if a photo is worth 1000 words : story 4

Source: ballerinaproject.com viaNatalie on Pinterest

She is quiet and breathes in.

in out in out in out

The rhythm is a pendulum in her brain, always the ticking pounding sound of beats cascading into melodies. One two three tendu is not so different than arabesque penchée five six seven eight. Sometimes, she sees the world in steps and terms. The skyscraper is en pointe, that tree is a brise, the movement in the park, simply the chords. It's only the sky that never fits her catalogue of terms. Perhaps, it is the music or perhaps it is the crowd or maybe it doesn't matter.

She shakes off the thought and slowly pulls pins from her bun, closing her eyes as her hair crinkles, sweaty and dry from the tight formation. It settles in a cloud of frizz and split ends around her shoulders and she pulls it back loosely into a pony tail, settling for something, anything, to keep it from her face. White chalk is her skin, blue eyes like the sky she can never settle on. Staring at her reflection in the dimly lit mirror in the near empty dressing room, she gets the impression that they are all china dolls.

Pink cheeks washed off from makeup and brought on by the stage, the group of dancers dwindle until it is only her sitting under the fluorescent lights, gently rubbing off the character she played that night. First go the eyelashes, gently tugged from her lids. The glue sticks and she places the false lashes back in their case carefully. Next, she wipes the color from her lips, and slowly massages the shades and black from her eyes. Finally, she washes her face, vigorously, until her cheeks are flushed from scrubbing and her skin taut, but there is no hint of the performance save the dull throbbing in her muscles. When the makeup is gone, she is almost unrecognizable and she wonders if her mother would remember the daughter she kissed the night she sent her off.

It is an honor, she said, squeezing her daughter tight and brushing her hair from her face.

It always is.

She picks up her bag, sweaty from discarded tights and heavy with half broken pointe shoes and makeup, and slings it over her thin shoulders. Summer is warm in the city but there is always a chill at night, a nip in the air that whispers of loneliness. The subway is almost empty and she stares out the window at the darkening city. It is never completely black, there is always the glow of a streetlight or the warm yellow candle of a window lit by friends.

So it is with life.

She checks the station and, yes, a moment of impulse, gets off. Central Park can be dangerous at night but she is drunk on youth and strong with being on her own and outside, the sun still chases the moon. There is a crowd of people walking through the park, a trail of voices dispersing into their own little lives and she slowly slips though the crowd, floating on the heavy air of summertime like only a dancer could. A little girl points at her bag and her mother hushes her.

She walks to the edge, walks out of the park, back into the swallowing green light of the Subway station, back into the quiet that makes up tired people hurrying home. A man snores next to her and across from her, a woman turns the pages of the book she is reading loudly, peering with furrowed brow at the wrinkled words. She smiles. If I had my pencils...But no. She has no pencils anymore. Only a cramped apartment and broken shanks from shoes made to break feet.

And that's how it is.

The light is waning, waxing, and the sun just beginning to fade into the blue light between night and day when she hurries out of the subway and into the air smelling like movement. Over there, the lopsided flag twirling in the brief gusts of wind, a fouette. The line of steps leading upwards, a développé. She hurries on.

The railing leads into the sea, or so it seems, and she leans against it, breathing in the salt that smells like home. It is near dusk and still, it feels like dawn, feels like the beginning of another day, because the city never sleeps and as a dancer, she is awake for all of it. She wakes with the hurried bustle in the morning, the roasted smell of nuts and coffee and the shouts of yellow cars. She wakes with the streams of light trailing in the ever moving streets, the flickering of restaurants and the shouts of conversation under a moonlight sky.

The water pulls against the stone and she drops her bag, sinks to the ground, pulls a broken pair of shoes from their ribbons. Mostly, the people ignore her. As she wants them to. She zips up her bag, carefully.

Not for pay.

The city falls asleep and the city wakes up and she lifts into an arabesque, eyes closed, breathing hard. There is stone underneath and a slate grey sky above and if she tries hard enough, the taste of rain in the air. A tremble in her ankle and she opens her eyes, sees a snap of a taxi door shut, and she plies into an entrechat. Another. Then a glissade, pas jeté, grande jate, again and again.

