AcmeShorts

“Loneliness waits in quiet corridors, in sitting rooms cast with Venetian shadow-slits, in empty kitchens. We find our moments of joy, of connectedness here and there, but between exists the vast void of life. There, in the void, we rarely see even ourselves clearly. The memory of that foolish thing we said in tenth grade. The other kids didn’t think twice about it at the time, but what if they remembered? What if they still thought about it? What if they laughed? Reflection leans toward obsession, introspection toward self-loathing.” Pierre picked a strand of tobacco from his tongue and poured himself another glass of Ouzo.

Helena pulled open the Venetian blinds and let the morning sun pour into the sitting room. She hiked up her skirt and lowered herself onto Pierre’s lap. “I want you to spoil me for Jacques,” she whispered in a husky tenor. “I want to go to him with soiled panties, with a mussed face.”

Pierre pulled her panties aside and entered her gynecology with a stiff advance. He grappled her heaving rump and in a burst of light, a shudder in the loins, engendered the broken wall, the burning roof and tower, and Agamemnon dead.