Just As It Is - Short Story

         The empty glass stared up at him through the last drops of red wine left on the bottom.



         A groan as he stretched, his tenuous body grating against the couch. The carpet was starting to smell, and from what he could see it was starting to wear away at the corners which he had lifted to sweep under twenty years worth of dust, memories and dirt.

         He blinked a few times, rubbing sleep from his eyes - coaxing a little more time for himself. He’d bought this bottle to help him write, not to put him to bed. He pulled the paper close to him, his vision blurry and his knuckles creaking; he clenched a new pen between his fingers.

‘It was late by the time she got home.’ He sat back, staring at this thought, this piece of something laying unfinished on the paper. “Shit.”

         He scratched it out and banged the pen hard against the table, leaving ink as he leaned back, holding his eyes roughly under the backs of his palms - some sort of awkward prayer. Releasing his eyes he pulled a jar, half full of paper into his lap. Opening it slowly, he crumpled and shoved the paper inside.

         He stood, wobbling and limping slightly as he found his way to the sink. Pouring water into his cupped hands, splashing it awkwardly onto his face, into his beard. He held on, leaning on the porcelain and looked down at his hands. The sink was white and strong but faded; and where he held on, it reminded him of a woman’s arms.





         The phone was still ringing. Matilde laid on her bed, smoking. She flipped through a book, paying more attention to the feel of the paper between her fingers, than the words. When she finally moved, it was slow. The phone had been ringing a long time. “Hello?”

She answered like always, as if she were bored; letting the cigarette dangle by her bare thigh.

“Matilde?”

She brought the phone and cord with her onto the bed, laying it in her lap like a cat.

“Noah, how strange to hear your voice! Are you in town?”

He answered smoothly, “I’m staying down the road from the Vogue; a little place, with stone walls and everything.”

“Oh goodness, another stone apartment... ”

A dry, honest laugh on the other line tempted a little smirk from her lips.

“Can I see you?” She smiled gently and took the phone in both hands.

He continued, “Do you know the pub on Davie?”

“I’ll see you there at seven.”

“Bye Matilde.”

Smiling to herself, she rose and set the phone back on the table. She turned on the radio. Unhappy with the music, she switched it off again.





         He was not as tall as he’d like to have been. Sitting at a small table near the door, he looked around uneasily but - as anyone who has ever felt loneliness would observe - with an enviable distance. His eyes and hair were dark, and his face hinted at an age much older than it should have.

         He watched a woman and a man with a stuffed nose make small talk at the bar. Her shirt slowly slipping off the edge of her shoulder, revealing wrinkles and time  she would offer up anything to get rid of. She laughed - A laugh false, and far too tired for her. The man touched her hair.



         Matilde wore heels and jeans, her dark hair resting on the shoulders of her grandmother’s winter coat. Her lips were painted red, or had been. She spotted him immediately, and he sat up taller in his seat - just enough that someone who knew him closely may have noticed. Pulling off her jacket, she smiled. “Noah!” He rose, slightly awkward, and embraced her. He felt her cheek against his.

“I’m sorry, I’m late I think. You haven’t had anything to drink?” She said as they sat down.

“Do you want anything?”

She beckoned a man over, fumbling for her cigarettes.

“Wine please.”

“Beer, thanks.” Noah pulled out his lighter.

She leaned back - looking at him,

“You’re older.”

“You let your hair get long.” She pulled a lock forward absently as she studied him.

“How long are you in town for?”

“A few days... I wanted to be in the city. I took a walk this morning when I got in, to see the Ocean. Have you been lately?”

“To the Ocean? No, I don’t think I’ve ever gone by myself.”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

“I’ve never been any good at seeing people... I get bored too easily.”

“Why don’t you find someone interesting, then?.”

“I’m too boring for anyone interesting.”

She laughed to herself and continued, “How are you, anyway?”

“I’m fine, I’m just fine.” Noah smiled a little, and timidly lit himself a cigarette, careful as if it could hurt him. She watched him, suddenly a little more wary than when she entered - a little colder.

         The drinks arrived and Noah pulled his beer to the side of him, as if clearing the table for some riveting scheme, or announcement.

She didn’t touch her wine, but asked, “Why did you call me?”

“I wanted to see you.”

“What for? We don’t have anything to catch up on... Nothing grand to reminisce about.”

“Good. That’s all I talk about as it is. Every person I know reiterates the same thing to me every time I see them. The unquenchable desire to ‘do it over.’ God forbid someone talks about anything else. That’s all people are looking for, a taste of when they were happy... To tell you the truth, I don’t think they ever were. It’s the only merciful thing they can do for themselves for fear of admitting that they probably never will be. Forgive me if I don’t detest the idea of us discussing old times as if there is nothing else to talk about in the world.”

