The Now of All Things by Francine Witte

Fiction

Photo by Pixabay

I am talking to you from the now of all things, the universe and our bodies and the moment

before all our cells shift, but you are examining the furniture. Reminding me that the movers are coming tomorrow. I am thinking how the universe is spattered exactly with stars that are just where they ought to be at this moment.

“What do want to keep,” you ask. Your eyes have already moved out, so has your hair. But still, I can see you. “Oh,” I say, “whatever you don’t want.” And there I go, making you bigger than the universe.

“Would you like a cup of tea?” I am still trying. I offer you herbal with no caffeine, in hopes it

would soothe you.

“She’s waiting for me,” you say. You say this knowing you are breaking the now. Knowing that

the now is all we have left. I tell you that wait is a future word, and I’d appreciate you not using it.

You ask if I want the end table, I remind you that it’s where we kept the vase of fresh flowers, the roses you bought me every week. We loved their sweet aroma, popping the air with love and hope. It was only when the future came that they’d dry up and die.

So, I start talking to you again from the now of all things. How are you feeling? I ask. Are you

really, really happy? You are little more than a jacket now, a pair of chinos, and a stubble of

beard. There isn’t much else to you as you move through the room. Your hands run over the

surfaces, trailing paths into the leftover dust. The dust is holding onto your touch and is all I have left of you.

“I would also like to keep the candlesticks if that’s okay.” You say, sure, and I pull some candles out of the end table drawer. We lit candles those nights you brought me roses. I light the candles now. The woodbine fills up the air. “Why are you burning candles,” you ask, “it’s daytime”. That’s when I tell you go ahead, take everything.

You tell me this will all be better, and it will be better will be soon. I tell you soon is a future

word and I’d appreciate you not using it. You tell me, I’ll never change, and you leave and I’m

standing there like I’m a candle. A flame from the very top of my head. I will burn straight down to the ground. It will be daylight, the sun streaming in through the window. And it will be now.

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Francine Witte is a flash fiction writer and poet, and the author of the flash collection RADIO WATER. Her newest poetry book, Some Distant Pin of Light, has just been published by Cervena Barva Press. Her work has been widely published, and she is a recent recipient of a Pushcart Prize. She lives in New York City. 

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