Zen Pussy Riot

By Miles White

Zen Pussy Riot is the third volume of The Canvas Sextet series of three-minute short stories by Miles White, who is emerging as a prolific stylist of the still emerging genre of contemporary flash fiction. The 50 provocative, insightful, darkly comic and often tragic stories in the new collection – a follow up to Jesus Loves You But Not Today and Download the Moon – are bold, eclectic, sumptuously diverse and compellingly engaging, playing on the edges of the profane and the profound. “Love Potion Number 10” imagines a woman’s worst date night. “Radiance” is a macabre end to a woman’s troubled quest for racial beauty. “Night and Day” is a waking nightmare that blurs reality and the dream world. “When I’m Alone I Cry” is a brutal meditation on self-torture and the disillusionment felt by many Gen-X youth in America, while “|The Way You Move” re-imagines the dynamics of the wedding night when the bride takes charge of the marriage bed.

Like the previous two volumes, Zen Pussy Riot is unsparing and relentless in its exploration of the absurdities of day-to-day lives often lived on the margins, the vagaries of the human heart, and the contradictions of human desire. The stories are written with an intensity of language and storytelling that makes reading them both hypnotic and highly entertaining.

More about the series as well as commentary on the stories can be found on the author’s blog: http://www.thecanvassextet.com.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Miles White
• Release date: Jul 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781495120909

Miles White

Miles White is a former journalist and a staff writer for USA TODAY. He is the author of the Canvas Sextet series of three-minute flash fiction.

Book preview

1 The Way You Move

He did it right. He got down on one knee, took her finger, and put a ring on it. He wrote something down in case he got nervous but then he forgot to bring the piece of paper with what he wrote. He just poured out his heart, what a woman really wants he finally decided, but he did good. She said yes. They decided not to put it off after having dated for almost a year. They liked each other and they knew it. She thought it odd though that he always demurred when it came to sleeping over with her. He said it was because of his religious views – Catholic and all that – so she didn’t push it. Agnostic, Unitarian, Buddhist, Jewish hippie chick that she was, she found his hesitancy refreshing and thought it was kind of sweet that he wanted to save her.

He wanted a big ceremony in a church – priest, candles, kneeling, the whole bit. She was happy with a sunrise ceremony in the park with a few friends. They went round and round about it and finally decided they could have it both ways. They would get married by a Buddhist priest at sunrise in Central Park, throw a big lunch, and then get married in his parish church in the afternoon. That was all good, but she didn’t want to wear the bridal dress and all of that. She never pretended to be a virgin so what was the point? They had sat down one Saturday night with a bottle of wine and spilled their sexual histories to each other. She had been adventurous, but he was not exactly an altar boy himself. In fact she was actually a little shocked by some of his sexual escapades, and that was saying a lot for her with her hippie-goddess adolescence and free-spirited thinking. Stag parties she got, but banging hookers two at a time, cocaine-fueled orgies and swingers clubs left her wondering if she had anything interesting to offer him. Her own reckless background seemed timid by comparison, but none of that was the point; they loved each other, and by the time they had finished the second bottle of wine the past was lain to rest.

They said vows in the spring, kneeling before a Buddhist monk bathed in morning sunlight and surrounded by close friends. She made them cheeseburgers and rosemary potatoes for lunch then dressed for the afternoon ceremony. They agreed on a white bridal dress – Vera Wang – toned down and tasteful, a silk veil but no shimmering lace train behind her. To that they invited kin on both sides of the family and everybody else they knew. She walked in with her father to the sounds of the pipe organ; he was standing at the altar in a black tux looking rakish. She decided she liked the fairy tale glamour. She only planned to do this once so she let herself enjoy being treated like a princess. Afterwards they had a lavish dinner. His dad knew Jimmy Buffett and that was her wedding day present from his family. They danced and drank too much and got thrown into a limo at the end of the night, stumbling into their hotel suite mad and giddy. She started ripping at his clothes as soon as they got in the door, which sent them off on another laughing jag. She cut the lights and they fumbled in the dark like school kids on prom night.

She loved the way he kissed her. He didn’t rush, and he held her head gently in his hands, cradling her. She thought she might pass out from delirium or champagne or just the madness of joy. She pulled him on top of her and, eyes closed, waited for him to have his way with her, rocking him between her legs and nibbling on his earlobe. They rumbled there in the dark, in the crisp linen sheets, naked and fearless and in love. It was only when he seemed to be having trouble getting going that she gave him a peck on the lips and told him it was OK – take your time. He said it was more than that. She said what? He hesitated for a moment. You know, he said, I’ve never done this before. None of that stuff I told you was true. I’m embarrassed. She listened to him, then she held him and pulled him close to her. It’s OK, she said. Just do what I do. Then she took him inside her and found a rhythm with him. She showed him how to love her.

