flashquake Editor's Pick — Roger Paris

The Space Between
by A. Leigh Jones

The images in this piece are haunting, real. The language draws strong images and has a cadence to it. Many regard flash fiction and the prose poem as being cut from the same cloth and this piece makes their case.

In the Summer of ‘87 I lived and died and wanted nothing to do with either the lies or the truths — mine or yours or anybody else’s.

Lost in vacant lots and abandoned offices, in nameless upstairs empty spaces where lights flashed and people grooved and the DJ was the only one of us really there, in the moment, in time. I pressed on, dancing until I couldn’t sleep, stretched out with the club kids in all-night diners, in neon and glitter, begging for relief.

Before I slept they came to me, burning images like strobes after sunrise. One image after the next, faces I didn’t know, places I’d never been, woven into me, into the ooze and the drip and the lies and the truth and the spiral that no amount of rhythm, no amount of blues, of ups, of downs, of smoke or haze could alter.

They came if I was alone or not, at home or not, lucid or not, desperate or not, laughing or not, crying or not, fucking or not. They came when my eyes closed and the dark moved in and the silence expanded around me and they came, flashing, one after the next, a flood of forever, relentless.

In the Summer of ‘87 I learned not ask, Can you see them? Not even in that quiet whisper I knew you couldn’t hear. I learned not ask because in the Summer of ‘87 I hoped you couldn’t see them, couldn’t see me, know me, hear me, think of me before the rain, before the clouds burst, before the darkness comes and with it the silence. They were mine, for my eyes only, for me alone and I was terrified of seeing them, of not seeing them, of losing them forever, losing what I might never understand.

They were warning me, that much I knew. But was it a warning for me alone, to stop this or that, or start or change or go? Were they pulling me out of the night, showing me the way out, the way up, the way of the world? Were they saving me slowly, one frame at a time, one still image after the next?

Maybe they weren’t saving me at all; maybe they were changing me, erasing me, defining me. Softly, with flashes of light, muting my frames of reference, the paths from here to there and back again, my birthright, like everyone else in this city, in a hurry to be where I was going, to get on get down get up get by get started.

Hanging on in the subway, someone to be passed around, passed over, passed by. I wanted to shout, to scream, to sob: I know I know I know! I know you aren’t here, though, I know they can’t see you, though, I know you are taking something from me, something I need and something I want back. Not blood not money not memories, but something.

In the Summer of ‘87 I knew it was late, later than I thought, almost over, almost forever, almost too far.

Do you know me? I asked people I met, Do you know me? I asked people I knew, Do you know me? I asked over and over and over, listening for the lies that came, the lies told over and over until bits of the truth huddled together, shivering, shaking, vibrating. Do you know me?

I studied daytime faces, memorizing, comparing, waiting to see them later in the dark, when I closed my eyes, waiting for worlds to collide. I waited, but they never came. Not those faces. Not the faces I saw in the light with my eyes open; not the faces I knew were real, knew were attached to bodies I could see, minds that were closed to me, mouths that would lie to me. I waited at night, with my eyes closed, and saw them over and over, warning me, watching me, teaching me, asking me. Over and over.

Starry eyes like streaky comets, words spoken and unspoken, lips cracked and skin on fire, I waited, like a park bench in the rain.

Midnight, the moon a bright-white sickle in a cloudless swollen sky. My eyes glued to the eyes of a wretched old man, speaking without sound, demanding over and over: Do you know me? Do you know? Do you know me?

Insisting over and over: I know, I know you, I know I know you. I’ve seen you over and over in the dark, in the silence, for years and years I have seen you. I know you. I am with you, with them, in the night. Do you know me? Do you know? Do you see them, feel them, know them, know they are not us, not like us, not with us, not one of us, not part of us?

Over and over. Relentless.

In the Summer of ‘87 bitter lines spun like spirals, lies and truth, fantasy and reality, here and there, yours and mine. Twisted like twins, action and ennui, deceit and revelation, currency and calculation. I knew, knew for certain, knew the faces, the feelings, the places, the gestures and the words, spoken and unspoken. I knew without question that I was not alone, that I was known, that I knew others who knew others who knew that we are here, that we exist, that we know.

I lived and died and learned that we are not of this world, we are not alone in it, or on it, or around it. There are more of us, more than us, more than we can know in the daylight, in continual motion, talking, feeling, going, doing, changing, trying, searching for more, for less, for what we can’t have, won’t do, will never be.

Listen, and you will see.

We are here, and we are not alone.

Copyright 2002 by A. Leigh Jones

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