Official Blog of Kristy Gherlone

Tag: flashfiction

• Wayward Child

  Posted at 8:54 pm by writergherlone, on September 21, 2018

  

   

  *For my latest magazine publications see: “English Tea and Crawdads,” in The Hickory Stump and “When Gracie was Four,” in Down and Dirty Presents, The Legendary.

   

  Wayward Child

  by Kristy Gherlone

   

   

   

  Mama had a wayward child, but that child wasn’t me. Timmy-Tom was pickle juice, cider, and pockets full of slugs. He was armpit farts, soda burps, and ‘I don’t know how to whisper.’ He was dog poop on sneakers and a grimy mud puddle diver. He was crossing his eyes, sticking his tongue out, and coughing without covering his mouth.

  Mama had an obedient child, and that child was surely me. I was chocolate cake, and Kool-Aid, and pockets full of buttons. I was piano music, alphabet reciter, and singing in the shower. I was sequins on sneakers and reading a book under a tree. I was combed hair, smiles, and saying ‘please and thank-you.’

  Mama said, “You kids come on in now. It’s time for your bath.”

  Timmy-Tom said, “I ain’t takin’ a bath.”

  I said, “It’s, ‘I’m not taking a bath.’”

  Mama said, “Don’t you kids sass me. Both of you get in here now.”

  Timmy-Tom got into the bath after me. The water turned dingy-brown.

  Mama came in and saw the water. She said, “You kids are filthy! I told you to stay out of the mud.”

  I said, “I wasn’t in the mud. Timmy-Tom was.”

  Mama said, “It’s not nice to tattle.”

  Timmy-Tom grinned and stuck his tongue out at me.

  Mama dried us off and said, “Off to bed. You’ve got school in the morning.”

  Timmy-Tom said, “I hate school. I ain’t goin’.”

  I said, “It’s, I hate school and I’m not going.”

  Mama said, “I don’t know what the matter is with you two today, but you’re both acting naughty. No television. I want you to go right to sleep.” She gave us each a kiss and turned out the light.

  Timmy-Tom waited until mama went downstairs. He got out of bed, turned the television on, and jumped back into bed.

  I got out of bed to turn the television off, but mama came storming up the stairs and said, “I told you no television. I guess Timmy-Tom was the only one who listened. He can have an extra pancake at breakfast tomorrow.”

  Timmy-Tom said, “Yippee,” and coughed in my face.

  The next morning mama said, “You kids go across the street and borrow an egg from the Fitzsimmons’. Don’t forget to watch for cars.”

  When we got to the end of the driveway I said, “Check for cars, Timmy-Tom, before you cross the road.”

  Timmy-Tom ran across without looking so I ran after him and a car almost hit me! The sound of screeching brakes sent mama flying to the door. She shouted, “I told you not to cross the road without checking! You could have been killed! No desert for you after dinner tonight.”

  Timmy-Tom laughed.

  At the breakfast table, Timmy-Tom said, “I’m sure glad I have this extra pancake. It’s really yummy. I bet you wish you had an extra pancake.” He smiled, put his hand under his armpit, and made a farting noise.

  I grabbed Timmy-Tom’s plate and smashed it over his head.

  Mama said, “Samuel Richard! It is NEVER okay to hit another person. Not ever. That was very wrong. I’m afraid you must be punished.”

  So now I’m in the corner.

  Mama has a wayward child and I guess that child must be me.

  End

   

  *No part of this story may be copied or reproduced without consent of the author.    

  **Photo is the author on her 1st Birthday.

      

   

  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged childhood, familyfriendly, fiction, flashfiction, humor, kids, parenting, shortstory, siblingrivalry, siblings

• The Falls

  Posted at 1:39 pm by writergherlone, on January 9, 2018

  

  *No Part of this story may be published or reproduced without the written consent of the author

  **This story was originally published by Wild Women’s Medicine Circle Journal. To see this story and  similar works in print, visit Wild Women’s Medicine Circle Journal Blogspot. You may also order on Amazon.