Matilde sat quietly, her eyes on his as he spoke and took a drink.

“What do you want to talk about then?”

Taking another careful drag, Noah rested his hand on the table as he spoke, “Tell me about when you were unhappy last.”

She shifted in her seat and looked at him; she took her time in speaking.

“I went with a guy from the University. He bought me a rose... anyway, we were in this garden or something, very quintessential romantic, and he takes my hands, looks into my eyes all dashing-like and he says to me ‘You’re beautiful’.... as if waiting for me to jump into his arms or weep in speechless gratitude. It was the most unhappy I’d felt in a long time.”

He watches her as she continues, “I’m just tired of all this cheap intimacy. People thinking they can cozy up to you if they look into your eyes or kiss you right... I honestly don’t know what love would feel like, in my mind it’s all wrapped up in confidences and unhappy commitment to one another. It all just rings so impermanent and fragile... So temperamental.”

She looked around the bar disillusioned, and then rested her cheek on her hand, propped against the table. “I want people to love each other without having to express it.” A whisper of disappointment slipped into her voice as she asked, “Tell me yours.”

         Noah thought a moment, watching her. He felt the edge of his glass wit his thumb. “I was on the bus. And this old guy in the seat in front of me was smiling. Just smiling and looking around like the world was a goddamn orchestra playing just for him... I looked at him and I realized two things at once. I realized we are all going to be him, one day... an old man on the bus, with a lot of past and no future - and then I realized, I don’t think I’ll be like that when I’m old. Happy, I mean. I thought, we go through life the same as we always do, nothing changes when you hit a certain age, when you fall in love, have a kid... you’re the same person with the same flaws and thoughts that you always had, you’re just closer to dying. Dying, the same person under wrinkles and experiences. We die just as we live... Seeing life without its glory, but just as it is... that was the unhappiest I’d been in a long while.”

Matilde hadn’t looked at him while he spoke, just watched her cigarette burn away.

“It was like watching myself die.”

Noah pushed his beer away again, and looked at her as she spoke, “Why did you call me.”

“I don’t know.”

Matilde took a deep breath, “I think I’d better go.”

She rose and so did he. Matilde looked at him as she pulled on her jacket, “I’ll see you.” She left, slower than usual but with the same purpose she always moved with.

         Noah sat back down and looked over to the bar. The couple from before had left, and sitting in their place was a young women with blonde hair and uncomfortable shoes. She was waiting for someone and looked around, bored. She taped her slender foot against the counter to some worn out tune, and cradled her purse in her lap. The wrinkled bartender stocked glasses, and didn’t regard her - nor did she him. They remained like that in their perfect, distant silence.

         Noah left some money on the table, and took a final drink. The girl at the bar looked at him once on the way out, a fleeting glance and he nodded to her. She turned away, frustrated.

         Noah stepped into the street, a black car passed by, and he pulled his coat closer around his neck. He walked to the corner. It was cold. A young couple kissed in between laughter by a street lamp. It was snowing.





         Matilde stood and listened to the waves beating against the rocks. In a few meters the road would become beach. She waited for a break in the waves, a hesitation, a disjointed heartbeat in what would go on forever. Matilde closed her eyes and stood there a while, she would stay until it got too cold. The she would leave.





         Noah shut the door gently. He looked at the bare stucco walls and his hands that were resting on the counter, “They do look older.” He laid his jacket on the bed, looking back at the telephone.

He picked it up slowly. Holding it in his hands first for a long time, he dialed. It rang twice - almost three times. He spoke first, “Did I wake you?”

“No, no I was just reading.” He heard blankets rustle.

“It’s snowing here.”

“Here too.”

They said nothing for a moment, until he spoke “I think I miss you.”

“I miss you too.”





         “Fuck.” The old man cleaned the spilled wine on his kitchen floor. Paper towel falling around him as his knees pushed against the hard tile that he knelt upon. Rubbing his cheek he stayed for a moment, his pants stained with red. He got up slowly and sat down on his bed, dragging the jar of crumpled paper and his pen with him. He took out his paper and spread it gently on his lap, creased and bent much like the lines on his own face, the unfinished sentence laid still upon the page. Again he wrote, ‘It was late, by the time she got home.’

         Letting it fall on the sheets beside him, he rolled over; pulling the blanket up around him and closing his eyes. The faded metal bed frame looked blue in the moonlight of his small room, covered in books, bottles and pictures. The old man let himself weep just a little, as he thought of the snow falling outside.