It's only after she unlaces her shoes and slips her bruised feet from their ribbons that she realizes she is crying. And even more than that, she falls asleep that night to the hum of her radiator and an open window and her last thought is,

I am happy.

if a photo is worth 1000 words : story 3

Source: colorfulkeys.tumblr.com via Hannah on Pinterest

It was her first Thanksgiving alone and she asked everyone to bring a dish. It didn't have to be homemade, though she hoped that somehow the sweet potatoes would taste like her mother's and that a miracle would occur and the turkey skin would crackle saltily like her grandpa's. But that was wishful thinking and she tucked the memories away next to the few letters she kept hidden in her sock drawer. You have to grow up. Her mother had said. She had grabbed her shoulders, made her look her in the face. You hear me? You can't keep pretending that anything will change. Nan, stop making believe, please. Well, she had grown up alright. Grown up just enough for high heels and lipstick so red it had made her grandmother blush. That's what everyone wears now, gramma. She had laughed and added another swipe, peering in the mirror scrubbed clean. Her grandmother had shook her head. Oh, Nan. When did you grow up?

She set the table, smoothing the white cloth thinly over the enormous wooden table she had miraculously managed to fit in her apartment. It was ridiculous in size compared to her kitchen, especially with the extra leaves in, but she needed wood in a city of metal and stone. She placed her plates, vintage look-alikes, carefully in their places. Forks found spots next to spoons and she placed a small name tag in front of each seat. Molly. Peter. James. Georgia. Harrison. Jonathan. Elisa. Carolyn. Isaac. and lastly, Nan.

The timer beeped again and she pulled out a pumpkin pie, hardly daring to look until it sat on the counter. She had whipped the cream earlier and with a satisfied sigh, placed the lopsided pie on the table next to the stuffing she had made. The little space, cramped and crowded and painted that awful cream, looked happy and even festive with the table made up and a string of lights around the room. She hesitated for just a moment, then hurried back into the kitchen. After rummaging through the cabinet, two shakers, a salt and pepper in the shape of pilgrims, found a spot at the center of the table. She would have wanted you to have them, her grandpa had said sadly as they packed up her grandma's things. It had felt bittersweet to take them and somehow in owning them, she knew that her grandma was truly gone. I'll put them out every year. She had kissed his cheek and said goodbye before he could cry.

She stepped back to survey the room and breathed deeply of the beginning scents of the season. Outside, it was snowing, which only reminded her of Thanksgiving Day at her grandparents. She peered out the window, secretly praying for more than a few inches and pulled the shades open wide. This was no time for a room bathed in shadows. Music. She needed music. Was there even Thanksgiving music? Her laptop was still on the counter and while the rolls finished cooking, she searched for a Thanksgiving playlist. It ended up being solely Vince Guaraldi and she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing. The timer beeped, again, and the crescent rolls were soon sitting on the near empty table. If her mother could have seen her with boxed rolls, well...

A heavy knock filled the room and she smoothed her skirt, brushed her hair back. She threw open the door and ushered in people with hellos and happy thanksgiving!'s, making the dance between greetings and bringing their plates to the table. Soon, the small apartment smelled like November in the country and the space glowed. The last friends arrived and they all sat down at the table, in a sense reverent at the first Thanksgiving alone. It only felt right to say grace, and even though she didn't know what many of them believed, there was no discomfort at the few words of thanks they each uttered before breathing in the smells of the dinner. Yes, the turkey was a little dry, and maybe the potatoes were from a box, but all together, the food tasted like memories and that enough was home.

What are you thankful for? She asked, in between bites of turkey and cranberries, when she really wanted to ask, What do you miss most about Thanksgiving at home? The group of friends swapped answers and questions across the table and Nan found herself shaking off the melancholy of the morning. Laughter racked her stomach and she passed dishes to the other end of the table, gripping tightly to this small group of friends who had found each other. It was not the same as last year, no, but the quiet of the day was swiftly turning into the bustle of the evening and the room flickered from candles.

More pie? Peter asked, holding her own pumpkin. I really shouldn't...she started, and shook her head, adding a second piece to her plate. Forks littered the plates holding nothing but crumbs and they all lingered at the table, taking a few more bites of pie or sipping a second cup of coffee. Happy Thanksgiving! Carolyn raised her glass of bubbly and they all cheered. The echoes of the sentiment rang in the apartment until January.

What are those? Molly asked, laughing at the funny figurines on the table. Nan smiled and shook her head. Happy Thanksgiving. She cheered again, quieter now.

Outside, it was still snowing.

if a photo is worth 1000 words : story 2

Source: 500px.com via Hannah on Pinterest

The man's hands were wrinkled and white under the leathery veins crisscrossing his knuckles. His bones creaked and the wrinkles in his face lay heavy, sagging in lines etched from his temples. He was the kind of person to have been born with a secret that it took an entire lifetime to understand. He woke early, before the sun flushed pale yellow flowers on the land, before the fishermen arose to head to the deep, before the peddlers gathered their wares for the market. He liked it that way. There was a kind of quiet you couldn't find unless you stole it from the first snatches of day, when all that was noise was the small gasps of breathing, in and out, in and out. If he was lucky, he arose before the birds. That was when all was truly right, when he watched the world turn and the stars shatter on the horizon embarrassed that it was yet again light.

