Embers Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer
Mae sat in the sand watching the remaining embers dance, a cool
PBR in her hand. She wanted a cigarette. She needed a cigarette. She needed it
bad. But she was quitting. Again. She was already stressed out enough, and was
only making it worse by dwelling on the cigarette. But the ashy remains of a
once great bonfire only served as a painful reminder of the chemical
satisfaction she actually craved.
The sun had set hours ago. Most of her friends had left already.
She too should have left, but for the fact that her ride there, Amy, was off
down the beach somewhere with her dating partner Enrique. It was hard to call
them a couple or him a boyfriend, but they were definitely something. They were
much too friendly and touchy-feely to not be something. Amy was usually much
more open and revealing when it came to her proclivities, and yet she was
strangely silent when it came to Enrique. That probably meant she really liked
him. But what it meant for Mae was that she had no ride home. Yet anyway.
Mae moved in closer to the fire pit, hoping to gain a little bit
more warmth. She had brought a sweater to the beach with her, but foolishly had
only worn a pair of cutoff denim jean shorts. She really hadn’t planned on
staying as long as she had. She tried to take a drink from her beer and
realized the can was empty. She wondered how long it had been like that. She
must have been lost in thought and not have noticed. She thought about getting
up and getting another one, but something kept her sitting there, staring into
the glowing red.
She remembered a song from her childhood that was named something
like “What am I doing hanging round.” It was a silly love song about a guy
hanging around waiting on a girl when he knew his train was leaving. Mae felt
like the singer in the song. Except that it would be a plane, and the plane
didn’t leave for a few days. Still, she thought it was a fitting analogy. She
had bigger things to worry about. She had job things and moving things and
change of direction and reinventing herself things to worry about. She didn’t
have time to worry about a guy. And yet and yet and yet here she was, waiting
and worrying about a guy. Silly it may have been, but it was what people did.
Nothing was clean and easy. There were no quick and total breaks in life. There
were always sloppy transitions and grey areas and mistakes and regrets. She
felt foolish, but she figured that was why people that wrote sad songs wrote
sad songs. There was a lot of truth in a sad song.
People were supposed to act. They were supposed to tell each other
things and they were supposed to act on them. She had never been very good at
that though. She had tried. This hadn’t been a going away party, but it was
pretty much a going away party. And she had told him. Everyone at work knew she
was moving. Everyone. And she had given him a chance to say something or to
act. And she was sure he wanted to, but for some reason was still too shy. So
she had told him as best she could, and here she was drinking stale beers and
watching a fire die down and waiting. She was still waiting. It seemed like she
was always waiting. The night was getting colder and the fire was dying down.
She could only wait so long.
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