7 stories with 7 pictures

8/4/2019 7 Stories With 7 Pictures

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7 Stories with 7 Pictures 1

K. Stein

[email protected]

7 Stories with 7 Pictures

by K. Stein

Laundry

The man who lived in 407 was widely known to

have never, not once, hung out his

laundry. Instead, each morning, he would clip up

all manner of things onto his clothesline. A set of

cheap steak knives, sunglasses in every shade but

black, old and yellowed pages of sheet

music. Once he even managed to hang three sets

of dentures, a private joke laughing at the

world. The last thing he hung up was a knit cap, in three shades of blue. It held

fast through the end of spring, all of summer and until the wind began to bite in

October. Then, when the new couple moved into 407 they took it down. And

everyone acted relieved when the wife pinned up a set of yellow and orange

sheets that only occasionally became twisted in the wind.


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K. Stein

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The Closing of the Ocean

During the first week of November, all the police

officers leave their clean pressed uniforms on the

front steps of the houses or the landings of their

apartments. Anyone is free to pick them up, put

them on, and see what it is, this work of being an

officer of the law. My brother is a cop and lately his

eyes get kind of wobbly when he talks about work,

which isnt often. Hes in charge of keeping people

off the beach at night. Too many accidents of late, so theyve decided to close

down the ocean until summer. And my brother was the one chosen to make

sure it stayed shut down, nice and tight. No one breathing in the briny air. No

one gazing as the waves lapped the sand off the rocks jutting out like bones in

the night. No old men showing off the fur on their chests as, steaming, they

pawed their way out of the water into the early morning air. Gotta close down

the ocean, my brother would say. As if it actually meant something. And

maybe it did. And not only to him. Because this year the uniforms remained

where they had been placed, untouched all week. But every night the beach

was littered: littered with footprints, littered with the strained whispers of lovers

groping for a few more moments, littered with kids laughing like they already had

tomorrow rolled up tight and tucked safely away in their pockets. At least, until

the end of the week.


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K. Stein

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Without Flames

For years and years we debated building the fire

without the flames. In the summer, ever year, a

child, at least one, would dance too close to the pit

and a spark, landing on a bare leg, or hand, or

worst of all cheek, would leave an angry burn. And

for a moment the soft murmuring that was a sign

that summer was nearly over, that we must all get

used to the close company of winter rooms and

long evening stories again, would be broken as mothers poured cool water over

red skin and someone ran for a cream to keep the scar away. But in the end,

we decided that as many problems as the flames might cause, without their

flickering, we wouldnt know how to say goodbye and let go of the summer

without them.


4/7


K. Stein

[email protected]

Candles up tight

When August slid into September and the heat

finally broke and the sun started sinking earlier and

earlier at night, people in one neighborhood, on just

this side of the rail tracks, decided that they hadn't

finished with summer yet. So they started the

candle parties. Women gathered the nubs of

candles long forgotten. Candles used to welcome

a husband home from a first day of

work. Cinnamon candles used to chase away the smell of nowhere to go. Star

shaped candles grown dusty on a child's bookshelf, never lit, never planned to

be lit. All these candles, flickers of what was, or had appeared to be, or really

hadn't been. All these candles washing the porches in light. All through

September and October the people kept on and on, laughing like having an itch

scratched with a bark brush. Sighing like a puff of cloud framing the

moon. Keeping on and on until the first snow fell. But the candles remained

there, on the porches and in the yards. Small reminders of something. Almost

buried, or perhaps just tucked up tight in all that white.


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K. Stein

[email protected]

Story of Windows

In my city, every room must have a window. It

makes no difference if it only looks out on a slab of

gray concrete, or a brown and weedy empty plot, or

even an orchard of gnarled apple trees bursting

with autumn reds and golds. All that matters is that

there is a window and one can look out. And, as if

this was not civil enough, every person in my city

(every single one) who wishes to look out of

anothers window has the right to do so. You just knock on the door and

ask. Maybe to look out on the terrible sadness of a blue neon sign for just a

breath or two. Maybe to watch three new tulips proud and yellow until the

steam thins as the coffee cools in your mug. Maybe to stare hard for a whole

night at a patch of inky yet clear sky waiting to see the blinking light of a satellite

sending a message to those in the know. Two times I have thought about using

this right of gazing. Once, when I wished to remember how my father must

have looked, young and healthy, ordering a red-hot on the street corner near our

old apartment. Once, when the shouts of the children on the playground carried

over the school wall and reminded me that I had forgotten how to skip. Still, I

havent done it yet. Havent knocked and made a polite request that I know

would just as politely be accepted. I feel that there will be greater needs to

come. Sometimes, the unknown size of them keeps me up. Keeps me looking

out my own window at a public mailbox hardly anyone uses anymore and a

vending machine, the lights which are kindly turned off at 10 PM so as not todisturb the sleepers. I try to think of what kind of person would find comfort in

this scene. I wonder what it would take until they could finally bring themselves

to come and knock on my door.


6/7


K. Stein

[email protected]

In Boxes

I had heard about the man of boxes. So I went to

meet him. He wasnt fickle. He lived on the other

side of town and anyone was free to visit him. You

simple walked across the park, up the big hill, and

turned left where the large gray buildings started to

grow smaller. At the end of this road was his blue

roofed house with the red shutters. The door was

rounded and narrower than one might be used to. I

had heard that he had been collecting boxes, all the boxes he could find for

years and years. I had heard that he would accept into keeping anything that

people wished for a stranger to hold. So I gave him the broken key I had finally

dug out of the lock in the back door the other morning. I had nothing else. The

key had grown rusty over the years and left red streaks on my fingers. The box

man smiled and nodded when I told him it didnt have any particular

meaning. He walked away down the dark hall. He came back with a small

green velvet lined box that pulled open like a drawer. It was only after he

slipped the broken key into the box that I noticed tears, just two or three, running

down my cheeks.


7/7


K. Stein

[email protected]

101 Buses

In my town there are 101 busses that run over 101

bus routes. Some of the busses have deep blue

seats that rock back and forth slowly,

slowly. Lovers often fall asleep until the end of the

end of the line and laughing nervously, wake up

just in time to rush home before they are

missed. In my town everyone takes the bus. You

can see them through the green tinted

windows. Curiously enough, almost no one will

be looking back at you.

7 stories with 7 pictures

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