A Wonderful Life Read online

  So, she decided to chance it and take the left closet door, although she walked the middle wooden panel of the floor, her heels clicking as she took each step forward, reverberating off the floor like an army of unsuspecting soldiers about to enter an ambush of which there will be no escape.

  Once at the middle of the closet, she walked slowly down the closet length until she came to the left door, and with much creaking and dragging, she pulled the closet door open.

  And there he was.

  The man stared back at her hidden behind the same black dress she wore to the Black and White Ball just last year, but he did not pounce on her as she suspected he might. Instead, he stared and made no move, his body hidden behind the safety of the raven dress with his head sticking out from its side. But he made no move.

  “Why are you here?” she said, gathering up her courage to finally speak.

  The man said nothing, but just stared back, almost as if he was as scared as she was. Then his eyes broke away from her stare and glanced at the contents of her closet.

  Beneath the dresses and shoes and shirts and pants and other accoutrements of her closet where the remains of the last five men to have visited her home in the past, although this individual in the closet was probably the first to have come in uninvited.

  But no matter.

  “Again, why are you here? Most men don’t reach the closet until long after the first time they visit here.”

  Again, the man said nothing, although the look on his face told him that perhaps this was the wrong home to break into.

  The End

  THE NAME

  It was in the summer of my second year at the company when I saw her for the first time. I didn’t know how long she had been working there, although I thought I knew the face of every attractive woman in the place. Then she came into my life, and I’ve never quite recovered.

  In two years, I was on slow track to seniority in this company. Most upwardly mobile employees made their mark in the first few months, but not me. I was just coasting along. I probably should have just left and found a better job, but when I saw her, I was locked into a blindness where I could see no future but the present I was living in. I blame her, but it was really me who was at fault.

  She was beautiful. There’s no getting around that. But she wasn’t gorgeous in that supermodel kind of way. No, she was divine in that innocent, I-don’t-know-I’m-beautiful state of being. She had long black hair that covered the small of her back, an impervious smile that carried her everywhere she went, and eyes that stared into you as if they could speak and always seemed to know the right thing to say. It sounds really ridiculous now, but I truly believed she was an angel sent down for reasons even she didn’t understand.

  I didn’t know her name; that was the problem. I asked around the company, and everyone recognized her description, but no one actually knew who she was or where in the company she worked. Granted, it was a large company. Still, it seems strange even now that no one could ever tell me who she was.

  I lived and breathed the same air as her at least twice a week. It was in the lunchroom, and she would sit in the far corner with her packed lunch. Sometimes, it would be a homemade sandwich she would unwrap from double-wrapped cellophane as she pulled at the plastic wrap slowly in what looked like a trance, the sandwich freed millimeter by millimeter as she took her sweet time releasing it. Other times it would be a Tupperware container of sushi or something like that. She would always sit alone, reading her newspaper, and she would keep to herself, almost as if there was nothing else she needed. Or anyone.

  So I continued inquiring about her. I was convinced that someone had to know who she was. There were some guys in my department who had reputations for knowing who every woman in the company was, and if they didn’t know who a woman was, that meant the woman didn’t exist. So I went to them.

  I guess she didn’t exist because they didn’t know her either.

  Then I started to notice strange things about her. I began to notice she was never there when I was with anyone else. At first, I didn’t make the connection, but then I wanted to point her out to others, to see if they knew who she was. Whenever those moments happened, I realized that I was alone, that there wasn’t a single person in the lunchroom I knew, except for perhaps the one woman I wanted to know, yet about which I knew very little.

  Yet, I couldn’t gather up the courage to just go and talk to her. Somehow, common sense tells me that I could have probably ended years of this silence had I just walked over and introduced myself to her right at the beginning. But I never did. Instead, I watched her enter the lunchroom, sit in her usual seat, and every now and then, if I were lucky, she would catch my eye and smile. My god, I lived for those special moments.

  One day I came really close. I saw her sitting there at her table eating her sandwich, and I told myself that I was going to go over and talk to her, that I was going to do the one thing I hadn’t allowed myself to do, even though there should never have been anything stopping me. But when I reached her table, I sailed on by and made my way to the dessert line, grabbing a piece of apple pie and kicking myself all the way back to my own table.

  There were days when I decided to give it all up. And then she would do that one thing that always pulled me right back in. She would smile. It was those moments when she would smile at me and for an instance our eyes would meet that I realized how hooked she had me. My life was practically hers, and she didn’t even know it.

  I didn’t know a lot of women before her. I mean, I dated from time to time, but even after having sex, I don’t think I ever really knew any of them. This woman, however, seemed so different. Even though I knew absolutely nothing about her, and I assume she knew or cared little about me as well, I felt that she was the first woman I truly knew everything about without having to even meet her.

