First prize winner of the 6th Annual Geist Literal Literary Postcard Story Contest.
Teddy struck a match, held the flame to the end and sucked in. Cars whizzed overhead.
He took the cigarette from his lips and passed it, glowing, over. It smelled terrible but I could taste his mouth, the eggs he’d had for breakfast, his warm saliva on the filter. I puffed, inhaled, doubled over coughing.
I’d get to school before the other boys and wait near the edge of the lot by the dead maple for his dad’s Jeep to pull in. “Don’t slam the door,” his dad would say, but Teddy would slam it anyways, hopping out, tucking his hair behind his ear and lifting his face toward me with a “What’s up?” Once the Jeep was gone we’d bolt along the path that curved through the woods and duck down beneath the bridge.
Everything tasted metallic for a year or two. I stopped reading Stephen King and started reading Beckett and Joyce. My body ached for something it had never known, something I wasn’t even sure it was allowed.
At the end of grade 11 a bunch of us went up to someone’s farm for the weekend. The idea was to bring a girl and see how far you could get in one of the bedrooms or out in the woods. Teddy and I didn’t know any girls. We spent the night sitting on a crooked dock by a pond talking about Robert Altman’s 1970–1975 oeuvre and the “ineluctable modality of the visible” made audible, while others rattled screaming through fields on golf carts, and tried to lose or keep their virginities.
Toward dawn I lit my last cigarette and offered it to Teddy. He waved it away.
I looked down at his hand and saw that the thin black glove was gone. I slowly removed the cigarette from my mouth, holding it between my thumb and index finger, and tossed it like a dart into the pond. It fizzed as it hit, sending ripples outwards along water that reflected a light peach glow from the sky.
I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He let it happen. I shifted weight and moved in, more insistently, closing my eyes and pushing out my tongue. Teddy pulled back. We looked at each other.
“You taste like ashes,” he said.
His family moved out west that summer and we never saw each other again. Fifteen years later I’m down to half a pack a day.
I think that the first paragraph is very discriptive, but I was not feeling your story the way that you probably intended. It was very dry and it was hard to hold my attention.
Great job and keep working on your writing!
Great job. The first few lines made think it was from the '40's or '50's. Maybe because of the postcard image. But I soon realized this is timeless really, because coming of age happens to us all, ready or not. I am a heterosexual female and I think I'd have tried to kiss teddy too.
I associated smoking homosexual desires, and when the protagonist calls it something he aches for but is not entirely sure is allowed.
it was quite powerful when he simply describe the raw splendour that is teddy versus saying "teddy was my ideal man", this keeps it subtle to read and allows for twists in the end. By his description style also allows the reader to step into his shoes, and follow teddy with their eyes, taste teddy's breakfast and warm saliva on their lips.
and the open ended sorrow he was left with when teddy informed him he would be one of the boys chasing girls on the farm. because he was no longer a "smoker"
Great job! I really enjoyed this.
Maybe it's the language barrier that keeps me from enjoying this story.
This is excellent writing, a story whose sparse language allows us to see the core, while offering a full portrait of the two characters. What a great story and storytelling: hard to do in such a short piece.
The fact that this short gem of fiction has garnered such commentary is a testament to its value and sound reasoning for winning the competition. That it has elicited polarized opinions further credits the work for connecting to all audiences, whether positive or negative.
A lovely story. Just melancholy enough. Congratulations.
More twists & turns than a Florida turnpike - well done!
You nailed it! Clean to the bone.
Now that's a good story!
Well done; great drama and sense of expectation.
sweet story, eric. appreciate the way you've covered lots of territory in s short story. and leave space for thinking after it's over. great ending, or continuing.
It's scary how our actions affect others. Lovely story!
So much sadness, I almost cried.
It was very well done and I enjoyed the description.
Really captured so much in so few words, admirable 'slice of life' vignette. lol but never stop reading Stephen King!