OTHER SHORT WORKS BY MAYA SOKOLOVSKI
“Alexei” in RIDE 3
“The Burning Glass” in The First Line
“Sonnet on a Supermodel” in the Society of Classical Poets Journal 2016
Copyright © 2016 Maya Sokolovski
Published by Iguana Books
720 Bathurst Street, Suite 303
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5V 2R4
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of the author or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.
Publisher: Kathryn Willms
Editor: Lazarus James
Front cover image: Michelle Tribe
Front cover design: Maya Sokolovski
Book layout design: Kathryn Willms
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Sokolovski, Maya, 1987-, author
Double-click flash fic : a chapbook of short fiction and poetry / Maya Sokolovski.
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77180-196-6 (paperback).–ISBN 978-1-77180-197-3 (epub).–ISBN 978-1-77180-198-0 (kindle)
I. Title.
PS8637.O4D68 2016 C818’.6 C2016-903917-X
C2016-903918-8
This is an original print edition of Double-Click Flash Fic.
To R., D., and E., my muses three.
Letter to Sensei
Dear Sensei,
When I heard you got arrested, I didn’t know how to feel. Surprised? Saddened? Vindictive? Curious? I was conflicted, and I didn’t know how to deal with my emotions, so I settled on Indifferent. It’s the same approach one takes upon reading a news story about some catastrophic event in a foreign country, some tragedy for a person or persons who will always remain perfect strangers. But you weren’t a stranger. And the memories of my time under your instruction filled my mind, if not my heart.
There was the time I was late for class, and you made me do 40 push-ups in a row while vocally chastising me in front of my fellow judoka.
There was the time you took us to a sprawling park for summer boot camp, and made us carry heavy logs for hours, and run barefoot through thorny weeds.
Once, you convinced a few of us to rub ourselves down with snow and plunge into a full-square-metre hole in an ice-covered lake. But, to be fair, you jumped into the water first.
There was the time you called me into your office and berated me for being too thin, not eating enough. Those were the days when, for the first time in my life, I began to entertain suicidal thoughts and feel the full brunt of sorrow for not being good enough in judo specifically and in life generally.
But then there was the time you stood, smiling, in the middle of the tatami with a plastic bag in your hands. You told us it contained a gift for the bravest judoka in the whole school, and that we all had to guess who that person was. We all tried to guess, but no one got it right. The gift was a beautiful pink-lipped conch. And the bravest judoka … was me.
You were arrested for uttering a threat, for being too strict and administering too much discipline … and for having enemies who wanted you locked up. This story has a happy ending. Your family posted bail, your case was thrown out of court, and your students cheered in relief. You had endured worse in the deserts of Afghanistan, back in your Spetsnaz days, I’m sure. But I did not join in the chorus. I had not made so much as a phone call. It had been years since I was a judoka myself. And the pain of my shortcomings as an athlete weighed heavily on me. But I just wanted to say, domo, Sensei, for making me who I am today. I survived you, and a lot more to boot.
Sorry and spasibo,
Zaika
The City He Loves Me: A Millennial Romance
Natalia was determined to die. It was only a matter of deciding on the method. That, and the thing she needed to do first was make a list of reasons. These days, her mind was a jumble and her ears rang like the bells of Notre Dame. Something is something, it must be something, she thought as she paced her apartment. She lit a cigarette. She took one puff. She put it out and dropped it in the kitchen sink. Finally, she sat down at her desk and began to write. It wouldn’t do to keep procrastinating like this.
Reasons to Die Today Tomorrow
1. This apartment sucks.
2. My best friend didn’t return my call yesterday.
3. Anton doesn’t love me.
4. Vlad doesn’t love me.
5. Denis doesn’t love me.
6. None of the Russian men in all of New York City love me.
7. Only the city he loves me, so I must sacrifice myself to him.
8. There’s broken glass in my brain.
9. And missing blood in my veins.
10. Hemlock is on sale at the plant nursery.
And it was true. All of it. Point 10 settled it. The reason was the method. She had always been a smart, studious girl. She had read all about Socrates, and how he died voluntarily, swigging a poisonous hemlock potion like a boss, back in Ancient Greece, where men were men. “I wish I had a Greek man,” she sighed. The next best thing, she knew, was to die like one.
The plan was simple, unfolding like a ball of Chinese flowering tea plopped in hot water. She would go to the nursery and look at the spider plants, the posies, the ficus, would even admire the orchids, all nonchalant as if she were a connoisseur and knew the first thing about plants. Like she always did when she visited. Then, she would casually walk over to the seed display and marvel at the selection. Cucumber seeds! Pumpkin seeds! Zucchini seeds! Wildflower seeds! Why, even artichoke seeds! And best of all, most curious of all, hemlock seeds. What, do people really not know? She had wondered, but not bought, the last time she visited.