  The Falls

  by Kristy Gherlone

   

   

  She pauses to listen halfway into the ascent.

  The forest speaks to her in a language that is not at all foreign. She has grown accustomed to its dialect, but on this day, she cannot trust her own ears. They have been poisoned by hateful words.

  She is alone. The solitude amplifies the words. Foraging squirrels sound like approaching demons. Dark thoughts fill her head.

  Her heart beats out a rhythm of warning. The partridge drum in succession, alerting to a battle that is not their own. There is danger here. There is danger everywhere, but rarely here. She finds solace in the dark places of the wild. Perhaps it is she that is the danger.

  The world sways. She drops down and covers her head. Her throat draws in shallow gulps and her hands grow numb. The still air comes to life. The trees sway back and forth in a violent dance. Dust devils swirl into the valley, scattering dead leaves and bending branches as they whistle through the pines. “Go back,” they howl. “It’s not too late.”

  She buries her face into the pulpy green moss and waits, her breath hitching. The wind subsides as does the imminence. It becomes stifling, threatening to suffocate her where she rests. She’d let it happen, but she wants the final say.

  She jumps up and begins again, ignoring the feeling that she may have gone too far. Today there will be no such thing as too far.

  The trail is steep and tricky. Her legs are weak, but she keeps moving. Keeps climbing.

  The low shooshing of the falls finally touches her ears.

  Painfully she gasps, breathing in the enveloping fragrance of the forest. Tangy pine and damp earth fill her nose, washing out the scent of her own perspiration.

  She turns to look out over the vastness. Fir waves sweep through, gathering among the tree tops. They resemble an old quilt. She is reminded of her grandmother.

  Her eyes turn upwards. The sky is azure so high aloft, like an ocean to dive through. A passage to heaven.

  Will there be a heaven for me? She wonders.

  She closes her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers into the valley.

  The tears come and spill over onto the scree. “I’m tired,” she says, “just tired.”

  Her shoulders shake as she turns her back on the landscape one last time.

  The mountain comforts her with a lullaby. It sends her the songs of the warblers and thrushes. Cicadas awaken, their high-pitched rubbings echo through the land.

  She steps back onto the trail and makes the final push to the top. To the falls.

  She can fully hear them now. Thunderous and booming, they drown away any lingering doubts.

  The sight of them quiets her like nothing ever could. They are familiar. She has drawn on their image continually. She always knew it would end like this.

  On the edge, a buck drinks from the pools. He senses her presence. His head snaps up. Water cascades from his antlers. They stare at one another, neither of them ready to speak first.

  “I..” she begins.

  The deer’s eyes widen. His nostrils flare. He stomps an accusation before taking flight into the brush.

  She feels guilty, but has made up her mind.

  She sits on a boulder and removes her pack. Cool mist sprays her cheeks as the water roars down the towering gray columns.

  She unzips the top and fishes around until she finds the medicine bottle. She unscrews the lid and examines the contents. She has been saving for a long time. Countless nights of torture so she could have such a moment.

  She dumps the entirety into her hand and pops the fistful into her mouth.

  She waits, hoping for quick relief. She does not wish for a final showing of her life. Her anxiety riddled brain has already replayed it many times.

  She stares at the water. A trout flips half in and half out of the shallows. Its red underbelly heaves as it sucks air. She slides down the rock and goes to release it. A final act of kindness.  She stands at the bank and watches it swim away.

  A warm and heavy feeling rushes into her chest. Soon it will make its way through her veins and settle inside of her head.

  She sits right there on the shore.

  “Samantha!” A voice pierces the uproarious motion.

  Startled, she whips around. The movement makes her dizzy, but she sees his form through the haze. He beckons to her with outstretched hands. Her heart soars.

  “I’m sorry,” he mouths.

  “I am, too,” she mouths back.

  She gets up and dives into the chute.

