Referred Pain
The fair thing is to tell the ending. He finishes talking. His expression is that of a man who has thrown a bomb and wants to see what happens, but worries he’s miscalculated the blast radius.
How glamorous it might be to throw a drink in his face, though it is the wrong shape of drink for making a point, according to the movies. I try to recall what legally constitutes assault.
What comes to mind instead is a Russian short story I read thirty years ago where the protagonist says, after being let down rough: I stood there, spit upon. I do not in any case throw the drink.
One thing he had liked about me was that I had read (as he put it) “The Russians.” One thing he hated, come to learn, was that I made too many references. We are struggling to reconcile these, my drink and I.
“Well,” I say, not conscious of choosing a last word, a conduit to something impotent. Or perhaps “welp” which is one of only three examples in English of this final “p” that changes a word from a statement into an abdication.
A fair observer could only note the dignity with which I rise then and walk out of the joint like any spurned heroine, now instead a hero, in a doorstop Russian novel that takes place, god knows why, in Texas.
So that’s the last reel. What comes before is the same as any history of amorous imbalance.
Greg Freed
Greg Freed is a psychotherapist living in Austin, Texas. His most recent publication, “Vita Nuova,” in Susurrus Magazine was nominated for this year’s Best Small Fictions. After years of writing utilitarian prose and the occasional opera review, Greg has published flash pieces in Screen Door Review and Libre.
