A Mix of Untitled Short Short Short Shorts
By: Olivia Toczynski

       Crumpled socks on the end of her bed.  And the pile
grew.  And through wild dreams with fidgeting legs,
they dropped to the carpet, one by one.  The pile
grew.  The piles grew.  Socks in the bed, kicked off
feet in heat or in dream-filled nights.  Socks on the
floor, just becoming part of the carpet.
       Or was she a boy?



       I hate these fucking things.  I think they all know,
though.  I take them, and they look at me with those
sideways eyes that see me as disgust.  They don’t know
why, but they know I take them.  And I sit on the
train that rocks me and rattles, the lights dim and
harmful.  The business people see my sweat.  But I can
see theirs.  And they don’t know that I see through
them: the day to day suffering is nothing now.  It’s
all just how to get by; have something to blame your
tightness on; your closed, clenching insides.  They
are shriveled and squeezed, so much unnoticed, buried
emotions just tangled up.  It’s writhing.  It’s
painful and scary.
       I sweat.  My forehead is sweating.  She is looking at
me--the blonde, the briefcase, the fake comfort, the
man, the “I-play-golf-on-the-weekends shoes.”  The
carpet is dirty.  I’m looking down, rubbing my sweat
into my hair.  Damp hair.  Hard breathing.  Panting.
Sweat.  They know.  I’m all alone.  The lights flicker
and I could be alone.  I could be crazy.  This could
be hell.  Sweat.  Hard swallow.  They all hate me.
Sweat.
       I pop the pill.
       Calm.



       C. H. Richah--a man whose briefcase is filled with
his lunch of a tuna sandwich, baby carrots, and two
juice boxes (one apple, one fruit punch).  His suit
has been ever so nicely put together by combining
pieces found at such places as Target and Mervyn’s.
He is often found in large crowds, walking alone or
sitting--squished between two people--with his head
tilted slightly to the left.  He’s got a mustache,
perfectly trimmed, but his tie is crooked.  He’s got
only some hair, around the side of his head.  C.
H.--what does it stand for?  Charles Hector?  No, that
gives you an impression.  I don’t know what it is, but
it’s no good, no good at all.  His coworkers don’t
know either.  The letters on his office door are
simply, “C. H. Richah,” and no doubt, the “H” is
crooked.  Lisa, down the hall, or “Elizabeth
Cronelle,” as it is posted ever so perfectly on her
door, worries about him.
       “Where are you going?” she wonders when he passes her
room on his way to...
       She wonders, “Are you going with anybody, wherever
you’re going?  And if not, are you okay with that?
Are you okay, C. H. Richah?”  She has love and
care-filled puppy-eyes when she sees him walking by
the doorway of her room.  “I am here for you,” she
says to him in her head.  And she most definitely was.



       The woman, with the majority of her hair buckled back
in a barrette, sitting on the sideways seats of the
subway.  Her posture is upright...or perhaps uptight.
The purposely dusty-brown skirt paired with its double
of a jacket, and the revealing white blouse, keeping
its not-to-be-seen wrinkles safe underneath.  Her
long, knuckley fingers unthoughtfully rubbing back and
forth--back and forth--on her equally knuckley knees.
Nylons.  Two weeks since she shaved her legs; five
since the blade touched her pits; and, now, twelve
minutes since she fantasized about it meeting her
wrist.
       She wanted his bagel--the man across from her--since
it was clear he ordered it just as she liked.  Cream
cheese and lox on a toasted plain bagel, not an
unusual order, maybe even the most obvious choice.
But still, just as she liked.  And he must have known.
 She folded her body over her legs for him to catch
her fix the strap on her heel, and move his eyes up to
her overflowing chest, and maybe, by chance, offer her
his bagel?  Of course.
       And he did.



       A girl once told me that if someone can make you
smile when your day was all frowns before, they’re
worth it.  And I’m not talking regular old smiles,
forced smiles, awkward smiles: fake smiles.  I mean
can’t-help-but-smile smiles.  I mean trying to tell a
serious story and smiling halfway through it at the
sight of you, looking back at me.  Real fucking,
unfading smiles.
       And with you, that’s what I’ve got.  It sucks.  It’s
pain because I think about you and I don’t believe in
myself to think you could ever feel for me the ways I
want--the ways I do for you.  And it’s not like my
heart pounds and I get nervous.  That’s not how I
know.  I look forward to you; I count down days till
you.  You don’t smother my thoughts and dreams,
nowhere near.  I’m fine without you.  But I’m smiling
with you.  You don’t invade my mind because I don’t
let you.  Not you.  A boy once told me that if someone
is just in your thoughts and dreams, they are, and
will only be, a fantasy.  You are not in my thoughts.
Only in my real.



