literature

The Whisper Girl

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I first saw her feeding squirrels in the Boston Gardens.  Everyday at 2:30pm, she was there and I would watch her from a nearby bench.  She always looked so happy as the squirrels ate from her cupped hands.  She would smile as she passed me, and I would nod at her over the top of my newspaper.  I couldn’t wait to get to know her better, and eat from her cupped hands.  

At night, I often woke up in cold sweats searching for the girl in my covers, but she was never there.  It was always just a dream.  It didn’t matter how vividly I felt her hands on my back, face and thighs.  She was never there when I woke up.  She was never in the kitchen when I went down for coffee.  I knew I couldn’t live one more day without her.

I wouldn’t call it kidnapping.  She didn’t make a noise when I took her by the hand that afternoon.  It was like she was expecting it.  She didn’t smile, but she didn’t turn away.  I led her to my apartment on Marlborough Street, where Thoreau greeted us with a whip of his tail.  He was always such a sassy feline.  She smiled as soon as she saw his golden eyes.  She let go of my hand, but I wasn’t afraid of her running away.  I knew she would like my cats.  I loved watching her fingers brush through his thick grey coat.  He purred loudly, and I smiled as I watched her.  Her eyes were still upset, so I nudged her gently through the door.  Thoreau leaped from her arms.

I watched her eating everything with her eyes.  My cats swishing past her legs, eager to meet the new visitor, and she didn’t ignore them.  She cooed, tickling their chins and petting their backs till she had each cat on their back, squirming with joy.  It seemed that she would have more in common with the cats than me.  I was nearly sixty years old, so I couldn’t blame her.  My companions were newspapers, a good pair of house slippers and an old pipe my father gave to me.  Although, I wished she would love me the same way she did the animals.  She would take care in not missing one inch of their body – scratching underneath their chins and massaging their backs.  They purred in lust.  

I was glad that she did not look up at me, but continued to stroke the cats as I was staring so hard I was afraid I’d frighten her away.  I often thought of her as a squirrel instead of a real girl.  There was nothing real about her -- her hair long cascading locks down her back, her skin white like the spots of a newborn foal and her eyes large enough to swallow me.  Each move she made seemed so calculated, like she was afraid of tipping over.  I saw nothing more in her than grace.  I wanted her to be my faerie queen.

Finally, she looked up, content that the cats had had their share of loving.  I asked if I could get her anything, but she just nodded no.  I gestured for her to sit down.  She fell into my tiger-striped couch as if her feet could barely hold her weight.

“I quit, sir.  I quit.”  This was the first time I had heard more than the coos she would give the squirrels.  “I cannot be a writer.  I cannot keep up with his demands.”  

“Then I will keep you here.  You don’t have to go back to him.  You never need to see another blank computer screen or another white piece of paper in your typewriter.  It ends here.  You are no longer their writing whore.”

She laughed but I was quite serious.  I was glad to have her company, and I sat across from her admiring her patience as my cats demanded her attention.  She was lost in her thoughts while Hemingway, Whitman and Thoreau fought for turns on her lap.  I made her tea and sat across from her trying to read her internal dialogue through her pupils.  

I read through the entire New York Times glancing up occasionally to catch her eyes, but she was always looking away.  She was delighted by my treasures.  I couldn’t blame her.  A lot of the things I owned belonged in museums, not in small apartment.  I had fraying first editions, coveted tea sets and even some illegal ivory figurines.  I had done my fair share of traveling as an adult, and I tried to collect everything I could.  I wasn’t one to mess around with snow globes and cheap plastic key chains.  I wanted my apartment to remind me of the world.

I saw her eyeing my old HiFi.  “You can turn it on, dear, if you’d like?”  And I got up and put on one of my favorite records.  A collection of various Big Band stuff I used to be really into – the truth was that I really wanted to watch her dance.  I just knew that once the music hit her, she would start swirling around my apartment, gentle like the kitten she was.  And I was right, she spun and pranced to the sound, while I went back to the paper.  I think if I had a million eyes they would all be glancing on her.  I envied insects this very second.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.  

