Snow, snow and more snow. All right. When you’re given a lemon you make lemonade out of it. The Old Soldier has a love story for you that takes place in the winter time in Pittsburgh. Don’t let the snow get you down. If you’re a blogger or a flash fiction writer, seek out your muse. Let the snow inspire you to create. Create when you’re hungry. Create when you’re lonely. Create when you don’t know where your next beer is coming from. Create when you’re snowed in…Let the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette be your muse. Look at all the stuff on this blog.
Blogging and writing are the opposite sides of the same coin. Tell your friends about The Gazette. Here you will find words that capture life on the page. The next edition of The Gazette will be published on Monday.
Pittsburgh Confidential
Al Evans was forty-eight years old, a bachelor, and he should have known better. He and Catherine Dunne sat on the sofa in his apartment on Walnut Street. She wore a demure beige dress with black sheer pantyhose. Her socks in her winter boots sat on the mat just inside the door. She drew her legs up under her and took the small, black velvet covered box Al held out to her. She had two teenage sons and a hopelessly alcoholic husband in Philadelphia. Catherine was staying in Pittsburgh for a short time with Al’s brother and sister-in-law. Catherine opened the box.
“Al, it’s beautiful.”
“It’s pure gold.”
He watched her face. She looked around the neat but sparsely furnished living room, then back down at the delicate heart and very, very thin chain set against the red cloth.
“I can’t accept this.”
“No?”
She closed the box and put it on the side table next to her pack of cigarettes and roll of breath mints. She slid into his lap and put her arms around his neck.
“Let’s not think about it,” she said. “I told Holly I wouldn’t be back until later this evening. Let’s not think about anything at all. I just want to forget. Al, make me forget.”
“All right.”
“We’ll be sinful and happy.”
“All right.”
“We’re both adults.”
“Good.”
“We’re not hurting anyone if no one finds out.”
The next two days snow fell in gentle flurries. On the third day Al was invited to dinner by his brother and sister-in-law who lived in one of the best neighborhoods in the city. It was Sunday and an unexpected chance to see Catherine again. Everyone sat at the dining room table.
“Cathy,” Holly said, “would you like to say the blessing?”
“Go on,” Mark said. “You’re the guest, but I just can’t picture Holly as a barefoot hippie with flowers in her hair.”
“Well it was San Fran twenty-five years ago,” Catherine said. “At least Holly got her degree. I dropped out my junior year. But someone else had better say the blessing.”
“Let Uncle Al say it,” Nicky said. She was fifteen.
“He’s an atheist,” Holly said.
“No I’m not.”
“Are you an atheist, Al?” Catherine asked.
“Not at all.”
“He doesn’t believe in anything,” Holly said.
“Yes I do.”
“He’s all right,” Mark said. “I’ll say the blessing.” A few minutes later Mark said, “Cathy, you’re not eating.”
“I don’t seem to have an appetite.”
Al looked at her plate. He saw her glance up at the dining room wall clock. After dinner he finally got a few moments alone with Catherine down in the game room.
“Al, please.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m a guest here.”
“I want to kiss you.”
“Honey, please, not here.”
During the week, Catherine went three times to visit Al at his apartment. Al wondered if Mark or Holly suspected anything. Catherine had left her sons in the care of an aunt. If Catherine’s husband hadn’t gone on another bender Holly wouldn’t have invited Catherine to Pittsburgh and Al would not have been introduced to her. If snow hadn’t stranded Catherine downtown one day while she shopped she wouldn’t have accepted a ride from Al and wound up in his apartment. If over the years Catherine and Holly had not kept in touch Holly wouldn’t have known Catherine’s family had relocated from California to Pennsylvania to be near Catherine’s ailing parents; but Catherine had dreaded flying to Pennsylvania and she was also afraid to drive in snow. Any snow.
Al wanted to be able to kiss Catherine in front of Mark and Holly. He wanted Catherine to be able to accept any gift he gave her. He wanted Catherine never to have to leave Pittsburgh, again…
“When are you leaving?”
“Probably Saturday.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
“I don’t want to go.”
