"A Distant Shore"

"So. Here we are," Anna said.

Martin and Anna sat at the edge of the little pier, dangling their sandaled feet just over the water so that every third wave or so would lap at their toes.

"Here we are." Martin didn't look at Anna. But he didn't have to. He knew that he'd see her blue eyes staring out over bay, the corners of her mouth crinkled just so, they way she did when she tried to suppress a smile. He knew she was wearing that paisley sundress, the one with the spaghetti straps, and that the morning sun was glistening off her tanned shoulder and that if he looked he'd want to run his fingers over her skin and lay his palm across her collar bone and wait in silent hope for her to tense in refusal or slide closer in casual assent...

"You didn't call last night. I thought you were going to slip out of here without..." Anna said.

"Yeah, well. Maybe that would have been better."

"Better for who?"

"Whom."

"Whom? No one says 'whom'. Not out loud."

They sat silently. Tied to wooden post next to Martin, the sailboat bobbed. Windy day. Good sailing weather.

"I suppose," Anna said, "you won't be able to correct anyone's grammar out there." She fingered a pendant between her fingers. It was an opal held by a greying silver chain. Martin had found it among his mother's effects, and gave it to Anna on the occasion of their first year together. She rubbed the stone with her thumb, and looked to the sky.

"I guess not," Martin said. "Anna, I... this isn't personal. You know that, right?"

"Everything is personal, honey."

"What I'm saying is that, you know, I have to do this."

"No you don't. But you're going to." Anna smiled, and brushed away a single tear. She sniffed, and looked Martin in the eyes. "It's OK."

"Really? Is it really OK?"

"No, not really," she said, and stood up. Martin closed his eyes and imagined grabbing her legs, clinging to her like a three-year-old. Anna took off the necklace and held her hand out to Martin.

"I've made my choice," she said. "What's yours?"

Martin stared into her blue eyes for a long moment. Their first kiss had been on a morning just like this one. They hadn't slept all night, just sat on the beach, staring at the ocean and each other, reveling in the perfect conversation, each afraid to break the spell. Finally, the sun rose in an orange wave and he reached out and brushed her cheek with his hand and her lips with his and, later, as their shadows began to lengthen and then disappear they left, hand in hand.

Martin closed his eyes. He knelt down and unwrapped the rope that tied the boat to the pier. Anna gripped closed her hand around the pendant and threw it as far as she could into the ocean.

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"A Clean, Well Lighted Place" - A Comic

NOTE FROM CHRONIC, The Author:

I've been trying my hand at writing comic book scripts over at PencilJack, and having a lot of fun with it. I connected with a terrific illustrator, who drew up a script 'o' mine, which was an odd, possibly funny (though Mrs. Chronic didn't think so) little slice of life/horror story. 'Twas the first time I've ever had a script illustrated, and I'm quite pleased with the results... enjoy!

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"Burrito Dreams"

I had a burrito for lunch today and I think I'm going to pay. It was what "Burrito del Soul" calls an "Especial", stuffed with guacamole, cheese, pico de gallo and chopped steak, wrapped in tortilla about as big as my thigh.

I actually brought my lunch today -- leftovers from last nights stir fry in a Tupperware bowl -- but I couldn't face it. Just had to get out of the office. So I emptied the bowl in the trash and rinsed it out so the wife would think I was saving eight bucks today. It's the little lies that get you through the day sometimes.

Like last week, when I was sitting at Burrito del Soul, eating this very same Especial, munching on nachos, sipping a soda and mulling the Sudoku puzzle when this woman walks by. I call her Jane. I call her Jane because she looks like this character named Jane in an American version of a British TV show that was on air a few years ago for about the blink of an eye. Jane is dark haired and curvy, with big blue eyes and a penchant for wearing bright red lipstick and tight white sweaters or loose button-down tops and pants that hug those curvy hips.

I don't know Jane, but I've ridden the elevator with her a few times -- up to the 47th floor, down to the parking garage. One of those characters you see all the time who you never talk to but you make up stuff about just for fun. I'm a married guy, you know? I don't just go chatting up women. There's only one reason to chat them up, you know?

So Jane ends up sitting one table over facing me. She's got her own soda and one of those taco salad tostada bowls, and she's by herself reading this chick lit book about a young mom whose husband cheats on her and she ends up reviving her life and getting to choose between four different suitors, including that skunk of an ex husband. Hey, my wife read it...I was just looking over her shoulder, okay?

Anyway, I'm looking at Jane and she looks up, I catch her eye and I smile and nod, because that's what you do when you see someone you recognize but don't know and you know that she knows she's seen you before but doesn't know you either. And she knows that too so she smiles and nods and goes back to her book and I go back to my Sudoku. And then I look up again and for some reason say:

"That Chad sure is a bastard, isn't he?"

Now, you see, that's not a pickup line. Because no one man in his right mind would broadcast the fact that he'd read this trashy chick novel, and no woman would be impressed by this. At best, she'd assume you didn't go for the opposite sex. At worst...let's not go there.

"What?" she says back with a 'you talkin' to me?' sort of look.

"Chad ... in that book ... can you believe she'd even think of taking him back?" Then she laughs, which was what I was going for. Anything for a laugh some days, you know?

"Well, they were married for seven years. There's a bond there."

"Yeah, but if I'd slept with one of my employees in my wife's bed ... I'm pretty sure my wife would call that 'unforgivable'." See, I even mention my wife here.

"Well, may she just 'didn't understand him'," Jane says, still smiling. I laugh back.

"You'd make a great girlfriend," I say and suddenly get this shiver through my whole body...and I mean my whole body.

"Too bad," she says, smiling and holding up her left hand to show off the silver band there, the silver band I had, of course, noted the very first time I'd seen her in the elevator on the way to the 47th floor.

I can't speak, so I just smile and laugh a short, breathy laugh. She shakes her head and goes back to her book. I look back at my newspaper and shove a nacho into my mouth. I'm gonna pay for this.

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"Sign of the Times"

"Here ye! Here ye!"

"No, no. It's 'Hear ye!'"

"That's what I said."

"No you didn't. You said 'Here ye! Here ye!"

"You're telling me there's a difference in what I said and what you said?"

"Well, yes, of course. In the first instance, you are, perhaps, calling people over to speak, crying 'over here! over here!' You're speaking of a place aren't you?"

"I suppose, but..."

"Now, in the second instance, you're crying 'Attend to me! Listen! For I have news! Hear, ye, to the important tidings which I bear."

"Bare? Far from it, I'd say. As a matter of fact, I'm rather sweaty in this ridiculous costume. But the king requires it, so that is what I wear."

"What are you talking about? Where?"

"Well, right here, in fact."

"I'm sorry. What did you hear?"

"I said that I'm right here. That's what I said."

"Well, I'm not sure I should write anything here, but if you have a quill and some ink, I'm sure I could scribble out something for you."

"What were we talking about again?"

"Your town crying. You're spelling your cries wrong."

"I most certainly am not."

"You are."

"I think we'll just have to agree to disagree."

"I disagree. I'll do nothing of the sort."

"I can't here you...."

"Stop that!"

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