Here's a more recent one. Wrote it a few months ago. Once again, something completely mundane yields to the strange. I laughed the whole time I wrote this, knowing what the very last line would be and hoping I could set it up right. I think I did a pretty good job. I hope you people find it as funny as I do, though that'll make you as weird as me.
Wish I May
She smiled sweetly and shut the door. It was a good door, he thought. A nice, solid door. Fine grain, polished and stained a wonderful, rich brown. Very probably oak. It was the kind of house that would have an oak door. It would not be, he thought, a good idea to kick it.
His own smile— one that had progressed from hope to anxiety, followed by shame, and ultimately replaced by a reluctant (and totally fake) understanding— began to wilt at the edges. He sighed like he would eject his soul, feeling that he had already done so, exposing it for all (or at least one) to see, only to have it waft away in the draft of a closing door.
Bye-bye.
Auf wiedersehen.
Arrivaderci.
Bon voyage, and don’t forget to write.
He realized he was being melodramatic. He didn’t care. He felt like being melodramatic. It was better than anger. Anger would lead to a lot of other useless feelings, like bitterness and resent.
And a broken foot.
He stepped off the front porch and looked up at the sky. The sun was setting. Some would call it lovely. Some, digging deeper, would call it symbolic. He saw a sunset. It was bright and hurt his eyes, and he could imagine it burning away the hazel there, rendering his eyes pale and sightless. He kept looking, not because he thought it would surrender an answer, nor because he craved the blinding pain. He was neither delusional nor a masochist. He did, however, think it made him look introspective and somewhat classy. And perhaps she would look out, see him being classy, and her heart would be swayed.
He chuckled and scratched the back of his head, tousling curly, red hair. Okay. Maybe a little delusional.
As he turned to walk down the street, he saw a glimmer in the sky. A star. He looked around at the rest of the darkening sky. The first star of the night, it seemed. He almost passed it up, but something made him pause.
First star I see tonight, he thought. What the hell.
“I wish,” he said. “I wish I could be the kind of person she would like. That she would want.” He searched for something else to say, but discovered he felt foolish enough as it was.
He started walking.
***
Sun shining in her eyes from the window was all that brought her close enough to wakefulness to hear the knock at the door. It wasn’t quite panicked, but it could get there, given another five minutes or so. She grumbled an “I’m coming” that would never reach the door and checked her reflection to make sure she was decent.
She stumbled through the hallway, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, once again primping before a mirror in the foyer. Though not quite satisfied, she crossed over to the door. The knocking had gotten louder, and not just because of proximity. She jerked the door open and heard a gasp of surprise. She took a small measure of satisfaction in that.
“Yeah, what do you— ” There was not much more to say, as the person on the other side of the door wasn’t at all who she was expecting. Whoever she had been expecting.
The first things she noticed were the eyes. Bright with some of that panic that had begun to show in the intensity of the knocking, but also something in them that smoldered. They were a shade of hazel tending toward green. And something familiar….
The hair came next. The fiercest red this side of Ireland. Curly, almost to the point of ringlets.
And that feeling of familiarity persisted.
The clothes were loose-fitting and obviously belonged to a guy. The pants stayed up only with a helping hand. For all that, they could not completely hide a generous set of curves.
She stared at the girl on the porch and felt her heart quicken.
“Can…can I help you?”
“I gotta tell you,” the girl on the porch said, “I never would’ve pegged you for a lesbian.”