It was the following Sunday after the dinner at Mark and Holly’s. Church bells were ringing. Al and Catherine walked up the walkway of the Fifth Avenue entrance to the Cathedral of Learning of the University of Pittsburgh. The campus was deserted. Al wore his old army fatigue jacket with the yellow and black patch of the First Cavalry Division on the right shoulder, the horse’s head facing to the rear. Al’s gold captain’s bars, a pair on each epaulet, were only slightly tarnished. A brown muffler hung down from around his neck. He walked with his gloveless hands in the pockets of the jacket.
He and Catherine were bare headed, his closely cut hair thinning with lots of gray in it. Catherine wore sunglasses and kept pulling strands of her shoulder length auburn hair from across her face. She had on sleek black leather gloves and an ankle length dark brown mink coat. Her black leather boots were stacked mid-heels cut low just above the ankles. The boots looked expensive and very fashionable. Al heard water from the melting snow running into the sewers. The sunshine was harsh and all the hedges and the trees were bare.
“Then come back,” Al said. “Come back and marry me.”
They turned to the right and walked on.
“I make good wages,” he said. “The past ten years I’ve religiously saved ten percent of my income. I have a couple of investments. I’m sure your boutique would do well in Squirrel Hill or Shadyside. With our combined incomes the boys would have nothing to worry about.”
“And my husband?”
“Do you love him?”
A flock of pigeons flew overhead. She looked up and watched until the pigeons flew out of sight. She and Al walked down several steps, a thin black railing between them, and strolled to the left toward Forbes Avenue.
“We’ve slept in separate rooms nearly six years now,” she said. “Usually he’s drunk or hung over or just too damn sick.”
“Do you love him?”
“I did once.”
“Do you think you could love me?”
“You want all that responsibility?”
“Yes.”
“Are you always so willing to risk what you have to get what you want?”
“What do I have?”
“Your freedom.”
“It doesn’t feel like freedom.”
They faced each other and waited for the red light to change so they could cross the avenue; but the light seemed to be stuck. Catherine’s hair was alive in the wind.
He said, “I feel good when I’m with you. You don’t diminish me. You add to me. I want to be with you.”
She smiled up at him.
“What?” he said.
“You want to make an honest woman out of me.”
“Hey, that’s the kind of man I am.”…
On Monday Al took a sick day off from work. He had to think things through. He cleaned his apartment. It didn’t need to be cleaned. He had to think things through. That afternoon he phoned his sister-in-law.
“She’s gone?”
“Her bus is scheduled to leave in half an hour.”…
Al parked the low slung red sports car and ran to the terminal. Passengers had not yet boarded the bus to Philadelphia. Catherine was not at the ticket counter, either. He stood in the main area and looked around. He felt panic rising inside of him. He strode into the women’s room.
“Catherine! Catherine!”
No one was in the stalls and the three women at the mirrors above the sinks stopped talking and stared at him. “Get out of here,” one of them said to him. He ran out and ran to the magazine, paperback book and candy alcove. He started running toward the street doors when he saw her through the glass of the cafeteria. She sat at a little table, sipping from a white porcelain cup as she stared at nothing…
“Hi,” he said.
She looked up at him, and then put the cup down in its saucer. Three half smoked lipstick stained cigarettes were crushed out in the black plastic ashtray sitting on the table. A dull black purse with a long strap sat on the table. The purse looked to be made of soft, real leather. She wore an ordinary long coat. The small cafeteria was crowded. He sat down in the other chair at the table.
“You have no right,” she whispered. “You have no right.”
“You’re the finest woman I know.”
“I have a husband, two sons and a boutique to run. And if I’m the finest woman you know…What I did with you is adultery.”
“Marry me.”
“Darling, if I broke up my home it would always be between us.”
“We’ll make a new home. A much, much better home.”
“There’s more to life than love.”
“Is there?”
“I won’t be back.”
The public address system began to announce the departure for Philadephia and all points in between. They sat looking at each other.
She said, “That’s me.”
She stood up and slung the long strap of the purse over her right shoulder. He looked up at her. He did not believe this was happening. It could not be happening. He stood up.
She said, “Al, I do love you. Heaven knows I love you. I’ll always love you.”
Short Story Ideas That Work
Ladies, Have You Ever Done A Public Sex Act?
