Hi there.
Onethousandwords is a collection of short stories inspired by photographs. It is written by Nils Dougan and Sheri Baldwin who update it pretty much whenever.
I broke your heart because you kissed me with your eyes open. It was unnerving, pulling away to see you staring at me, lips still parted, the memory of mine haunting them. It was as if you knew. You watched me while I kissed you, stared at my closed eyelids. I began to peek at you while we kissed. From beneath my eyelashes, I spotted your brown gaze and shut them tight again.
‘Why do you do that?’
‘Do what?’
‘Keep your eyes open?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, I just like looking at you, I guess.’
‘Do you not trust me or something? It’s like you think I’ll run away if you don’t watch me.’
‘Is there a reason I shouldn’t trust you?’ she asked and laughed.
In truth, there was a reason; her name was Electra. It wasn’t her real name, of course. Her real name was Geraldine. But no one drives 50 miles to a strip club to see Geraldine take her top off.
Electra kissed me with her eyes closed. She made love to me with her eyes closed, too, shut tight and painted with stage makeup. We rolled and rolled on her red satin sheets, eyes closed so she could imagine I was Brad Pitt and I could imagine she was you.
I suppose you didn’t really have a reason not to trust me. Electra meant nothing and I planned to break it off with her soon. She had nothing on you, except that she kissed with her eyes closed. But I could not stand your gaze, so intense on my closed eyelids, and was convinced that if you did not already know, you would read it in the twitch of my eyes or the blue veins beneath my skin.
“Jellyfish can’t fly,” her mother said as they stood before the huge glass wall.
“Well they are flying,” Amanda replied, nose pressed to the window, leaving a round smudge. “Look, Mom.” The jellyfish swirled in a slow arc, gliding from the top of their tank to the bottom and back up again. Against the brilliant blue background, they flew through the water as smoothly as hot air balloons, tentacles draped behind them like lazy tendrils of Spanish moss. Amanda tapped the glass. Continue reading…
The change in temperature was so drastic that my breath became visible before I even made it out of our front door. I hesitated, looking back at our crude yet homely fireplace roaring with warmth, but Jacob’s voice caught my attention. Continue reading…
We took off into the sunset. Outside the sky was a sea of pastels, pinks and purples covering the earth and clouds beyond the double layers of heavy plastic. The sun had begun to set and I was sitting on the wrong side of the plane. I leaned forward, forehead pressing against the cool surface of the tray table in its full upright and locked position, to look beyond an elderly woman and a sleeping business man and out the opposite window. The sun had just begun to sink and paint the sky with softer hues. I wondered, with my head pressed to the beige plastic, if you could see this same sunset from there, driving away from the airport with the windows down and the radio up to drown out even your own thoughts – this is how I imagined you, how I hoped you might be. I hoped you had stayed long after I had passed through security, after I stepped back into my shoes and waved, stayed until you knew my flight had taken off after a half hour delay, watching the jets rocket into the sky like homesick angels, imagining I was in each one and seeing it off safely, just in case I was. I hoped you saw the sunset I was seeing. Continue reading…
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” Her eyes twinkled and he realized she was joking -teasing him. His heart began beating again. “Of course I will.” She leaned into him and pushed herself up onto her toes as she normally did to reach his lips. He pulled her close and almost lost their collective balance before grabbing a nearby rail.
He closed his eyes and expected something different; something new like when they first met and every touch resulted in sparks or, at least, sent a shiver down her skin. But it wasn’t. He felt guilty and instantly his heart sank as if he had betrayed her and his proposal was nothing but a lie. Before he could further confuse himself she pulled back, her smirk as sly as ever and her eyes full of fire. Continue reading…
She told me she didn’t know where she was going.
I told her I didn’t care.
She smiled but it was meek. There was a sadness in her eyes that said the same thing as usual: she didn’t believe me.
Even bundled up in the cold she was beautiful. Flakes of snow still clung to her hair from earlier and I longed to reach up and brush them off with my hand. She kept moving. The snow was no longer soft and each step sent a crushing noise into the air that broke the vast silence between us. I opened my mouth, desperate to add to the noise and casually bridge the chasm that had been widening since…well…too long. My mouth closed without a whisper and I became embarrassed at my attempt to be noticed. I began matching my steps in the snow with hers, afraid now to break the stillness in the air. Continue reading…
The big bay window faces a multi-lane street and a sidewalk, both full of people rushing through the city on their way somewhere more important. Taxis idle at the stoplight, their illuminated signs waiting for someone in need of getting somewhere in a hurry. Some people walk by quickly, women with their heels click-clacking on the concrete; some people walk by slowly, without anywhere to rush off to. These are the people that interest me, where they are from, where they may be going. These are the people most likely to stop. Continue reading…