Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders

“Morning Missy,” says the owner of the Salt Shaker Cafe, when Missy enters. He has a trim beard, more pepper than salt, and my heart would have skipped a beat if it were not in the sandwich bag in Missy’s pocket, for this man obviously lusts after her and my confidence, which is legendary, droops and wilts. I am Harlequin, I tell myself, in my diamond-covered garments, and the world is my harle-quinade. I am Harlequin, who rose from the dead to play his pranks upon the living. I am Harlequin, in my mask, with my wand. I whistle to myself, and my confidence rises, hard and full once more.

“Hey, Harve,” says Missy. “Give me a plate of hash browns and a bottle of ketchup.”

“That all?” he asks.

“Yes,” she says. “That’ll be perfect. And a glass of water.”

I tell myself that the man Harve is Pantaloon, the foolish merchant that I must bamboozle, baffle, confusticate, and confuse. Perhaps there is a string of sausages in the kitchen. I resolve to bring delightful disarray to the world, and to bed luscious Missy before midnight: my Valentine’s present to myself. I imagine myself kissing her lips.

There is a handful of other diners. I amuse myself by swapping their plates while they are not looking, but I have difficulty finding the fun in it. The waitress is thin, and her hair hangs in sad ringlets about her face. She ignores Missy, whom she obviously considers entirely Harve’s preserve.

Missy sits at the table and pulls the sandwich bag from her pocket. She places it on the table in front of her.

Harve-the-pantaloon struts over to Missy’s table, gives her a glass of water, a plate of hash-browned potatoes, and a bottle of Heinz 57 Varieties Tomato Ketchup. “And a steak knife,” she tells him.

I trip him up on the way back to the kitchen. He curses, and I feel better, more like the former me, and I goose the waitress as she passes the table of an old man who is reading USA Today while toying with his salad. She gives the old man a filthy look. I chuckle, and then I find I am feeling most peculiar. I sit down upon the floor, suddenly.

“What’s that, honey?” the waitress asks Missy.

“Health food, Charlene,” says Missy. “Builds up iron.” I peep over the tabletop. She is cutting up small slices of liver-colored meat on her plate, liberally doused in tomato sauce, and piling her fork high with hash browns. Then she chews.

I watch my heart disappearing into her rosebud mouth. My Valentine’s jest somehow seems less funny.

“You anemic?” asks the waitress, on her way past once more, with a pot of steaming coffee.

“Not anymore,” says Missy, popping another scrap of raw gristle cut small into her mouth, and chewing it, hard, before swallowing.

And as she finishes eating my heart, Missy looks down and sees me sprawled upon the floor. She nods. “Outside,” she says. “Now.” Then she gets up and leaves ten dollars beside her plate.

She is sitting on a bench on the sidewalk waiting for me. It is cold, and the street is almost deserted. I sit down beside her. I would caper around her, but it feels so foolish now I know someone is watching.

“You ate my heart,” I tell her. I can hear the petulance in my voice, and it irritates me.

“Yes,” she says. “Is that why I can see you?”

I nod.

“Take off that domino mask,” she says. “You look stupid.”

I reach up and take off the mask. She looks slightly disappointed. “Not much improvement,” she says. “Now, give me the hat. And the stick.”

I shake my head. Missy reaches out and plucks my hat from my head, takes my stick from my hand. She toys with the hat, her long fingers brushing and bending it. Her nails are painted crimson. Then she stretches and smiles, expansively. The poetry has gone from my soul, and the cold February wind makes me shiver.

“It’s cold,” I tell her.

“No,” she says, “it’s perfect, magnificent, marvelous and magical. It’s Valentine’s Day, isn’t it? Who could be cold upon Valentine’s Day? What a fine and fabulous time of the year.”

I look down. The diamonds are fading from my suit, which is turning ghost-white, Pierrot-white.

“What do I do now?” I ask her.

“I don’t know,” says Missy. “Fade away, perhaps. Or find another role…A lovelorn swain, perchance, mooning and pining under the pale moon. All you need is a Columbine.”

“You,” I tell her. “You are my Columbine.”

“Not anymore,” she tells me. “That’s the joy of a harlequinade, after all, isn’t it? We change our costumes. We change our roles.”

She flashes me such a smile, now. Then she puts my hat, my own hat, my harlequin hat, up onto her head. She chucks me under the chin.

“And you?” I ask.

She tosses the wand into the air: it tumbles and twists in a high arc, red and yellow ribbons twisting and swirling about it, and then it lands neatly, almost silently, back into her hand. She pushes the tip down to the sidewalk, pushes herself up from the bench in one smooth movement.

“I have things to do,” she tells me. “Tickets to take. People to dream.” Her blue coat that was once her mother’s is no longer blue, but is canary yellow, covered with red diamonds.