He knew intrinsically when to wake up. It was not an alarm except for the one in his head. It woke him every morning, half past four, and he slowly pulled himself out of the rickety bed he shared with his wife. She never complained of his snoring, though he knew he kept her up at night because she worried about his breathing. I'm an old man. He would laugh in protest, but his chuckle broke into a cough that ached in his lungs all day. Her eyes were sad. Yes, and I want you to stay that way. She rustled in the thin sheets and he smiled sadly at the outline of her sleeping form. He could not look at her without some pain, because in her, he saw his own inadequacy, his own failure to provide.

The night before, they had sat at the little cheap cafe on the corner until late into the evening. The air was chilly and she breathed in deep of the smell of earth crumbling in preparation for winter. I'm sorry, he had said. She asked what for and he tried to find a way to say, because I was a failure. because I couldn't provide. because no matter how I tried, I wasn't who you saw I could be. But his tongue stuck in his throat and he only managed to cough, brusquely in shame, that I couldn't give you more.

Nonsense. She said, patting his cheek fondly. We have lived a good life.

Yes, but it could have been a great one. He spoke in the twilight, aware that the very world around him seemed to be listening to the hum of conversations flitting from table to table. It was the sort of night that demanded fireflies, but the only bugs around he swatted as they settled onto his sagging arms. Mosquitoes he spat, if only to say something to bring light away from his words, still glowing as they sat on the table between him. Somehow, she understood.

Soon it will be winter. Her words settled softly.

Now it was morning and as he crept from their bedroom, through the kitchen (taking care to not step on the knitting needles she had left on the floor), and opened the door to the creaky balcony overlooking the river, he recalled her words. With the bitterness and nostalgia that grows thick from old age, he thought back to all that wasn't said and nursed his heartache. It was a different sort of pain than what he had felt when he stubbed his toe, or when the last of their garden died, or when they lost their first child. All pain was different and some he felt hard in his lungs, some in streaks of pain in his heart, others behind his eyes, so white and sharp he thought he would go blind.

This pain though, this pain was all the more fierce and lasting, a dull ache in his bones that persisted despite the ointments doctors prescribed him or the medicines they gave him to ease the throbbing. Death was out of his control, yet his his life was in his own hands and he had failed to do what he had wanted to do. They had been happy, yes. He had worked his fingers to the bone and they had spent nights dreaming of what was to come. There had been joy and there had been pain, but that was not unexpected. All life is filled with the dizzying dance between tears and laughter, feet being careful not to spin into complacency or bitterness. But he reflected in the morning, what more could it have been?

If only. He whispered to the air, bitter in his throat. The sun was just beginning to leak across the horizon, spilling upwards as if in defiance of the laws of nature. He rocked back and forth on a chair his grandfather had made, barely held together by frequent patch up jobs. It groaned under his strain, though he was slight, and he leaned forward, his elbows digging into his bony knees and his protruding chin held in his shaking hands.

He sat there until dawn finally broke over the land, watched the spreading light across the city, crammed and crowded yet home. His legs were numb from the cold and he felt as if his fingers would fall off, but the beauty of the quiet morning and the thrill of being awake before anyone else was one of the joys he treasured. There was a creak and the scrape of wood on wood and he turned to find the door open and his wife standing on the small, metal balcony beside him. Breakfast? She asked and her voice was a smile that could never stay sad. All melancholy was wiped from his mind and he stood, gripping the railing to steady the tremors that came with old age. He beamed at her and felt that in all his age, she had never been more beautiful.

How can you not be happy with a view like that? he whispered shyly, gesturing at the whole of the tangled landscape seen from their small iron balcony. She gripped his arm and helped him indoors. You silly old man. Each word was a kiss. How I love you.

They went in for breakfast yet kept the door open, letting the sun in.

if a photo is worth 1000 words : story 1

Source: mezzaluna.me via Sarah on Pinterest

The island was cold come october, but she couldn't bring herself to wear a coat. You'll catch cold and be laid in bed for months, her mother fretted. Nonsense, she would insist. The island air does me good. I like tasting the sea when I breath. Her mother would simply shake her head and head to the kitchen to put in the roast, sit in the parlor to finish her knitting, or generally just disappear. The ways of her daughter not only worried her, but perplexed her. Their connection was frail, thin as blue milk and fragile as the last moment of a dream.

