by Paige Bergen
is that the life you want to lead? A life that emanates fear?”
“Of course not!” Audra shouts. “I just want to be respected like any other creature in the land.”
Zanoa nodded. A milky teardrop fell down her smooth cheek. She stepped toward Audra, opened her arms, and hugged her. Her wings beat a soft, slow pattern behind her. “I respect you.”
Audra stood straight, thin fingers twitching at her sides. Then, slowly, she reached up and placed her coarse hands onto Zanoa’s warm shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Your drink, Miss.” The bartender placed a petit cauldron of golden, bubbling Queen’s Brew on the counter.
Audra pulled away from Zanoa, wiping her face free of drips and drops. She nodded to him.
The barkeep nodded as well, and started toward the kitchen once more.
“Excuse me, Sir?” Audra said.
“Yes?” he said, cringing.
Audra walked over. She picked up the mini cauldron and took a sip.
He wrung his sweaty hands together like a nervous raccoon.
She gulped. “This is delicious.”
The bartender’s hands stopped fidgeting, then fell to his thighs. He smiled. “Thank you, Miss.”
“Could you please make another for my friend, Zanoa, here?”
“Of course!” He scuttled away.
Audra turned back to Zanoa.
Zanoa’s wings flapped, suspending her a few inches off the ground. Her smile shined.
Audra held up her drink, smiling back. “To you.”
Us
“Fred.”
Fred sat in a velvet, green chair at the edge of a shadowy, wooden room, his mustached face behind The New York Times. The smoky ashes in the fireplace next to him dimmed from bright orange to chalky black much like his blank, heavy-lidded eyes.
Paul, wearing a pair of overalls and a buttercup-yellow shirt, took a step toward him.
Fred straightened the newspaper to cover his face further. Paul stopped before him and slipped the paper from his fingers to the hardwood floor. Tears spilled down into Fred’s bushy beard.
“Fred,” Paul said again, crouching down and taking Fred’s face into his hands while wiping away the droplets with his callused thumbs. “What’s wrong?”
Fred’s strong jaw quivered, shaking the remaining tears onto his striped shirt.
Tears fell from Paul’s pond-blue eyes, too.
Fred looked up. “Now, don’t you cry.”
“Then, please…just talk to me.”
“Where did the years go?”
“What?”
“Why did we waste them so?”
Paul’s eyebrows lowered and his eyes brewed into a stormy grey. He stood up and walked to the other side of the room. He squatted down, rummaging through a dark brown cabinet in the corner.
“Paul, what are you doing?”
“Finding the years you ‘wasted.’”
“Paul.”
“Got ‘em.”
Paul shuffled over to Fred with arms full of framed photographs. A few clattered to the floor along the way.
“Here,” Paul said, plopping the pile of pictures at Fred’s feet. “take a look.”
Fred wiped his cheeks with his shirt sleeve and picked up a sepia photo of the two of them holding hands in their garden out back. In another, they smiled up at the skyscrapers in New York City. In the last one he picked up, they kissed in their foyer.
Fred smirked.
“So,” Paul said, “do you still think we’re a waste?”
“Of course not,” Fred said, taking Paul’s hand, “I never for a second thought that we were a waste.”
Paul blushed and his eyes teared up. “Then, what are you so sad about, Love?
Fred’s grin dissipated. “Do you forget what happened outside of the frames?”
Paul frowned. “I remember. What about it?”
Fred grimaced and jerked his hand from Paul’s. “What about it? What about it?” He stood and stomped to the window. “Throughout all those years of thieving, of robbing, of killing, of plotting, what did we ever really get out of it besides a broken conscience and a heavy heart.”
Paul rose. “We got each other.”
Fred turned around, the soft light from the window playing with his sharp nose and carved scars. “At what price?” He sighed and sat down on the windowsill. Snow fell cold outside the cottage. “I wish that I was more than a criminal. I wish that I was a better man. I’m not happy with the crimes we’ve committed, Paul. I’m happy that I met you out of them, but I don’t like what we’ve done.”
Fred looked up at Paul. “Don’t you feel even a little guilty?”
Paul walked to Fred, putting his hands on his taut thighs. Their foreheads touched.
“Yes,” Paul said, “I do feel guilty. I would take every bit of it back except meeting you.” Paul kissed Fred’s plump lips. “You’ve got to forgive yourself though. We were young, desperate, and hungry for money. We aren’t those people anymore. We’re us.” Paul cupped Fred’s face in his hands. “And I love us.”
Teardrops dribbled into Fred’s beard once more. “I love you.”
About the Author
Paige Bergen is an edgy, quirky screenwriter in the film industry. Although film is her main squeeze, she is also a gifted poet, novelist, short story writer, and lyricist. As a member of the National Society of Collegiate Scholars who is earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Creative Writing for Entertainment, she writes both whimsical romance pieces and dark, mystical tales at Full Sail University. She gains these ideas whenever someone or something strikes her as beautiful, raw, and real…or when she’s dancing around her condo manically.
If you want to reach her, her LinkedIn profile is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paige-bergen-401940137/. She also has Instagram (@quirkyworks) and Twitter (@quirky_works_) accounts.