  End

   

   

  

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged depression, despair, desperation, flashfiction, nature, solitude

• Daddy’s Coat

  Posted at 4:19 pm by writergherlone, on August 19, 2017

  

   

  Daddy’s Coat

  by Kristy Gherlone

   

  “Mom, you gave me an extra again,” Katie said as she placed the last setting at the table, only to realize she still had a plate in her hand.
  She glanced briefly, but painfully, towards her dad’s chair. Her heart squeezed at the sight. His olive colored winter coat, puffy with downy feathers still hung over the back as if at any moment he’d be coming in to put it on.
  “Just habit, I guess. I’m sorry. Bring it here,” her mom said.
  Katie, lost in a memory, didn’t hear her.
  **
  “What do you want for Christmas daddy?” Katie, at fifteen, had asked her dad that year. She’d taken a part time job a few weeks before, and was proud that she’d finally be able to purchase the gifts for Christmas all on her own.
  She didn’t know, at the time, how tight her parents’ budget was, and what a relief it was for them. She couldn’t know. Her dad never deprived her of anything and never let on how much he went without sometimes.
  “Oh, I don’t know. How about a tin of those peach blossoms I like?”
  “But daddy, I meant a real gift. I always get you candy. I want to get you something you really want.”
  “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t want you spending your money on me. Save it up! Get yourself something special,” he’d said, ruffling her hair as he headed off for work.
  She’d had to ask her mom later what he wanted.
  “Well, you know… there’s this coat he’s been wanting. He saw it in the Sears and Roebucks. Said it looked real warm. Supposed to be filled with goose feathers or some foolishness, but don’t worry about it. His coat’ll do another year. That one’s too expensive, in my opinion. Ninety-nine dollars!” Her mother clucked and shook her head.
  Katie knew the coat he had been wearing was dangerously worn out. Many years of harsh Maine winters and several dozen washings had left it thin and faded, but he never complained no matter how cold it got. He used to say, ‘I’m tough I is I am I are, and when I’m mad I spits tar.’ It used to make Katie giggle when she was little, and her eyes roll when she got older.
  He probably could have bought a new coat the year before with the money he had in savings, but Katie had needed braces.
  “Ninety-nine dollars?” Katie asked nervously. She had one hundred and fifty saved up. Ninety-nine was a lot of money… Nearly all of her Christmas budget.
  “Yeah. That’s why I said don’t worry about it. He’ll manage.”

  Her mom had married him when Katie was just eight years old, so he wasn’t her real dad then. He’d only become he real dad by the way he treated her, and by the way her heart felt about him. He became as real as anyone else’s. They’d been so poor before. Never enough food, or anything else for that matter.  He’d taken them in, and treated her like she was his very own daughter. That first Christmas he’d bought her every single thing she’d scribbled down on her list. She knew he wanted her to know how loved she was and that she’d never have to worry again.
  Katie went off in search of the catalogue and looked it up. It was nice. It was rated to forty-five below. He could use that, working outside like he did a lot of the time. He was getting old. His hair, gone gray years before, had thinned to unmanageable wisps, and his hands, all gnarly from arthritis, could barely hold a wrench anymore. She knew the cold bothered him, though he’d never admit it.
  Katie studied the picture again.
  Ninety-nine dollars! She sucked in her breath. It was a lot of money. There were so many things she could buy with that!

  Without any more hesitation, Katie called the number on the catalogue.
  Christmas morning, she watched as he opened the big brown box. She’d never seen him cry before, but as he unwrapped the tissue paper and pulled the coat out of the box, his eyes were misty. He choked up as he reached over to hug and thank her.
  He wore that coat every winter day until the last one, and every time he put it on, he’d say the same thing, “Boy oh boy this is a nice coat. So sturdy and warm.”