Her father was of the island and the stories he told were her history. He understood her, could not help not, as their roots went deep into the earth, rich dirt smelling like spring. It gets in your blood, he used to say. We breathe the salt, in and out, and pretty soon, we're as much a part of the island as the water surrounding it. She was very little when he was still around, but she carried the words with her and pulled them out to remember, daily. It was at the dock that she remembered him most. His favorite place in the world, yes. Her mother hated it and all it stood for, yet there was no money to leave.

Above her, the sky was pulled taught, gray like the stones making up the harborer's island. There was always the threat of rain, not the rain that mainlanders were used to, but the hard sheets nearly ice. Her mother made her promise to take shelter as soon as the sky broke and that was one promise she needed no trouble to keep. While catching cold wasn't ideal, the chill from the rain was dangerous. In nearly every case, the dampness that settled in the bones and burned in the lungs of those taken with it ended in death, despite the poor island doctor's best attempts. It was the dampness that took her father six years ago and daily, her mother worried it would be her next.

"Hello Posy!" A fisherman called, going over his boat for that night. She waved back. Soon, he finished tucking away the nets, closing the hatches, and making sure the boat was settled for the night, and joined her where she sat. He was one of the youngest of those who went out to brave the shale waters, and up until a few years ago, had been friends with Posy. As usually happens, the age difference between boys and girls in the later years of young adulthood stretched into eons, and their friendship crumbled under the strain. It wasn't proper to be running around with a young man, anyways, her mother continually reminded her.

"Hello Teo." She inched over on the slab of rock on which she sat and smiled shyly at him. He had the ruddy skin that came from being out under sky and on the sea daily and his skin was freckled like the speckled eggs her chicken gave. But he had kind eyes that melted when he was particularly happy and she secretly loved the ridge on his nose from he had broken it.

"A good catch?" Posy asked, looping her fingers together.

He shook his head. "I wish. At this rate, we'll be in for a hard winter."

"It's always a hard winter." The words slipped out involuntarily and she flushed, shook her head. "I'm sorry."

Teo nodded, "No. I understand. It would be." That was all he said and yet it was enough to make the ache for her father rise to her throat. It had been six years and she should have been over his passing by now, should have been able to let go. Her granddad found her crying a month ago and gave her a stern talking to. Island folk tasted death and knew that life was short. She should not be still grieving over someone who was gone.

The silence between them stretched into awkward breaths. Posy waited for him to speak, found a word on her tongue and watched it tumble out just as his did.

"What are you --"
"Did you--"

They laughed and the tension eased for a moment. Beside them, the sea lapped the rocks with increasing urgency and Posy shivered from the chill in the air. Wintertime was never dry, but eternally damp and cold. She dreaded the long winter months by the fireside, watching the dimness of the world outside melt into black on the snow.

"Did you need anything?" Teo finished his sentence. The words crumbled in Posy's open hands. She tasted the wish baited in the air and tried to catch her thoughts.

"I --" Posy started and looked away, embarrassed. "Thank you." She finally said, staring at her hands in her lap. "It's very -- generous -- of you to offer. But -- I can't -- we can't accept." She bit her lip. "You know my mother." Even saying that felt like a betrayal. You know my mother. It was worse than gossip, because anyone can try hard enough and pick out the dishonesty in false talk, but with saying that he knew, she was admitting the truth.

He ran a hand through his hair. Squinted. "Yeah." He stared at her, gave her a shy smile. "You take care of yourself, then, you hear?"

She nodded. Gratefulness spilled from her face. "I will. Thank you, Teo, I truly do appreciate it. It means -- a great deal." She finally managed and blushed under the transparency of her words. With her red hair and white dress, she looked every bit like the island girl she was. He had never seen her lovelier.

Impulsively, he grabbed her hand, gave it a squeeze, and she did not let go. He glanced at the sky. "Will you make it home before the rain?"

"I think so." Posy started.

"Do you have a place you can stay if it starts up?" He phrased his question carefully. Rules of conversation were strict, and it was easy to say something to offend, even without intention.

"Yes." She lied. If it began to rain, she would run. She stood, letting his hand fall from hers, and brushed her dress. "But I better be off then. It was good to see you, Teo." Even there, she was saying to much, but his hand holding hers had given her boldness. And her mother, nor anyone worth twopence in gossip, was there to see.

"I'll be seeing you, then." He waved as she set off.

It started raining before she was halfway home.

--

taking the old cliche literally. I'm going to attempt to write 52 short stories weekly this year, all from various images, all around 1000 words. this is partially because I dream of writing a novel, partially because I need a challenge to give myself a push, and partially because there are so many images that inspire me. so, number one done, fifty one to go.