[flash creative nonfiction]

I juggle the groceries in my arms: a box of granola bars, a chunk of ginger, an onion, a carton of eggs. I only came in here for the eggs. Ahead of me, a woman juggles her own groceries, plus a ruddy-faced toddler screaming for sweets. The registers in the self-checkout line are all taken.

A handful of hard hats ring up deli-wrapped sandwiches, sodas, and chips, thick fingers fumbling on the touch screen. I realize I have been staring when I make eye contact with one of the men; I shift my gaze to their steel-toed boots, willing them wordlessly to swipe faster, pay quicker, so that we can all be on our way. The mother in front of me, the businessman behind me—we all have places to be, places more important than this self-checkout line. We have done what we came here to do—select our purchases—and our goal now is to pay for them, get in our cars, and move on to the next item on our agendas. On mine: sending a package at the post office, returning a pair of pants that don’t fit right, picking up a book of poetry on hold at the library.

On hold.

That’s where we are, caught in the in-between.

My uncle Eric, a European computer programmer who speaks fluent English, French, Flemish, and code, attended a conference in France about internet privacy. During a conversation over dinner, Mark Zuckerberg asked him why the French were more reticent about adopting Facebook than Americans. My uncle offered his explanation. The French language is built on two verbs: ETRE and AVOIR. To be and to have. All other verbs rely on these. English, on the other hand, depends on a foundation of action verbs. While the French value ‘being’ as the ultimate action, Americans protect their right to do above all else. Waiting in the self-checkout line, we—the mother, the businessman, and myself—are stripped of this fundamental right.

I watch intently as the construction workers retrieve their receipts and lumber towards the exit. The mother and child ahead of me and I take hurried steps to occupy the empty registers. Relieved to be freed from the fetters of waiting, I ring up my groceries with relish. Eggs. Beep. Granola Bars. Beep. But it is while searching for ginger in the system that a strange sound makes me stop mid-swipe. It is a voice, and the voice is singing.

I twist my head to the left, to the right, to the left again, but I find nothing out of the ordinary. I stop and listen. The voice is still singing. It is coming from behind me, this honey-soaked song, a dark spiritual amongst the cacophony of commerce. I turn my body and find its maker.

She is wearing the guacamole-colored apron required of all the grocery store employees; a black visor with a lime green ‘P’ sits atop her close-cropped curls. Her hands are gathered quietly on the podium in front of her, and her eyes watch her hands. Her lips are barely moving, but it is she, without a doubt, who is singing.

The hinges of my jaw soften. My hand forgets the ginger it holds. It is not a song I know, but it’s not a song I don’t know.

There is nothing to be done but to stare and listen and wonder: How often does she sing like this, in the self-checkout line? Did her grandmother teach her this song? Does she sing it to her baby at night? Will her boss reprimand her for this?

My gaze sweeps the faces around me for confirmation that what I am hearing is real. The businessman wearing a crisp dress shirt and navy tie does the same. Our eyes meet for a startled second before our bodies return to the machines demanding our attention. I continue my search for ginger, but my pulse slows. I feel my cells rise and fall, following the intoxicating lilt of this strange woman’s offering, a lullaby made of milk and bone that holds its own against the metal clang of shopping carts and the harsh clatter of cash tills.

Carmella de los Angeles Guiol teaches and studies creative writing at the University of South Florida, where she is the nonfiction and arts editor at Saw Palm: Florida Literature and Art. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Toast, The Normal School, Spry, and The Inquisitive Eater. You can sometimes find her in the garden or kayaking the Hillsborough River, but you can always find her at www.therestlesswriter.com

[flash fiction]

There are bats in the attic. I’m not being euphemistic. There are bats in our attic and they are pushing me to the border of my sanity. The scuttling and whispering of teeth and wings above our heads sets my teeth on edge. Somehow, you sleep, your chest rising and falling with criminal ease. When you finally wake, they’re still. You cluck at me and leave me with a blue pill to help me sleep. They’re quiet once you’re gone.

Every night for a week I lie awake listening to them cavorting smugly in the space above our heads. Every morning you insist it’s my imagination, like those other things that weren’t there, the cries in the night from ghost babies.

Today I wake in the yellow midday, and swallow the three pink pills you’ve left on the counter with cold coffee. I wipe the wet ring underneath the mug with my sleeve and run the faucet until the dishes look clean, then place them on the shelves. I carry myself with dread to the nursery, and continue the awful work of packing it all into cardboard boxes. Tiny booties that have never been worn, rattles, and stacks of cloth diapers. We’ll try again soon, you keep promising. But you haven’t touched me since they wheeled me out of the hospital, stunned, broken ribs and battered face, with no baby. The crash changed everything.

I am nuzzling a teddy bear against my cheek when I hear that familiar fluttering paper sound, wings on drywall. I dial your number, but you send me straight to voicemail.

I arm myself with a frying pan and wool gloves, and tie one of your wispy scarves around the bottom half of my face. Then I ascend the ladder and crawl through the trapdoor. The attic is dark, dangerous terrain filled with mountains and minefields of cardboard boxes and unsupported slats. I creep along the border. My breath, kept close by the scarf, is loud in my ears. They’re louder, fluttering madly. I swat at them with the pan, but they’re fast. They know where to hide. Bats can fit through holes the width of a pencil. I tear open the boxes, howling a war cry. Summer clothes, unstrung tennis rackets, stacks of magazines. I smash them all. Where are you when I need you? I can’t see them but they’re everywhere. I hear them swooping and gliding, stretching their wings aggressively. After a while I start to cry, because this would never happen if you were here.

When you come home, I’m lying in a circle of broken Christmas ornaments.

“Bats,” I say, my heart battering the walls of my chest.

You look at me for a long moment, and I touch my fingertips together and reach for you in a desperate prayer. “Please,” I whisper.

“No bats,” you say in a voice as hollow as an empty grave, and begin to sweep the thin, fragile, colored fragments of glass that surround me.

Dana Mele lives in the Great Northern Catskills with her husband and son. Her short stories have appeared or are forthcoming in Right Hand Pointing, Vine Leaves Literary Journal, Bird’s Thumb, and Mad Scientist Journal, among others. She is currently working on her first novel.