Now, sitting at her desk in the apartment, she visualized her next move, visualized like all the self-help books had taught her. She would pluck a packet of hemlock seeds and a packet of tomato seeds from the display, then set them at the counter in front of the cashier and look him in the eyes. This was to make it seem like she would live to raise tomatoes, and eat them in bruschetta form, laughing in the sun on her balcony as if she were in Florence or something, hemlock flowers waving in the breeze. But what she would really do was grow the hemlock, tomato seeds forgotten in a drawer, until she had bushels of it. Then she would pick the white flowers ever so delicately, until her lap overflowed with them, then recline in the sun on her balcony and eat them one by one. Spasms and convulsions would overtake her petite frame, she would sigh, then lie back on the chaise longue and die. Like a lady.
But she knew she had no patience and no green thumb to speak of. This is where reality set in. She grumbled to herself as she made a new mental picture. It was of her, crushing the hemlock seeds in a bowl with the handle of a knife. Then she would mix the ground seeds in a glass of soy milk, chug it, and die with a milk moustache on her face, on the kitchen floor. Best. Death. Ever. She would even take a selfie in lieu of a suicide note. It was a foolproof plan.
The pictures in her mind blew up movie screen-sized through her consciousness. She needed to clear her head a bit or she would lose her nerve. It wouldn’t do to cling so tightly to her dreams. So she got up from her desk and stepped onto the balcony. Her arms resting on the cold rail, she looked out and over the city. No sunset here, just the dying shades of sky behind the urban sprawl. And then she saw it: the whole of the city rose up in front of her, lights shimmering, cars speeding, weeds growing, humanity exhaling on
street corners. Sounds of movement, thunder in the distance, the rumbling of a plane flying overhead. The beauty of it took her breath away.
The city he loved her – and she loved him back.
The Kidnap of Persephone
The pallor of the countryside under a rosy dawn: fields of wildflowers hurry past, the glass of the carriage window a stage for pastoral scenes. Maman, sitting opposite me, sleeps, her head lolled back, her eyelashes flecked with moisture, nose whistling. I look out the window and wonder if Luc and his family have reached the cottages before us.
All the night I have shifted in my seat and clutched my skirts close about me, feeling every little stone the wheels roll over and every prick of the chill country air. Just as my eyes close to welcome the descent to sleep, a dagger of light illuminates the carriage interior and announces the sunrise. The carriage comes to an abrupt stop and my mother is jerked awake. Recovering her hat from where it has fallen at her feet, she opens the carriage door a crack and speaks to our coachman.
“Bertrand, why have we stopped?”
“We have arrived at your summer lodge, Madame.”
Here we are at last, again, our refuge from the fumes of Paris: a country lodge big enough for a family and a minor retinue of servants, but which of recent years was occupied by my mother and me alone, with the occasional tenant during the colder months. Maman reaches beneath my seat and pulls out our trunk; some years past, a footman would have carried it out for us, but my late father’s secret debts and sudden death robbed us of much of our wealth. Our only servant here, a maid residing in the nearby village, is awake and preparing breakfast as Maman and I walk in with our luggage. While my mother sits at the breakfast table and converses with the maid, I drift, as if in a daze, up the staircase and into my bedroom, where I slip into bed, still dressed in my outer clothes, and fall into a deep sleep as morning light streams in through the curtains.
I awake some hours later. It is noon in summer, and I think only of leaving the drafty cottage to walk by the river. At my mother’s insistence, I bathe and change into a walking dress. I am not at all hungry, but the maid coaxes me into eating a lunch of onion soup. The meal finished, I rush out the door and down the path. At last I reach the river, and see Luc already there, skipping stones and joking with his sister. He doesn’t see me. Suddenly shy – I have not seen him since last summer – I slow down and watch as he plunges into the water.
“Percy!” A shriek. His sister has spotted me.
“Hello, Édith,” I mumble.
Luc, still in the water, turns to look. He smiles and begins to wade out of the river.
All of a sudden, I notice a scarlet flower growing in a bush by the riverbank. I draw closer, and see a dewdrop glistening on a petal which is like a soft lip.
“Salut, Percy!” Luc calls out to me, and I say “Hello,” too, but my gaze is fixed on the flower. I reach out for it; I touch the petal with my fingertip. The dewdrop slides off the petal and onto the ground; I close my fingers around the stem. I pluck the flower and bring it to my nose; I inhale.
A rumble of thunder sounds in the distance, and, as I look out to the lake, I see a strange vision: a dark figure atop a horse rising out of the waters, the animal rending the lake surface asunder under its hooves in a display of fury and ferocity. The face of the horseman is a terror of black hair and lupine teeth as he races towards me. I drop the flower and turn to run, but he catches me and pulls me onto his steed. I am writhing with fear, the sound of my own screams and the neighs of the horse filling my ears. As the horseman turns back to the river, I see Luc running to us, yelling insults at my assailant and jumping to catch hold of my hand. I am still screaming, tears flowing down my cheeks, heart throbbing against my ribs. The horseman yanks me away from Luc’s grasp and grabs him by the hair.
“Luc! Percy!” Édith cries.
“Édith! Run for help, vite!” I call to her, but she is too frightened to move.
