A Paean to Our Parents

A short story
by Matt Maxwell

The cell phone slips from Rickard’s hand and plunges into his French onion soup, its splash spackling crusty ecru on the white tablecloth, on the white linen covering an erection, on his silk Dolce shirt. The phone lists, bobs, then sinks, the display warbling whitewash. In the breathless lull before the fuck salvo and overturned chair, Sylvia darts for the door.

She languishes over his leather, a leg dissecting the gap in the front bucket seats, a leg bent, toes smudging the rear glass, a large ring on her big toe absently, randomly, clacking. Stilettos adorn the armrest.

A leaf drifts in the open sunroof . . .

. . . lands on his exposed back, slides, when he arches, to his waist. Sylvia rubs it between thumb and index in cadence, stops when it crumbles, keeps the stem.

In the taciturn night, driving home, she reclines and watches lights, trees, and clouds though the rectangle, wraps the stem around her ring finger.

He spits out the window.

A toddler’s doe eyes blaze over a dirty, terrified face. Sylvia whisks him away from a chaotic nebula of dust and blood and appendages. They scamper to trees, a coastal shore, subdued greens and blues, Rickard gnawing on a decapitated flamingo.

And Sylvia awakens to smeared mascara on her face and pillow, rolls over on her stomach, muffles intermittent sniffs.

Auburn hair coiled in his fingers, he kneads the strands, cleansing the grime from his creases, knuckles, creates her pace. He stains her ashen face, cups her chin in soiled, callous hands.

Sun diffracts through beveled glass in a pristine room of marble, water, flora. A fire whispers from the corner, a cage of lovebirds twitter sweetly, soothing, mimicking the Zen waterfall. Her fingers in flour, Sylvia hums a personal aria, drinks wine from an heirloom Celtic goblet. She stirs and tamps, sparking a diaphanous cloud she sticks her nose into, inhales.

Rickard traipses in, boots shellacked in mud and grass, a cigarette in his lips, tosses filthy clothing on the barren table, unloads a barrage.

Her hands reaching, fingers splayed, her hair tickles the zephyr atop the cliff’s edge, caressing the flow. Head in the embryo clouds, cushioned in a cumulus womb, aware of the static-charged drapery in the distance, she weeps, smiles.

Copyright © 2008 by Matt Maxwell