Secret Stories

by Dwight Peters

side of the aisle right across from me was wearing a finely made and stylish shirt, but that it was made of a heavy fabric and had a pouch as big as a grapefruit that was padded until pillowed plush with fine cloth. I became instantly curious but couldn’t see inside to find out what, if anything, was in there—but I was immediately convinced that I was right for thinking that there was something very important to her in there—and I also knew I had to know.

  As the bus passed out of the tunnel, it was mostly dark again other than sporadic streetlights outside on the highway and a few reading lights that were on not far from me. I turned mine on too so I could see a little better. The woman had been sleeping, but she had just woken up—though she was upset and confused, as if she had forgotten she was traveling. Having been awake the whole trip, I talked with her about the bus ride, about where we were and had been, and this seemed to calm her down by putting her back into herself—back where she was at that moment. I couldn’t help myself from taking advantage of the situation, hoping she would feel indebted to me, so I asked what was in the pouch.

  Initially, I was annoyed when she started talking about her glasses—I hadn’t even noticed her glasses before—but what she told me made me very interested, taking as good a look as I could. She said there was a tiny man inside the pouch, and that there was a special sticker on her glasses that made it possible to see him without looking in the pouch so that she could watch him to see what he needs and to make sure he is well. I had so many thoughts, questions, and wild emotional responses jump into me, but I said nothing. She got up and leaned forward into the reading light and let me look in the pouch. There was a real and really tiny man, but as many more thoughts, questions, and wild emotions jumped into me, I was overwhelmed and fell asleep. Not waking up until everyone on the bus had already gotten off at their stops, I was lucky that my stop was the last stop the bus had.

  Six months ago was ten years exactly. I have had a little party to celebrate the possibility of the existence of something like the tiny man every year since then with some friends—although I never told them what the party was really for, other than that it was for the celebration of the joy of the possibility within life, which they seemed to take as a pleasant eccentricity of mine more than anything else. But, six months ago, I saw the tiny man again—only this time he was about average size. He was wearing glasses—though he hadn’t been before—and a finely and stylishly made shirt with a padded pouch. I am completely convinced that the woman I met was tiny and in that pouch.

  Naked Reading

  I handed the person what I had written. The person began reading and then said “It makes me uncomfortable to read what you wrote,” without saying why. I asked the person “What would you read if when you read you did not know you were reading but were immediately, sensuously experiencing anything that might be in the physical world or imagined?—If this was reading, what then? The person looked at me tellingly and mysteriously and puzzled, without answering. Then we went for a quiet walk, stopping at a cafe on the way back, talking about other things.

  Don’t Be Suckered Into Worrying

  A woman who was about forty-five had to go to the dentist to get a tooth fixed that had broken when she was eating pitted olives very quickly and one of the olives somehow remained untouched by whatever it was that was supposed to gets the pits out——staying that way when she bit into it with an enthusiastic, shattering chomp.

  She immediately called the dentist for an appointment, but the dentist said it would take about a week to come in. So she only ate soft foods for that time—and very carefully.

  When it was the day of her appointment, she was on the third day of a cold that made it so she couldn’t breathe out of her nose. She thought about how it would be possible for her to get enough air through her mouth that could be used to breathe while the dentist was working. But she didn’t want to worry, so she went regardless of any of this. She asked after she got there, and the dentist said it wouldn’t be a problem.

  The work began in her mouth, and everything seemed fine. But, in a very short while, everything felt too cramped, so she signaled with her hand to stop. When this happened, and when the airway in her mouth was completely clear, she took a deep breath while the dentist was still right in front of her. Her breath was so strong, the dentist’s body was compressed until it was tiny and was sucked inside of her.

  The Third Nipple Is Never Blind

  He was in his mid-forties when he first became curious about his body and decided to explore it. There was a long mirror that was held on with screws to the door in his bedroom. He looked at himself naked in it for at least an hour, stretching and turning for new angles of discovery. He felt like he couldn’t stop just because he had run out of ways to move his body in front of the mirror, so he found a screwdriver and took down the mirror.

  The mirror lay sideways on the floor as he stretched himself down beside it. He was only able to see a few more angles than before, so he held the mirror up and maneuvered it around himself in different ways for about twenty minutes and then dressed and went and bought more mirrors like the one he had.

  When he got home, he covered his bathroom walls and ceiling so that there was no bare space. Now he was able to see every angle that he was capable of adjusting into by using the mirrors that reflected back onto the other mirrors all around him. His whole body was strange to him, and he briefly felt wilder because he let himself believe for a quick moment that he was to get a close up view of an animal free in its natural setting.

  After quite a bit of time and a trip to the refrigerator that for him had a similar feeling as an animal searching for its food, he found a mole on the back of his neck that he had never seen before. Touching the slightly raised surface, he was reminded of a boy who went to school with him the last two years of high school who had a mark on his chest that he and his friends teased was a third nipple.

  Gypsy Girl And Woman

  A mother tells her young girl that together they are journeying in the same way as the ancient cultures that led nomadic lives. She tells her daughter this when knowing nothing about such peoples.

  From a friend the girl once knew five or so years ago in kindergarten while still going to school, the little girl heard about gypsies and thought maybe she might be like at least some of them, but she wasn’t sure. She wanted to call herself a gypsy anyway, so she chose to create her own idea of what gypsies were while knowing that this was her doing—so forgetting about whether or not any of it was real while creating with good care her own real self.

  Together, the mother and daughter drank tea with honey in a motel room in a town they couldn’t remember. Somehow, they were on their way somewhere.

  The girl couldn’t sleep, so the mother told her how they were inside of a story of adventure touched by great wonders, about how nomads lived and about how they are just like them. Then, the mother sang to her.

  Portrait

  When I was leaving my house holding the bags I was to be traveling with, the explosion happened that sent me moving quickly up, passing by where my roof just had been and then farther and faster into the open sky. And as this happened, I somehow still held onto my luggage, which flew weightlessly along with me. Suddenly I stopped, and everything around me continued moving upwards into the sky. I felt it only and saw nothing, now alone above the clouds still holding onto my bags.

  I stayed like this for quite some time thinking back to when I was very young spending several hours in a swimming pool, pretending I lived underwater. I remember how I saw everything differently before I had gotten into the pool and how there were very strong senses afterwards in many directions. Sometimes, as I saw it then, I didn’t ever have to go back up for air if I didn’t want to.

  All these thoughts left me and everything for a period was completely blank. I then saw in my mind many naked people, some unspeakably beautiful, others average, some even disturbing in their appearance. I must have seen several hundred of them. And each in every det
ail. It only felt sexual for a brief moment; but, then, as more appeared, that went away and my feelings changed to wonder, shock and curiosity. Quickly, these feelings too were gone.

  To my surprise, eight, large silver colored fish swam out from the deeply forested clouds. Jade-mouth suns appeared in many numbers above me and danced. Structures formed in the air near me, and I moved into one of them. In it was a hall that looked far away of stone on red brick. Around me, when immediately entering, windows glared in lush tree green. Blue-white checker titles began to talk in open soft light above me, riding fast on brown of earthen wood tones below. I moved further into the structure that I had only just begun to enter. I did not think to consider my situation or desire to: it owned me entirely. It was as if everything was always supposed to have been communicating with me in all ways and was.

  Be Movie

  He became a scientist because he loved science-fiction movies. He was good at what he did. He married a woman who was also a scientist, who also liked the same kinds of movies, and who was also good at what she did.

  He married a woman who was also a scientist, who also liked the same