  I knew where she worked. I knew what she ate for lunch every day. I even believed that I knew what her hopes and aspirations were; I could tell that by the way she would smile at me. And if you asked me to tell exactly what those hopes and aspirations were, I don’t think I could give you an answer, but were she in front of me at this moment, I would probably tell everything up front, not getting a single answer wrong. Then again, if she was in front of me, I would probably lose all ability to speak, and the cycle would start all over again.

  But I didn’t know her name. That bothered me for a long time. Then I realized that this was part of the allure of this woman. It wasn’t that I didn’t know her name, but I realized she wanted me to discover her name. That had to be it. It was kind of Rumpelstilzkin in reverse, except there was no threat of losing children I didn’t have if I got the answer wrong.

  So I made up names for her. My first instinct was to call her Anastasia. I could see her as a Russian noblewoman, that long black mane indicating her superior status to the rest of the world. The Cossacks would hang on her every word, knowing that her choices would usher in a new Russia, and the world would remember her stories and legends for centuries if not thousands of years. She would have the name of Anastasia, but she would be too humble to be called by such a distinguished name and would ask all of her friends to call her Stasia, or perhaps Tasha, or Natashia, although Natashia would probably be just as distinguishable as Anastasia itself which would defeat her purpose, so most likely she’d go with Tasha.

  Then a couple of weeks went by, and I started to realize that she didn’t really look like a Tasha, or an Anastasia for that matter. There was definite nobility to her, but it didn’t seem to be the Holy Roman Empire type. No, I started to see her as more of an English enchantress, someone who might take the name of Elizabeth, much like the two queens of the same name. Noblemen would drop their cloaks over mud and let her walk across them for her honor and station, and she would be grateful. Her station would require that she accept such gestures, and with a woman as charming as Elizabeth how could a nobleman not surrender in such a chivalrous manner? And again, she would be too humb
le to be called by such a grandiose name and title, so she would probably shorten it to Liz. I could even hear her saying: “Thank you, Sir Knight, but Liz is quite fine.” It was then that I realized in the years that I’ve known Tasha, or Liz, that I’d never heard her speak.

  So I started trying to sit closer to her so that I could hear her speak for the first time. It became a fetish with me, wanting to hear her voice, even if just once. I would get closer and closer to her table on the days when she would show up, although I noticed that the tables closer to her were always occupied. So I started showing up earlier and earlier, and finally, one day I was able to get a table that was right behind hers, so that if she spoke a single word, I would most definitely hear it.

  That day at lunch, I listened intently, but all I heard was the rustling of her lunch bag, the unwrapping of cellophane and then the sounds of her eating with great etiquette. I listened, and that’s all I heard.

  It wasn’t hard to figure out that someone who never ate with anyone was probably not going to have a lot to say, so after those long sixty minutes, I never learned how sweet her voice might have been.

  Many more months went by, and I still never had the opportunity to get any closer to her. By this time, her name was Vicky, short for Victoria Crescente Gabriella, and I was already beginning to suspect that this was not her name either. I had taken to staring at her from across the room and not eating. I couldn’t even concentrate on food whenever she was in the same room.

  I guess the only reason I continued in this job that I really didn’t like was the fact that I was able to have lunch across the room with the object of my infatuation two or three times a week. It was when I finally realized that this was wrong, that I was never going to meet her, and that my whole life was being consumed by this overbearing act that I had never taken that I decided something had to be done.

  I walked into my boss’s office and I asked him if there was any reason why I was remaining at this company. He stared back at me in surprise, as I had never questioned my position before. I think he figured I was always just happy to have the job. His response was less than grand, so I surprised him even further and told him that I would be quitting in the next two weeks. Before he could talk me out of it, if that would have been his intention, I left his office and went to take my lunch break.

  There she was, sitting on the other side of the lunchroom. Gathering up my courage, I picked up my lunch tray and walked over to her table. Allowing my best smile, I spoke, my words practically exploding as they raced to get out of my mouth. “I know this is going to sound really strange, but I’ve been watching you over there, and I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I joined you.”

  She didn’t even respond. She just motioned to the seat across from her, and I sat down.

  I looked around and noticed that no one I knew was in the lunchroom. It was as it always was. I was alone with her with only my memory as a witness.

  I was shaking as I tried to shovel a spoonful of rice in to my mouth. Then, quickly, I spoke again. “Like I said, I know this is going to sound strange to you, but I’ve wanted to meet you for a long time.”

  She just smiled and said nothing.

  This was going well, but it wasn’t going as planned. For years, I had this fantasy of how this first meeting would go, and the reality paled far beneath the fantasy. “My name is Mark.”

  She nodded. But again, no words.

  “May I ask your name?” I said.

  She answered, but not the question I had asked. Her voice was light, sweet, like a thistle bloom falling through the air without a sound, without any weight. It was even more beautiful than I had ever imagined. “I wondered how long it was going to take you to finally speak to me,” she said.

