« older | Main Largehearted Boy Page | newer »
December 23, 2020
Flash Dancers: Ekphrastic Singles - "A Thinner Man" by Pat Foran
The Flash Dancers: Ekphrastic Singles series is curated by Meg Pokrass. Authors share an original work of flash fiction inspired by a song.
"A Thinner Man" by Pat Foran
Inspired by "Another Lonely Christmas" by Prince and the Revolution
I am missing her terribly, terribly like a Thin Man GIF, the one that says Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws*. A GIF a Dashiell Hammett type wouldn’t choose. A GIF a Thinner man wouldn't send. But I need to send something to her.
Hello, I say, terribly, to the laptop screen, Hello, I say, feigning color and light, Hello.
The screen doesn’t blink, it doesn’t smile, it doesn’t think — it doesn’t even wretch this time. Or allow me to enter an equation. An “X” that would be greater than, lesser than, or equal to “next.”
Okay, I say, so it’s going to be like THAT.
I pull out my postcards, the vintage photo kind, and fan them out in a half moon. This one, I think: a sepia image of a woman with tumbling hair that wants to curl, but won’t. She stands, plain and tall, on the walk ten steps in front of a screen porch door. Arms akimbo, she leans to the left on her Dust Bowl shadow, peering into the camera with untrusting eyes.
Hello, I write on the card’s blank back, Hello. I write:
It’s Christmas Night and I’m listening to Prince. I’m thinking about Nick and Nora, I’m thinking about William Powell and Myrna Loy, and I’m thinking about you. Because of course I am.
Remembering the time I imagined saying: Do you know how hard it is, knowing how sad you are, how alone you feel, and you STILL don’t want to hang out with me?
Remembering what I imagined you would say in reply: Do you know how hard it is to be loved, loved and loved deeply, by someone you don’t love, don’t love at all?
Anyway, I've Thinned out some. My blood is Thinner, my hair is Thinner, my alibi is Thinner, my resolve is Thinner, my heart is Thinner and leaner and lighter than air. So much Thinner you wouldn’t recognize me stripped. Oh, yes, you would. Yes, you would. Especially the way I lean on my wishes, still. The way I lean into that shadow, the love-starved one on my left. The way I slip and slide into delusion.
How delusional can I get? This delusional: I could live for years off the dimensional kiss you butterflied to me in a photo seven Christmas Nights ago.
All this time, I’ve been thinking, feeling, dreaming and believing you would be here. Because you were there. You were there for me. When I needed you. Then.
And because this: Of all your mother’s children, you weren’t just the Northern Star, the brightest star, you were the only star. The only one there. Not should be, not would be, not maybe someday, but there. There as in here.
And now you are there, not here, there, somewhere else, there, with that jawline and that shadow and those hearts, all color and light, all in a row, there, felt but not seen by me, there, felt but not heard, not by me or anyone, not-heard like a voice message left dangling and then dismissed, there, like leading not with your heart but with your jaw, that jaw, the jawline that leads me here. And there.
Because in my thinnest of hearts, talking this way, writing this way, singing this way, misremembering this way, mishearing Prince this way, misunderstanding The Thin Man this way, misinterpreting love this way is the only way to keep me, me who is here, believing in there. And to keep you, you who are there, here. At least for a moment.
I sign the card — my right leg, actually, because I ran out of card and now I’m Sharpie®-ing my thigh — “Love, terribly, Me …”
So, this is your response to this missing? Your “X”? Your NEXT? Jeez, the laptop screen says, suddenly blinking, suddenly thinking, suddenly not-smiling, suddenly queasy. As long as you don’t send that stupid GIF.
I know, I know, I say. I’m doing my best. It’s my thinning heart, I’ve got this condition, you see…
Yeah, yeah, the screen says. Happy Christmas, you goof.
Happy Christmas, I say in reply, and I look and lean and slip and slide into the pool of color and light that is Prince. Happy Christmas! Prince love-shouts. Happy Christmas! your mother’s children Tweet. Happy Christmas! Arms Akimbo Woman whispers. Happy Christmas! the Thin Man GIF mimes. Happy Christmas to Only You, Darling, Darling — You Who Should’ve Been There! I sing to the one I miss so terribly, terribly like a banana daiquiri, terribly like wicked jaws and unheld, storybook hands. Terribly like a dimensional kiss. A GIF-able one. You know, to make it count. For something. As if there were a kiss that counted.
*“Only you, darling. Lanky brunettes with wicked jaws,” says Nick Charles (William Powell) to Nora Charles (Myrna Loy) in The Thin Man, a 1934 movie written by Albert Hackett and Frances Goodrich based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett. There’s a Thin Man GIF out there with that dialogue snippet on it.
On a neon-telephone night in May 2016, Pat Foran played Prince songs on the radio, including one with Rice-A-Roni in the lyric. His work has been published in various places, including Tiny Molecules, Wigleaf and Milk Candy Review.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider making a donation.
