Fiction: Stand By You

By Salustiano Berrios

 

Linnie—lonely and low—began going out in public, standing close to strangers, and spinning entire narratives of who those people were to her: an older gentleman became her grandfather, a beautiful woman her mother, a young man her boyfriend, a child her own.

At first, she’d stir up a conversational gambit to add to the illusion, but quickly found out she wasn’t a great magician, and fractured more than what silence built on its own.

Unfortunate, misfortunate, Linnie did what she could, how she could, to not go to sleep at the end of a long day feeling exactly that which she was—a woman deeply without.

 

Feeling in want of a sister—none of whom fit the bill at the homeless shelter—Linnie woke up earlier than usual, cleaned the shared bathrooms as was her duty, and then walked the two and a half miles to a nursery that was enjoying its spring opening.

To find a flower, she went to where they grew. And so as to not offend, she spritzed a hand-me-down perfume of jasmine and tap water across her body, with a focus on her pits, crotch, and ungluing sneakers. To attract one was to be one.

She went up and down the aisles as if on a moving walkway. Colors in high-definition blossom burst everywhere her eyes looked, and when she passed all that potted nature, her fingers—always in need of feel—grazed, and in a sense, the plants grazed back in floral hug.

Lost in a prettier part of her mind (a rarity), she almost bumped into her sister: of course it was her, look how chic and tall and cheek boned she was! Linnie did what Linnie does, and followed her sibling nearby, their silent chat filled with all the girl-talk not even her best of dreams could supply.

But when she went to stand online, Linnie couldn’t help herself, and said, “Goodbye, it was nice talking to you. Love you a lot.” She couldn’t bare to see or hear the woman’s reaction—the snow globe would’ve cracked—so she rushed away and returned to her shared home, her shared room, her shared everything.

 

The following day was a day at rest, meaning after she cleaned the bathrooms, she loitered around the hedges of her shelter and talked to herself—always about what was, often about what is, and never about what could be.

 

At the end of the week, she decided to treat herself to an entire family unit—so long as their wasn’t a father involved—and blistered her feet three miles to the mall. Passing all those glossy, giant advertisements in store windows made her feel small and accused, but the feeling passed when, deep inside one, she saw her relatives in cloister, laughing, talking, measuring clothes against their bodies.

Linnie, like thread through a needle, made her way near, but stopped halfway when she crossed a mirror. She returned to it. Looked at it. Then sat down in front of it, legs drawn up, sitting as close to herself as was possible, and yet, not close enough.

 

 

 

 

 

Salustiano Berrios is a Puerto Rican writer, screenwriter, and educator living in Connecticut. He is the author of the self-published story collection Sex Food Music Drugs, and four stories are forthcoming in Magazine Non Grata.