The Writings of Mary Lewys

Every time she searched through her CD collection to find the perfect mood music, she stopped in one place: the missing album. It was part of a set, Living in Oblivion, a collection of underground, New Wave 80s hits she paid more than their worth at a flea market. She flashed back to their bonding over the compilation, but he was missing volume two. He said he would borrow it to make a copy.

From pursed lips, she hissed her curse.

On the other side of the country, his life imploded all over again. Last time, his father died in a hit and run accident. Before that, his boyfriend walked out with his arm around another man. This time, the phone rang. He listened as his manager explained why the company was closing. He dropped the phone when he found out his last paycheck would bounce due to lack of funds.

As tears welled, he picked up the phone and wondered what he’d done to deserve it.

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© Mary Lewys, 2007

She held the white pill in her open hand.

“What’s that?” Peeking over, the wee blue fairy with glowing pearl wings climbed over her fingertips.

“It’s a pill.”

“What does it do?” The fairy adjusted its blue bell hat as it proceeded to sit down.

“If I take it, I won’t see you any more.” She didn’t move.

Puckering up its face, the fae nudged the pill marked 85 with its foot. “Take it? You all ready have it. Does it do any tricks?”

She laughed. “One magic trick.”

The fairy cooed. Folding its hands together, the blue pixie righted itself to gaze up. “I like magic.”

“Do you want to see?” She placed the pill near the back of her throat and swallowed, sticking her tongue out to show it was gone.

“You made it disappear!”

“No,” she sighed. “I made you disappear.”

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© Mary Lewys, 2007

The beeping grew louder. This was what her life had become: leaving the cold hospital chair to press a button on a monitor that no one paid any attention to for three minutes of blissful silence. She didn’t look at the patient on the gurney and he didn’t look at her.

It was in the wee hours of the morning when the world shrunk in the cold darkness. This was all she could see of her life – all the sacrifices made for peace. She counted, quietly in her head, all that she wanted and all she would never have. Leaning over, her forehead rested on the aluminum handrail.

His fingertips gripped hers, slightly trembling. He rubbed his worry into her skin. She didn’t move.

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© Mary Lewys, 2007

He held his cigarette between his middle and index finger. Puckering his puffy lips, his close-together eyes squinted at the canvas. Smoke wafted to mix with his blonder Mohawk that dangled over his high forehead. He held the smoke in his lungs for as long as he could be exhaling a slow-rising pillar.

He picked at his lip. His leg wiggled the wooden stool bearing up his enormous weight. The tape clicked over to side b in the player and his nervous tick moved in time to the music. After another drag, he picked up his paint brush and leaned closer to his art.

He had never met her. He never dreamed about her or saw her in a magazine or movie. She looked like no one he knew. Naked, she held a clear shower curtain over her personal bits. Chewed and frayed fingernails touched her blue, circular lips. Thick, black mascara outlined her brilliant blue eyes. In rolling curls, her multi-colored hair fell over her slender shoulders.

His brush licked along the pearl-gray carpet, giving it texture as it supported her perfectly pale and vein-lined legs. He stopped for another drag on his cigarette, along grinning. Maybe he would never find or meet her, but he would always have her.

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© Mary Lewys, 2007

I HATE YOU, she wrote at the top of the page. Her trembling hand with stubby fingernails pressed the binding flat. Turning the purple cat book, she wrote down the perpendicular edge. I HATE YOU SO VERY VERY FUCKING MUCH.

Her hand paused before the bad word. Tears of broken promises blinded. She wiped them away before they could reach page with the sleeve of her black hoodie. Filling the page with her odium, the ink in her pen ran dry. She carded the name on the final page before throwing the journal away.

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© Mary Lewys, 2007

published in the fourth issue of Don’t Look zine

Tick. Sightlessly insert the cartridge into the chamber. Push back the firing pin and hold, tense and ready. Release – clang – and strike the primer. Boom! Sparks fly from the ignited gunpowder. Converting from the burning, gas expands in the chamber. It forces the bullet down the barrel. Once free, it strikes the mark. Thump.

With a flex of my finger, I can change so many worlds.

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© Mary Lewys, 2007