  Hearing her voice was like listening to a thousand angels sing the universe’s most treasured song. I was almost too moved to speak. But I had come too far to stop now. “I put in my two weeks notice today. But I had to talk to you before leaving. This may not make sense, but meeting you was very important to me.”

  She nodded in total understanding. “My name is Anne. I’m glad we finally met.”

  “Anne?” I said. “Is that short for anything?”

  “No,” she replied. “That’s all there is.”

  The End

  SIMPLE GIRL

  Sung-Hui stepped into the store and stomped on the rubber mat, pounding the snow from her boots. She avoided the condescending glares from the other customers, realizing some things never change.

  She was a quiet, unstylish, soft little woman. She was attractive; her hair was simply washed and worn naturally while she dressed in hand-me down clothing from thrift stores, even though she never looked decrepit in her appearance. From time to time, men would watch her walk down the town streets, but rarely did anyone ever approach her. Attractive was one thing; available was another. To everyone that knew her, and in a town of medium size, a lot of people knew her, she was left to her own devices as someone often is when people feel someone is beneath them for reasons real and unjust.

  Sung-Hui was known by a great number of the people in town; yet, it was quite possible that no one ever really knew anything about her other than what people relayed during idle gossip. And while this didn’t bother Sung-Hui any, it did set the tone for how the rest of the town felt about her.

  “Why fight the storm?” she said to the clerk in the post office. “It will just blow you over.”

  The postal clerk would smile at her, take her money and then sigh to herself. “Wind or sleet,” she replied. “Wind or sleet.”

  And Sung-Hui would just smile back at her, knowing the postal clerk would never understand. And then, embracing the child within, she would skip home, convinced that only she truly understood the true nature of the storm.

  The people of the town would often say things like: “Poor Sung-Hui. She’s such a simple girl.” And they would feel sorry for her. Or they would ridicule her behind her back.

  As Sung-Hui left the corner convenience store, several customers and the cashier watched her leave.

  “Something not right with that girl,” said Harold, a computer software salesman and long-time customer of Rick’s Convenient Store since first moving to the town from a larger city where he left to escape the used car business.

  Rick just nodded and loaded Harold’s newly bought mousetrap into a plastic bag. He was used to hearing comments and stories concerning Sung-Hui over the last couple of years since her arrival in the city, so he usually didn’t have much to add.

  “She’s downright freaky,” said Rebecca, a twenty-something wannabe fashion model who worked for several of the downtown department stores. Since junior high school, she knew she was going to be a well-paid model and, as expected, she was well on her way to achieving that goal.

  Rick just nodded again. Then he handed the plastic bag to Harold. “Did you get those snow chains you were talking about last week?”

  He nodded. “The last ones broke near Donner’s Trail, so hopefully these will do the trick.”

  Rick nodded and then glanced out the four-part window. “It’s going to be a bad winter.”

  “The worst,” interrupted Rebecca, not about to be left out of the conversation. “It took me half an hour to start my car this afternoon. I almost ended up walking here instead.”

  “It’s too cold for walking,” said Harold. He glanced out the window and saw Sung-Hui traversing the snow on the other side of the street. “Poor woman should buy herself a car.”

  Rebecca and Rick nodded together.

  Sung-Hui was not oblivious to the words of those around her, but she only smiled when she heard them.

  When she reached home, she unloaded her bag that she used to carry rice from the convenient store. Rick had given up trying to give her plastic bags because she always unloaded them before she left and filled up her own bag. It was only as she was placing the rice on the counter that she remembered she forgot to buy milk. With a sigh, she realized she
would have to return tomorrow.

  Placing the bags of rice on a cupboard shelf, she walked into the living room and sat down to read a horror novel she purchased in a used bookstore on her way home from Rick’s Convenient Store.

  She chose the book because of the cover rather than the blurb concerning the story. The cover was of a dark, dreary house with an opened window and a young woman staring out the window at a full moon. There was no violence on the cover, but from the somber, overwhelming darkness of the drawing it was obvious that something terrible was going to happen in this particular story. That’s how she usually chose most of the books she read.

  As she read, the shutters on her living room windows started to shake and then opened and closed in a very slow, monotonous manner. For a moment, Sung-Hui was startled by the continuous banging sound, causing an eerie disposition no doubt enhanced by the horrific story she was reading. And then she smiled. “It’s just the shutters,” she said as she went back to her book.

  Half an hour later, she began to feel cold. Glancing at the fireplace, she determined there was enough firewood stacked next to the flaming log. She knew she would not have to gather any more from the pile stacked outside the back door.

  As she read further, she heard trees start to pound against the side of her house, swaying the wrong way in the wind. A wind whistle intensified and quickly the snowflakes that fell outside her window turned to chunks of snow and hail that started to descend from the heavens. As she reached the halfway point of her novel, the snow could be heard as it pounded on the roof, compacting itself as the temperature continued to drop to lower and lower levels.