February 26, 2010 — pittsburghflashfictiongazetteHello, hello, hello my brother and sister bloggers and writers. The Old Soldier has a sexy flash fiction story for you in this Friday’s edition of The Gazette. Yes, I have a man and a woman…Well, why give it away? But I want you to notice that this isn’t some cheap porn story. There is not one vulgar word in the story. The characters are fully developed, as fully developed as you can have in a very short story.
There is dialogue. The story is a perfect example of “show don’t tell.”..
The snow continues to fall in Pittsburgh. But there is nothing I can do about the weather; so there’s no use in complaining. Remember, the next edition of The Gazette will be published on Monday. Have a good weekend.
Ladies, I hope you like this story, too. Leave a comment to let me know.
This is the Old Soldier reporting from Pittsburgh.
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Lust
It was a Saturday several years ago in downtown Pittsburgh. Paul Bremmer and Colleen Hammond sat opposite each other in a booth in a corner in the back.
“No,” he said. “You’re wrong.”
“Five years and you want more time,” she said. “I’m sick of it.”
“What the hell does he have?”
“Me.”
“No, he doesn’t have you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
A sliver of September sunlight crept through the big window up front. Several workmen sat on stools at the bar up front. The TV above the bar was not on. On Saturdays these workmen worked only half a day, and now they sat at the bar eating a spicy chili con carne and drinking bottled Iron City beer.
“Lou,” one of the men said. “Put the Pitt game on.”
The bartender said, “It ain’t time yet.”
Paul stared across the table at Colleen. He said, “Have you set a date?”
“Whenever I’m ready. A civil ceremony and then in June a church wedding. He wants a big one.”
Paul looked down at the melting ice in their glasses. “Are you crazy?”
“Isn’t everyone?”
“You hardly know this guy.”
“He works and he wants me.”
“I work.” He looked up at her. “I want you.”
Paul Bremmer was thirty-five years old. He worked as a shift supervisor in a downtown fast food restaurant. The company medical plan covered eighty per cent of any medical bills he might ever have and he belonged to the pension plan. He got three weeks paid vacation a year. He had four thousand dollars in a passbook savings account, two thousand in a five-year CD and he had just opened an IRA. In two years he could pay cash for a newer used car without destroying his passbook savings account.
“Oh, Paul,” Colleen said. “We would be so good together.”
“Too much overhead.”
“I’ll be there.”
“You’re part of the overhead.”
“Oh, fuck you.”
He slid around to her side of the booth. She wore a short dress with no pantyhose and sleek white sandals were on her feet. Her legs were smooth, lightly tanned, strong and tapered long.
“What,” she said, “may I ask are you doing?”
“Is he what you want?”
“You’re what I want. Paul, what on earth are you doing?”
“Relax,” he said. “No one’s paying attention.”
They sat side by side. She picked up her glass and held it with both hands in front of her face, her elbows on the table top. She put the glass back down, sat back against the leather, slid down a little to tilt her hips upward with knees apart and the palms of her hands down on the table top.
She said, “If anyone has to use the restroom…”
She said, “I don’t believe I’m letting you do this…”
She said, “This is so perverse…”
She pressed her face into his shoulder to muffle her sounds. After a few moments she tensed…and then she slowly relaxed. A faint flush suffused her neck and face. He held her close, kissing her mouth, cheeks and closed eyes as she leaned weakly against him.
Up front, the legs of a stool scraped the floor. Paul and Colleen composed themselves. A workman glanced at them on his way to the bathroom.
Paul said, “I just wanted to do something crazy like we use to do.”
“You know it thrills me. You know it turns me on.”
“Does he know it turns you on?”
“He would think it was vulgar.”
Paul laughed. “It is vulgar. It’s cheap and vulgar.”
Paul took their glasses to the bar for refills. The bartender turned on the TV and then said to one of the workmen, “Now are you happy?”
“I got one hundred bucks on this game.”
“I don’t bet.”
“Ah, Lou, where’s the spice in that?”
The bartender took Paul’s order. Paul paid and then went back and sat opposite Colleen.
“What just happened,” Colleen said, “what we just did doesn’t change anything.”
“Does it get me an invite to the wedding?”
Sunlight flooded through the big window up front. Colleen Hammond looked down at her fresh drink, dipped the first finger of her right hand into the drink and then circled the lip of the glass. She kept dipping and circling until the glass began to sing.
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Short Story Ideas That Work