As the horse strides into the river, the horseman drags Luc beside him, then thrusts his head under the water. Luc struggles against the horseman’s hand, but soon stops resisting. His body goes limp. His head turns down. My eyes wide with horror, I weep for my beloved friend. The horseman lets out a roar of a laugh; the accursed flower is in his hand and he twists it into my hair. I am too weak with grief to resist him any longer. Slowly, we descend into the waters, and the last thing I see before losing consciousness is Luc’s face, his eyes an icy, piercing blue.
My Boyfriend, Boss like the Mob
When I finally gave in to my feelings, after he had courted and pampered me with such patience, I fell head over heels in love as if into a bottomless pit. Which is why, one day, I filched a photograph from his desk while he was in the other room. Later, when I was alone at home in my bedroom, I lay on the carpeted floor and held the photo in my hands level with my eyes. I looked at it intently. The photo was black and white. It showed him when he was younger, 20 maybe. He had a sweater on, he was outside, there was snow on the ground, and he was playing a guitar. I could play guitar. I was the same age now as he looked to be in the photo then.
In the photo, his lips were pursed and he was squinting a bit, caught mid-song with the sunlight hitting his face. His hair was longer, fluffed up and slicked back in a rockabilly style. His skin was smoother. The eyes that looked out from the photo were the same eyes that could make me melt with a single glance. He smouldered. I pressed the photo to my heart and closed my eyes. “Please, God,” I whispered, “let him be mine forever.” I made the request because lately I was feeling like he was slipping away from me. As if what he once saw in me were no longer there. I needed a mirror. I got up and stepped in front of the full-length mirror hanging on my bedroom door. I checked myself out. I was the same as always. But my eyes were shining too brightly. When night came, I fell asleep with unbearable impatience and longing. I couldn’t wait to see him again.
The following evening, we were in his bed. He held me close and I peered up at him, trying not to blink because I couldn’t stand not to see him. Slowly, a smile spread on his lips. Nuzzling my neck, he asked in Russian, “My little Roxana … do you want to hear a scary story?”
I smiled back. “Okay, Anton. Let’s hear it.”
He took my hand and began his story. “There once was a girl I knew, 19 years old, who had a heart as black as coal. My best friend, Vlad, dated her – he was my age. This girl’s family was not rich by any means, and neither was Vlad. It’s hard to be rich in perestroika Russia, I think I already told you that. But Vlad had an idea. He told his idea to this girl, and to me. Together, we made a plan. The girl convinced her father to take out a life insurance policy on himself. We took him out to a lake, and then … I got my cut for the part I played.”
When I didn’t say anything, he gave my hand a squeeze. “Scary, huh?”
I felt the blood draining from my face and extremities. A chill suffused my heart. I was silent for a long time.
Finally, he asked, “Did you like my horror story?”
“… No.”
“You hesitated to answer. Why?”
“It was scary.”
He chuckled. “Well, I told you it would be scary.” “I wasn’t expecting to hear that.”
“They never are …”
“Okay. It’s a lot to process.”
“Well, that’s just the way it is …” He paused. “Anyway, Roxana, what I want to tell you now is this. Listen closely.”
“I’m listening.”
“I know your Russian is not very good—”
“It’s good enough.”
“It is indeed. Now let me improve it even more. There is a sin in Russian, unique to the Russian Orthodox Church, called kleveta. It is when you drag someone’s name through the mud, when you say bad things about someone to other people, to obschestvo, to society. That’s two words you’ll learn today. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You must never ruin the reputation of a man. You must never give people a reason
to turn on someone.”
I simmered with emotion but didn’t respond. I didn’t know what to tell him. I didn’t know what to think.
He broke the silence again. “Roxana, I’ve had my say for now. Are you clear on what I meant?”
“I – I think so.”
“That’s my girl.” He took my hand and put it to his lips. I was numb and barely felt the kiss.
He confided in me. This brought us closer, just like I wanted. And I had known, or had some notion, some intuition that he was not an ordinary man, that he was a dangerous man. But after what he told me, or didn’t tell me … after what he left unsaid, I realized I couldn’t be with him anymore. Like youth, like childhood, my illusions faded away that day. I grew up that day. I finally saw, with blinding sight, how ill-advised my love for him was. The same evening, I slipped the photograph back in his desk and said goodbye forever. His voice haunts me still, after all these years. I kept his secret. I hope he kept all of mine.
Sonnet on a Dragon
Hark! Thine fancy-free fires,
Crackle flesh down to the bones,
The flame ever-upward aspires,
Though cozy thou art ’midst the stones.
Scales, like fine teeth, shimmer blue,
An armour to match the white knight’s,
Shield and attack through and true,
Hold your own in any fight.
Fine meats run red with the juice,
Of succulent conquests, galore,
Though occasions appear to break loose,
Leaving you hungry for more.
There is something in you of nobility,
A glimmer beyond your ability.
On Technology, Or, Techno Love Song at the Edge of the World
I sing the body mechanic
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