  **
  “Katie! I said bring it here!” Her mom’s voice, tinged with annoyance, brought her back to the present.
  Katie snapped to and handed the plate back to her mother.
  She turned around and went over to her dad’s chair. She ran her hand over the soft fabric of the coat. She lifted it up and held it to her nose, breathing in deeply.
  It smelled of tobacco and mint. Of wood shavings and oil. There was a whiff of coffee and just a hint of cologne. Everything that was her dad was captured in that coat. There were a thousand memories wrapped up in there; of him pulling her on the sled, the year he taught her to drive a snow mobile, that fall he took her hunting, and of him chopping down countless Christmas trees. The threads that ran through the length of that coat, holding it together, were like the threads of their relationship. Sturdy. Just like her love for him would always be, even though he was gone.
  “I can put it away in the closet if it will make you feel any better,” her mom said.
  “No, don’t!” Katie said quickly. After all, she liked to pretend too.

  There would always be a place at the table, even if only in their memories

  Posted in Uncategorized | 0 Comments | Tagged childhood, family, familyfriendly, fiction, flashfiction, shortstory, stepdad

• Thief

  Posted at 12:50 pm by writergherlone, on July 30, 2017

  

  *This story originally appeared in Every Writer’s Resource. From there, it was seen and requested by the Mystery Tribune, and has been featured in their magazine for over a month now.

  When I first wrote “Thief”, I submitted it to a few magazines, and it was rejected each time. I was starting to lose hope. I looked at it again, and made some small changes and few edits. Sometimes, that’s all it needs!

  Don’t lose hope if you have written something and it is rejected. Keep working at it and remind yourself that even the “greats” have been rejected hundreds of times!

  Please be sure to watch for my next story “Ice Cream or Moxie”. It will publish in Short Fiction Break on August 11th.

   

  Thief

  By Kristy Gherlone

       I watch them together, though I’m supposed to be in my room. They’re sitting too close. Cigarette smoke trails in front of my eyes as I sit huddled in the corner.

  They talk to each other like they’re good friends, but I don’t know the woman with my father. She’s pretty and young, but there’s something ugly about her too.

  He faces her as he sits on the couch, strumming away on his guitar. The woman places her hand on his knee. Her thumb moves in lazy circles over the denim fabric of his pants before slipping in and out of a frayed hole to touch his bare skin.

  I can’t breathe. I cough. The woman glares at me, then mashes her lips together until they melt into a smirk. Her eyes speak to me. They say, ‘I’m taking him. He’s mine now. Just sit there and let it happen.’ She turns back to my father. His eyes tell her that I’m not important. She smiles. I hold my blanket over my nose and breathe in filtered smoke as I suck my thumb.

  My mother walks in. “Another guitar lesson?” She asks. Her voice is strange.

  The woman takes her hand off from my father’s knee and he stops playing.

  “Yes,” the woman answers. She picks her bag up off the floor. “I have to get back to work now. Same time tomorrow?” she asks my father, like she doesn’t need my mother’s permission. Like she’s going to be the boss now.

  He clears his throat, “yeah, tomorrow’s good.”

  “Bye,” she sings to me. She pats my head like I’m a dog before breezing out in a choke of perfume.

  My father puts his guitar down and gets up. He stretches and walks over to the fridge, where he reaches in for a beer.

  “I don’t want her back here,” my mother says. Her voice is shaky, as if she’s about to cry. She whips a dirty plate into the sink. It shatters. “I’m not stupid! I know what’s going on.”

  “Okay, so you caught me,” he shrugs and looks at the floor.

  My mother chokes, “that’s just great!” She snatches her purse off the counter, “you’re not leaving me with this mess.” She motions towards me and slams the door on her way out.

  My father picks up the phone. “I told her. Come and get me?”

  He’s going through the drawers in his room, throwing things into his suitcase when I hear someone pull up and honk. I go to the window. That woman is sitting in the driver’s seat of a car with no roof. Her hair swirls in the breeze, as if they are already driving away.

  I want to say something, but I don’t exist anymore.

  He runs out and kisses the woman on the lips.

  She waves to me as they pull away. My father looks straight ahead.

  End

   

   

  Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments | Tagged adultery, childhood, divorce, flashfiction, loss, microfiction, parenting, shortstory

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