Little Words: A Literary Alphabet: Part One

By Paul Roman Lenarczyk

A collection of short stories and a poem by Paul Roman Lenarczyk. The stories deal with the struggle of the individual in life in various situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781257736508

Book preview

Author

A

April Fools

The tall man bent down to pick up the piece of paper which had fallen as he unwrapped his gum and put it in his mouth. He had a hard time reaching the ground without bending his knees, but he managed it and in one quick motion he picked up the wrapper and deposited in the garbage can right beside him. He looked around at the park in which he so frequently spent afternoons, but for some reason always felt out of place in; he far preferred the cozy atmosphere of his bedroom, even when he was alone, but they always cleaned his room after lunch, so he always had to go out. Sometimes he went to movies, but most of the time he came here, to this park, to enjoy the smells and sounds of nature and to see her. Today was no different; maybe a little colder, because it was coming up on winter, but not that much different, and yet he still felt uncomfortable. He walked the fifteen paces from the garbage can to the bench on which he normally sat for about an hour and sat down.

Ten minutes later she had not come. He was slightly worried because usually about ten minutes after he sat down she walked by; there had been a few occasions that she had not appeared, but he had been hoping that today of all days, she would appear as usual. Why wasn’t she coming? He thought about her red hair and blue eyes, her white teeth as she smiled in her usual hello to him, and a tear appeared on his cheek, and began descending in an arc toward the corner of his lips, but he wiped it off with an angry motion of his left hand. No tears, he thought, it’s no big deal; besides, she may just be late, that’s all. But ten more minutes passed and she still wasn’t there. There had only been one time of the many that he saw her, that she had been more than ten minutes late, that was on April first last year, he remembered because she later made a joke about there being a rip in his shirt, and when he had looked to see where, she laughed and said April Fool’s, but because he hadn’t understood she explained to him that on April first people could make jokes and then laugh and say that and not be thought of as mean. He thought that was a rather silly custom, but then he tried it out on Nanny when he got home, and she became cross with him, so he figured it was a good thing to do after all, because he liked it very much when Nanny was cross. Today was not April first, however, it was November twenty-fifth, he had checked the calendar and read everything on the card with today’s date on it, and yet she was more than ten -- fifteen, even -- minutes late already.

Perhaps she won’t come at all, he thought, it has happened before that she doesn’t come, but never on November twenty-fifth. She had always been there on November twenty-fifth. He knew that because he had checked his ten year diary just before lunch and there was a check mark for every November twenty-fifth that he had been in the park, that meant that she had always been there, so why not today? He thought back on the day before, had she said anything to indicate that she wouldn’t come today? She usually said something if she knew that she wouldn’t be there. He couldn’t remember what she had said yesterday, but he remembered a day about two weeks ago when she’d said that she was going to go away from the park soon. Forever, she’d said. He thought that maybe she was gone now, forever, and then another tear appeared on his cheek and he wiped it away with his right hand.

It was getting chilly, so he stood up and walked on the spot, a way in which his mother had taught him to keep warm when she had still been alive. He wished that she were still alive, though he knew that wishing wouldn’t make it so, but it was still nice to wish. He pulled out the picture of his mother from his pocket and stared at it for ten minutes straight; his eyes clouded over with tears, and the smiling red lips and blue eyes and red hair of his mother disappeared, he couldn’t see the picture any more. Ten years she’d been dead and ten years he had been wishing that she would come and she had always come before, but today, on the tenth anniversary of her death she did not come. He walked on the spot for twenty minutes, and then walked back to his house. He would play a trick on Nanny and make her cross again, he liked doing that, and she would know everything and would hit him and he would laugh and say April fool’s and it would be alright and he would come back to the park tomorrow and she would be back again.

Fredericton, 1 April 1993

B

BIRDS

I

She wandered aimlessly around the empty black building in the white snow which reminded her of something so much that she wished she could remember what it was, but she couldn’t. Her mind did not reach that far back; she only knew about the car that brought her here (a shiny, red car), the men in the white coats who had left her here in the big black building, and the night she had spent here, last night. The rest, (there had to have been something before, she knew that) was not there. There was nothing in her head about before.

Not quite nothing. When she really thought hard, all the while walking around the black building, lifting her boots through the deep snow, she could remember two other things, two vague images: a man, more of a black silhouette really, and a bird. The bird was the more vivid image, although neither could really be considered vivid, both were like shadows cast from behind onto a white curtain. The bird was bigger, more alive, more meaningful; she knew it was real because she saw other birds flying up above her head, above the snow, and the big black building. Everything was black, it seemed, the building, the birds, the shadows--she was not black.

When the sun went down, the birds that were circling above the roof of the black building swooped down lower and lower and circled around her head, she was a little scared and so she went inside the building and shut the door behind her, drowning in the total blackness. Sleep consumed her before she even had time to crawl to her bed.

II

He sat in the chair way above the rest of the world, in the top office of the highest high-rise in the world and no it wasn’t in Chicago. The Sears tower is a myth, He thought, there can be no building taller than this one. This is my building and I know that it is the tallest building in the world. He could even see birds from above while most people only see them from below. He was happy.

There was no work today because the last patient had been processed the day before yesterday and the last inspection which He carried out personally yesterday at noon revealed no new patients, in fact it revealed no new people at all in His company, so He had fired the two white cloaked doctors and had gone home to bed, but now He was back in his office because He enjoyed the view. Of course this time of the morning there were no birds so it was kind of boring, but around lunch time He knew that birds would come and He would be able to look them in the eye and smile as always, as they crashed into the reinforced windows of his high-rise, and fall to their deaths down below. He never knew why they were so stupid that they would crash into the window but they were, and they did, and He liked it. Below, the street urchins and the clochards and the bums would feast on each of the dead fallen birds and thank God for making them fall on their plates and not on their heads, for, if a penny did, then a bird falling from that height on top of one’s head would definitely kill a person. If a penny really did, that is. Nobody had ever thrown a penny out of the window, He would not allow that.

III

I put on my white coat again this morning, like I had done every morning for the past few years, but then I remembered that I had been fired and that I didn’t have to go in to the office because there was no more work. I hung the coat back on its peg, lay down in bed