s hunger for quarters, and manipulating the cantankerous crane inside. Broken backs, snapped limbs, and flattened faces. Stuffing spilled through torn seams and spread slowly over the ice. Their still-smiling faces, unable to mask their disappointment, stared up at me.
��
My camera, unprotected witness and capturer of our short-lived happiness, lay in pieces near the palm, the expensive lens now nothing better than a milk bottle painted black. A twisted spine of film rolled from the Nikon�s broken back.
�You�ve spent so long thinking you�re unattractive that you�ve resigned yourself to the fact that�s what you must be,� she screamed.
�What�s wrong now,� I yelled.
She started to cry, and lowered her face so as not to let me see.
�It hurts,� she cried. �It just hurts.�
She reached for the handles on the windows, and pulled them shut.
��
Toilet gear to my right, ice-hockey stick and souvenir puck on my left, represented the loathsome race she understood men to be. Neglected Underwood and all the stories it had held was destroyed. The teeth that had not been missing prior to this morning were snapped and twisted. Still clinging to the roller was the note I�d written to her the previous night.
�This is a great story, son!� yelled Mr 27a from over his railing. �Keep up the good work!�
��
He released the page. It dipped back and forth, swinging wider and wider, sometimes changing direction as it gathered momentum. It rose a little with the wind, and descended again, wafting down to where I was standing.
��
I collected what I could of the novel. Water had made writing on the pages run together, some were torn, others were dirty. I gathered them in some assemblage of order, tucked the bundle under my arm, and headed across the street. Something in me needed perspective and I guess that�s why, once I�d reached the corner, I turned for one last look at the life strewn across the avenue. I searched for the pain so as to see and recognise it for what it was. Could be that I might need it when I write, but the pain was masked and already fading. I held the manuscript out in front of my chest, read the title, and dropped it chapter by chapter into the wide mouth of the trashcan.
I did not feel sadness, or a bitter sense of loss.
I didn�t feel disappointment.
If anything, everything had fallen into place.
������
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE
© 1992 Paul Leighland MacLaine |
STORYMANIA PUBLICATION DATE
June 2020 |
NUMBER OF TIMES TITLE VIEWED
2197
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