“BACK FLAT” by Haydn Winston
“I don't want to do anything. I don't want to move. Every time I get moving, something breaks. I can't keep from breaking. I want to put myself together, but the pieces keep breaking when I try to set them. Can I be somebody again? Am I going about it wrong? I can't ask anyone to move me, to make a man of me. Have to stand somewhere. I feel less than empty, like I couldn't hold anything to begin with. Where are my borders? Where are my dreams?”
Teddy had been talking like that for the past hour. His shoulder hurt in the bone. There weren't a lot of shifts going around at the warehouse. He'd waited by the dock all morning until the super stepped outside and shook his head, handing him a paper cup of coffee for the walk back to Woodburn Avenue where he'd find a stool at Murphy's and drink beer slowly while people came and went, saying not a word to Teddy because the look in his eyes told them what they needed to know. This was not a man alive. And the nearer he wanted to be to them, the further they drew back. As if protecting their own borders.
“What'd I say? Quit scaring folks off or get outta here,” said Ray sternly from behind the bar.
“Sorry. Just talking. Didn't figure any harm in that.”
“There is if I gotta listen. If you wanna talk then talk bullshit like you're s'posed to.”
Teddy scratched the back of his leg, covered his glass with a cocktail napkin, and walked to the back of the bar. He pushed open the glass door, leaning his head out from the worn carpet. It was cold. Damp and cold. He took a hitter from his pocket, drawing on the small pipe. Ray shouted from the counter.
“Can smell that shit from here! For fuck's sake!”
Teddy grunted and looked up at the slate-colored sky. Snow fell like pastry flakes. The sun was trying to break through the silver-grey clouds. That made it seem colder somehow. So much warmth on the other side of that big grey. It pained him to know it was there. The sun. The promise. He wondered if maybe it was better not to know. Or to just stop believing there was a time but for winter.
There was a loud metal clang. Teddy saw a woman wearing a hat and gloves and a torn jacket. She stood on her toes, bending over the brim of a steel dumpster. He watched her a moment with disinterest, getting ready to turn back inside. Just then he heard her start to sing. He wasn't sure it could be her, because the voice was so beautiful and the song so plaintive it didn't feel quite real to him. But when she hoisted a wet black bag from the garbage and dropped it on the ground, Teddy listened as she sang through the falling snow over that asphalt lot. It was a song of praise or so he thought. What did she mean?
She tore open the bag with her fingers, pulling bottles out and ordering them with soft clinks at her feet. Teddy was still and quiet. It was what he was best at. There was a rising in his chest, a clench in his throat. Teddy couldn't remember the last time he sang a strain and that cut to the quick. Not since days were sweet and long if they ever were. He looked up again at the sky, then back at the woman. She wasn't the sun. Yet she was bright. They both stared at each other, considering, cold and golden in the frost-finished afternoon. Where was that light coming from? Teddy blinked, rubbing his eyes with his knuckles. She wasn't singing now. She gathered the bottles and cans, paying him no more mind.
Teddy stiffened. They weren't old friends. He smelled the sour of scraps and trash. The grey remained. Touching the means of it, he claimed this little while of his. He would keep it. He didn't want the last song, the last dream. He turned thirty-three in February. Mysterious. A small wind pushed an empty cigarette pack across a tilted table. Teddy lingered, waiting for company.
About Haydn Winston
He/Him/His
Haydn Winston is a writer from Colorado Springs, Colorado and graduated from the University of Colorado-Boulder. Haydn used to think Happiness was like this...clarity we were all seeking. Getting to the top of some snowy, jaggedy-ass, cougar-infested mountain and looking down on the valley and suddenly everything makes sense. And part of him thinks he's still seeking that clarity. Absence of want and all that. But as it turns out, he's not sure that's what Happy means. At least not these days. So he'll keep smoking and staring at mountains until that gets sorted.