2 Swim to Me

Laura sunned herself under a large-brimmed white linen hat and black oval sunglasses. The sun was beginning to feel warm on her skin and she looked forward to having a fresh bronze tan again if she could do it without burning herself this time. It was why she had come a little earlier today, before it got too hot to lie out in the sun. The beach was less crowded now and she drew no attention lying up on the sand bluff so she allowed herself to indulge in a little devil-may-care and went without a bikini. Her girlfriends would be scandalized when she came back from vacation with no tan lines. They would wonder what she had been up to down there alone.

She was reading Fifty Shades of Grey, a trashy enough beach read for a summer vacation in the islands. She had brought one cold Thermos of lemonade and another of gin and tonic with every intention of finishing them both before she went in for a late lunch. She had a massage scheduled for later in the afternoon and wanted to take a nap and soak in the tub before her appointment. Tonight she would wander from the hotel and walk through the streets exploring until she found an appetite for dinner and a restaurant far enough away from the tourist area that she could enjoy some local cuisine. She didn’t care for the stiff waiters and the false charm of the hotel restaurant and longed for something simple most of the time, but only in such hotels could she find a measure of privacy. Her face was well known enough that people would recognize her if she were not careful, so she slipped out of back exits and slinked through side streets in baggy old clothes, trying to look like any other tourist, just another nobody schlepping around.

When she looked out over the water she saw a man waving to her; she was momentarily mortified, first because she was naked and then because she figured if he knew who she was and he was not alone, then she was probably being stalked and likely had already been photographed. She quickly pulled a blanket over her and grabbed around beneath it for her bikini, scanning the beach to see where the paparazzi had staked out to watch her; she would never see them, but up here on the sand bluff she was completely exposed to anybody with a zoom lens who wanted a shot of her. Her embarrassment quickly turned to a feeling of foolishness for being so naïve; even here, where she was certain nobody would know her, she could not get away from them. She looked back out over the water and the man was gone. Surprised but not exactly relieved, she shielded her eyes from the sun and scanned the waves again. She saw him. He was further out, trying to swim towards the shore but going backwards. He was caught in a rip current.

Laura jumped to her feet and ran to the edge of the water but stopped. She knew enough about rip currents not to go in after him; she was not a good swimmer herself. He looked strong, a young man from what she could tell, but he was no match for the torrent he was fighting. Laura knew he needed to get out of the current or he would drown and she would watch him die. She looked around for a life guard but there was no one close by. When she looked back to the water he had moved even further out and was clearly tired. She tried to look and find the outside of the channel of water he was trapped in. She waded into the surf, making sure to stay clear of the current but fighting against the incoming waves as they pelted her. She fought her way out as far as she dared and tried to see him above the crashing water. His head barely bobbed on the surface now; for a few seconds he went under then came up again. He turned to her and their eyes met. Laura kept herself afloat with one arm and waved to him with the other. If she could get him to swim in her direction he would be moving across the current instead of directly into it, but he kept swimming towards shore, moving backwards. He finally stopped, exhausted. Laura waved again. His head went under the water. She watched, waiting for him to come back up.

3 I Love You I Miss You I Think of You

For the next three mornings nothing was the same. Looking out from the small window of the writing cabin, Cassandra could see that the trees had lost none of their leaves or color. The geese still swam in the lake. The hills still rolled towards the horizon and met there with the sky that never seemed to get too far away from a perfect shade of blue. Nothing had changed as far as any of that went, but not having Yvonne in the world anymore changed everything just the same. Cassandra was by nature pessimistic. Yvonne was gone. That’s all there was to it.

She lit a cigarette, took a toke, then snubbed it out. She went back to the table and stared down at the blank page. There was not going to be any writing getting done today and she pretty much knew it but made herself go through the ritual anyway. She had to stay in the cabin until this afternoon whether she wrote one word or two hundred or none. She lit another cigarette and walked back to the window, able to smoke. Somebody was rowing across the lake; two men with fishing poles hanging outside the boat. She figured men going fishing in the middle of the day was just an excuse to get out and drink beer. Right now it sounded better than spending the rest of the day in the cabin not getting any writing done but having to sit there anyway because that’s what she did and she didn’t know what else to do. If the words refused to come she waited. In the end they always came even if they took their time doing it. She wasn’t up to it today; the words could have their way. Let them stay away; she could not stop thinking about Yvonne.

They had last spoken a few days ago; they had had a fight. She didn’t remember about what; there had been a lot of fights lately. Most of the time they were not about anything, just stuff bubbling over. Her last book had not sold particularly well and some of the reviews had been more than unkind. Yvonne was trying to put up a Paris show in the fall for her new line but had to cancel it after all the arrangements had been made; her label was struggling