       The flight to burbank only takes ten minutes now.
       Me and my family are on vacations.  We are at some
restaurant--really crowded.  I am dressed up.
Everybody is gone but now three people are sitting
right next to us.  The guy is talking to me.  I have
to pee.  I get up to go to the bathroom through crowds
and crowds, like a video game.  I make it through the
sea of waitresses.  Easy.  I pee.  I am looking at my
sun burnt back in the mirror.  I take my shirt
off...San Francisco State.  I am talking to the guy
from San Diego about it and since he’s going there, I
will.  My dad is running home in water (a lake?).  I
am on the shore along side him, watching, talking.  He
sees the grapefruit-the baseball on the surface and
grabs it.  I want to get into San Francisco State FOR
REAL!  Even Denzel got in.  We’re at the basketball
courts and he got into SF State.  I’m at the
basketball court, watching Denzel bounce the
basketball.  I’m at home, on my couch.  The guy who
raped my mom is staying with us tonight.  They are
friends.  He is trying to rape me, now.  I am crying
and saying no.  My brother is next to me, on the
couch, but he doesn’t notice anything.  He is just
watching T.V.  The guy is over me, trying to put his
penis inside me.  He sprays my eyes with bug spray,
and I almost let him do it.  Somehow I get him off me.
 He runs to my parents’ room, where he is sleeping
tonight.  I yell “Call the cops! Call the cops!” to my
brother, in the kitchen, eating a snack.  Time is
passing.  I go to my room.  My brother comes in,
eating a snack, casual.  He didn’t call.  I call the
cops.  The woman on the phone is sarcastic--doesn’t
believe me.  She tells me they’ll send someone, but I
know it’s going to take a while.  I am in my mom’s
room.  I tell her what the guy did.  She is biting her
nails, not looking at me.  I am nervous, waiting for
the cops.  I am eating Montana flavored Ice Cream and
I want sprinkles.  I am watching “Seventh Heaven” but
I am their lives.  The girl wants freedom from her
brother and his girlfriend.  She dances and starts
stripping to prove a point.  I get home from the T.V.
show and start cooking.  My parents get back in town.
My brothers too.  Everyone has to be regular.  There
are trays of tacos.  I want the pescado ones, the
pescado ones!  They have purple sauce.



       The boy had some goldfish and a yellow and red
striped shirt.  The girl had uneven pigtails and asked
for some of his “cwackews.”  He had orange crumbs on
his face and yelled “No!”
       She cried.



       She looks deep into reflections.  She is not looking
at herself, not admiring her own beauty.  She is not
vain, nor is she insecure.  This girl, she looks deep
into reflections, all sorts of them.  Easy ones like
mirrors, puddles, windows.  But tricky ones
too--spoons, and nail polish.  This girl, she looks
into herself, into the eyes staring back through her.
One girl on either side of the reflection, maybe each
believing, or rather, knowing, they are what the
reflection is reflecting.  They, she, this girl (or
the other girl) is the real one.  They know.  She
knows.  Each of she knows.



       Sorry I’m such a fuck up--that I mess up.
       I’m sorry that I ruin everything.  I’m sorry that I’m
not good enough.  I’m sorry that I cry and that I want
to cry.
       I’m sorry I hurt you.  I’m sorry I kill you--that I
tear you up inside.
       I’m sorry that I don’t believe I should be
loved--that I truly believe I don’t deserve to be
loved.  I’m sorry that I let you in only to push you
away.  I’m sorry that in all the pictures of me, my
eyes are empty.  I’m sorry that I push you and kick
you and laugh and joke.  And I’m sorry that I need you
so bad, so bad, and  don’t have the guts, the
strength, the love for myself, to just tell you.  I’m
sorry I can’t hug you back.



       “LaLaLa,” I said abruptly, pounding my palm on the
floor.
       The man and the woman look over, smiling.
       “That’s right!” the woman exclaimed, sweetly.
       I stop my hand midair, confused by their smiles and
blah-blah-blahs.  But attention is attention.
       “LALALA!” I screech, this time using both my palms to
smack the ground.



       A tree in the distance, looks like a silhouette of
itself.  No idea what it’s like.  All it is, is
through the window, past the yards and houses and
yards and houses.  Past telephone poles whose wires
seem to end as the tree begins; they disappear at the
moment they touch the tree.  And it just sits
there--just a tree.  Big but not burly or
overpowering.  It’s comforting and sensible.  This
tree would talk its way out of a fight.  Now, this
tree wouldn’t even get near a fight in the first
place.  It wouldn’t be the sappy tree, feelings this,
feelings that, rustling, “can’t we all just get
along?”  It’s not a willow, moping in one spot all
day, feeling lonely for its lonely old self, but not
wanting company, but not wanting to be alone.  This
tree is just simply there.  It’s not one you'd spot in
a painting, but not unusual enough that you’d wonder
why not.  The grass beneath it would be green but
patchy.  The birds in it would be swallows.  There
aren’t twigs and loose leaves, but, yes, there are.
But it’s always just a tree in the distance.  Unless,
of course, you get closer to it.



       These are pancakes in  an opened up staple.
       “Why, I wonder,” inside my head, out loud.
       Of course, the staple is opened up!  Other wise the
syrup would spread all over the essay that she spent a
whole forty-five minutes on, sometimes stopping to go
onto Myspace, of course.  Anyway, I bet the syrup
falls all over the essay even though the staple is an
opened-up one.  Plus, the essay wouldn’t stay attached
to this pancake staple, so there would not be syrup
drippage! HA!