these are just here in case I need them for Sharafy's class, today

D Stephen Alberts (or "Another Story I've Started but will Never Ever Finish")

"We all die," Cara said, stroking D's cheek, and he had to suppress the rush of hot anger that threatened to flood him. He had to stop himself knocking her hand away. Her dress, a slinky, black number with a lot of something that might have been silk, slipped from one shoulder, and she made no move to replace it. He wondered if it was deliberate. She dropped her hand from his face, and he realized that he missed her, already. "I'm not dead, yet," she told him, as if reading his mind. She pushed the silk from her other shoulder, and the dress fell to the floor with a whisper. With great effort, he tore his eyes from hers and looked her up and down. She was as thin as ever she'd been, but paler than he'd ever seen her. His hands found her shoulders, and before he knew what had happened, he was embracing her. She made a sound against his chest that could have been a sigh or a sob, and he held her tighter. Gently, she pushed away from him, and he loosed his hold on her. She took his hand and led him to the bedroom, where they made love for what was to be the last time. When he woke, the sun shone on his face, and he knew without looking that she had gone. He couldn't blame her, really. It was probably his fault she had gone. Who would want to spend their last days with someone who had already begun to mourn them? He stood and walked, still naked, to the kitchen. He found it on the refrigerator, the note. The note he had expected for a week. The yellow post-it read:

Gone back to NY to [there was something scribbled out that he thought was "die] be with my family. Please don't follow me. Come to the fune see [and continued on a second post-it] me off, you know, after it's done. I Love You.

He took the yellow papers and crumpled them into a ball; he threw them away, and then he grabbed them out of the trash. He would shower. He would go to the park or the Sound, try to clear his head, try to be strong, and try to do as Cara had asked. ................................................................................ The collar of D's winter jacket was turned up so that nothing below his nose showed from the side. From the front, the lower half of his face belonged to a centurion, as nothing wider than his mouth was uncovered. From the back he was Dracula, leaning on a rail, throwing chicken to the crabs. If a piece didn't immediately break the tension of the frigid, salty water, a dozen seagulls would dive for it in an instant. Twice, an eagle had snatched the chicken from the air. Next to D in the early-spring cold was a five-feet and two-inches-tall Mediterrainian-looking man. His brown-black hair was pulled back in a coarse tail and held in place by a strip of leather tied into a hasty bow. A golden ring glinted from his left ear, and its partner sparkled weakly on his right hand in the subdued light. D was convinced that Salvador was a pirate, no matter how many laughing denials the latter had professed. D had tried a dozen times in the past six months to get a good picture of Salvador, half of which were surreptitious attempts. Each had yielded the same result as the first: a picture of a small man from Spain, sometimes with a grin which made him look toothless, and always with his eyes firmly closed. D threw a sidelong glance at Salvador and found the man's green eyes staring directly into his own. "Where is your," a pause, "novia?" Salvador's eyes seemed to grow both larger and greener, and his low, heavy brows arched themselves high onto his forehead. "She's," D leaned back as Salvador moved an inch forward, "in New York with her family." "Why have you," another pause, "e-stayed behind?" "She-- She asked me to," D admitted without meaning to. "Why?" "She makes you e-smile, even in this," he gestured to the low ceiling of clouds, "exceptional weather." He looked pointedly at D. "Every one needs a reason to e-smile." "And what's yours?" D asked before he could stop himself. A flicker of something, maybe pain, maybe sorrow, flashed across the small man's face. "I have had," he said, turning back to the ocean, "many, in my time. Some were older, but most were younger." Salvador looked out at the Sound, but D thought he was seeing something else. "I miss my children," he said to the cold air. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, smelling the salt. "I-- didn't know you had children, Sal," D said, unsure how to cheer him up. "I do not," Salvador said. Then, as an answer to D's confused look, "They have all passed," he wiped at one eye, "and some time ago." "I'm sorry, Sal," D said as he fought the urge to produce a camera from within his coat. At times like this, D hated himself. "No, no," Salvador told him, waving a hand. "No hay problema. Not your fault." It began to rain soon after that, and the pair headed for the small coffee shop Salvador had procured a decade earlier. And uncle or grandfather-- D could never really remember which-- had left him a small fortune and Sal had fulfilled a lifelong dream in buying the place. He liked coffee, and he loved the rain, so Seattle had almost been a given. They talked for a while over coffee, but really said nothing at all. Finally, D said goodbye and went to his apartment. He rifled through portfolios and stacks of reference photos. He painted a little, and he slept a lot. He kept the same routine-- eat, go to the Sound, have coffee with Salvador, paint, and eat before sleeping-- for another six days, until he got the message. He had come back from Sal's to see his answering machine blinking at him. Hope and fear waged decades of war in an instant as he dashed to the machine but couldn't, for a moment, hit the button labeled "Play." "Stephen," the voice was scratchy on the old and overused tape, but he could recognize the voice of Alice, Cara's mother. She and Salvador were the only ones who called him by his middle name, claiming that "D" was no kind of first name at all. "Stephen," Alice's voice said, again, and she choked back a sob. "It's-- She's gone, Stephen. I-- Th-the funeral is Sunday at n-noon, the wake is Saturday at seven." She set the phone down and blew her nose. "I hope you can come to both," she said, and that was it. D listened to the message twice more, then deleted it, then regretted deleting it. He didn't cry. H couldn't cry. He booked a flight the next day with Salvador, and they went to the wake and the funeral together. D did not sit with Cara's family, as he didn't feel it was his right.

El Sol Del Verano

I feel the heat of
the Summer Sun
and lament that the
rain has not returned.
Harsh light and
hot breezes sting
my eyes and burn
my skin.
The sweat rolls down
my spine;
the humid air stops
its leaving
and performing its
function.
Cement and
Asphalt
sear my bare feet.
Only the grass knows.
Only the trees understand.
They provide the cool,
the shade,
the gentle whispers
of comfort,
shielding me from
the Summer Sun.