“I’m really tired now, thank you.  I haven’t slept in days,” she said, once again flopping down on the couch before me.

“Don’t be afraid to take a bit of a nap, dear.  I’m always one for a good nap,” I puffed slowly on my pipe and the smoke danced around my head.

Instead, she traced words out on her skirt with her finger, big curly cursive words – turtle, grocery and lentils.  She scratched harder each time.  Soon, she was writing on her arms with her nails.  The red marks read: I quit.  I think if she could have, she would have wanted those words tattooed on her hands, but at the same time she kept staring at the pen and paper on the coffee table.  She eyed them so closely I was sure they would fly up and whirl around till they landed in her lap fighting with Melville for most comfortable chair in the house.  

After some time, she fell asleep and she denied the request to share dinner with me.  A hearty stew good for the stubborn.  So, that night I left her sleeping on my couch picking up the pen and paper on the coffee table, so she wouldn’t have anything to remind her of her past life – as student, as writer.

I kept having horrible nightmares that when I would wake, she would be gone.  Mysteriously, without a trace, like she had never been here at all, like she was a ghost I had imagined out of boredom.  I couldn’t get the image of her dancing out of my head, and I crept down the stairs to make sure she was still on the couch.  And she was, surrounded my precious pretties, purring all around her.  I pinched myself to make sure it wasn’t just another dream.  

In the morning, feeling lonely, I caught myself dressing more quickly.  I wanted to see her right away.  I still wasn’t convinced that she would actually stay.  There was too much promise in her eyes.  When I went down the stairs, I found that she had fed and brushed the cats.  The only proof of her existence was a note on the table that read, “Wisdom is acquired by experience, not just by age.  I don’t need school to be a writer.  I quit.”   It was signed in thick, swirling red ink: Alice Clover.  Even her name didn’t seem real t me.  This couldn’t be all that was left of her.  I felt myself growing flushed with fear that I would never see her again.  I just knew that my collection wasn’t complete without her.

Each afternoon at 2:30pm, I was there waiting for her.  The squirrels collected at my feet as if to say, “Have you seen her?  We miss her too.”  But she never showed up again.  I tried new spots.  I tried long walks.  I tried every place in town I could think of that could house such a girl.  No one had seen her.  Even the squirrels started to forget after awhile.

Then one night, I woke up to a strange sound at the front door, and in the hardwood was carved, “I quit.”  I still never saw her, but somehow just those words remind me that she might come back to me.
Another story mixed with an older one. An updated one, if you will. Based on No Return Address.
© 2005 - 2024 petalinarainstorm
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ed-is-dead's avatar
-"I couldn’t wait to get to know her better, and eat from her cupped hands."
what a lovely, lonely line.
-"I wouldn’t call it kidnapping."
awesome! keeps the reader on his toes.
-could be "where the sassy feline Thoreau greeted us with a whip of his tail." remember what Hemingway said: "all first drafts are shit." it's like Michelangelo chipping away at his marble block, you have to keep pummeling away until it reveals its soul.
-the para. where you reveal his age -- jesus. delving into that that monumental loneliness you hint at before.
-the dialogue seems a little stilted and a little unbelievable. I would work on that. I don't really buy that these strangers would call each other 'dear' (or that she would call him 'dear,' rather). "I cannot keep up with his demands" isn't explained (unless I missed it, or some hint of it), which stuck out. and I didn't believe it when he was so forthcoming with her about his desire to have her stay.
-"some illegal ivory figurines" what figurines would be illegal?
-the bit about the squirrels should be too ridiculous to work (like that asinine bit about the parrot in The Awakening), but it's funny and it makes sense with his perspective.

in conclusion, I loved it. it was really strong, great narrative voice. real longing. where did this come from, out of curiousity?
the only issue I had with it was the dialogue. other than that, awesome work, I'll definitely read more.

- Ed