Category: short fiction

Layover | Simon Ashton

“‘Scuse me, but are you alright?”

Kirsty felt very fucking far from alright. Between the jet lag and the fluorescent lights, her brain was untethered from time and had given up guessing what hour it was. Her mouth felt and tasted like an airport carpet. She wondered if throwing up would help or just add bile to the list of current indignities. Her best friend was back in London. The boyfriend that she kept forgetting was her ex-boyfriend was God knows where. Her plans were in tatters, her head was throbbing, and to top it all off some bastard in Bangkok International had stolen her laptop.

“Aye, I’m fine,” she said. 

“Choice. I’ll leave you to it.” He turned back to his phone.

He sat across from her in a row of seats divided by metal armrests which, Kirsty could attest, made it impossible to lie down. She felt rough, but he didn’t look much better. There were a couple of businessmen speaking Japanese at the end of his row. Their perfectly tailored suits and excellent posture provided a stark contrast.

He was unshaven in a way that suggested circumstance rather than intention. His T-shirt had seen many better days. Below that, faded cargo shorts, possibly once black, gave way to the dingy cast covering his left leg from foot to thigh. 

Back home she’d have told him she had a boyfriend and cheery-bye. But she didn’t have a boyfriend, and she was as far from home as she’d ever been. She hadn’t spoken to anyone but airport staff in a couple of days. Besides, he wasn’t a threat; with that cast he’d be pretty easy to shove over. 

Kirsty wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Do you have any tissues, by the way?”

He looked up and smiled, “Chur, bro,” and tossed her a small travel pack.

“Cheers. And paracetamol? I’m feeling a bit peely-wally.”

He fished in his bag. “Here you go. Had a big one on the turps, eh?”

“You a Kiwi?”

“Very good.” he smiled. “Most guess Aussie, but you’re right. Dunedin. South Island.”

“Little trick I learned living in London. Aussies don’t care if you think they’re from New Zealand, but Kiwis get pissy if you think they’re from Oz. Same thing with North Americans; guess Canadian and you’ll save yourself a lot of lectures.”

“And you must be Welsh?”

“Get tae fuck! Ah’m fae Scotland!” Kirsty spat back, her accent strengthening with each syllable.

He smiled. “I know. Just my little joke. I’m Matt.”

“Kirsty.”

It was supposed to be her new start, the big trip to Asia. Fiona’s idea. Best way to get over a break-up, she said. 

“It’d be a lot cheaper to just pick up some gadge and have him shag me senseless.”

“Only in the short term,” Fiona countered, “But then you’d be back to scrolling his Insta and crying into your Deliveroo. Look, you’ve got savings, you’re young and unencumbered, this is the way. Trust. Fuck January in this country! This is no place to change your outlook, I mean, seriously?” She gestured to the damp park around them – mud and cold, bare trees and puddles. 

“Whereas, a week’s R and R in Thailand? And Bangkok’s a hub – from there you could pop over to Hong Kong for a bit of shopping therapy, or sushi in Tokyo, elephants in Laos, whatever you fancy. Doesn’t that sound more appealing?”

And, Kirsty had to admit, it did.

This wasn’t the plan, Kirsty thought, as she tossed the pills into her mouth and swallowed them with the last gulp of her water. 

Matt looked at her. “Not being rude, but you look like death warmed up.”

“Jesus, none taken. Naw, I’m fine. Just… yeah. Having a bit of a time of it.”

“If you fancy talking, I’ve got a couple of hours then you’ll never see me again. The priest in the confessional.” He saw her smile drop. “Oh shit. You’re not religious? I didn’t mean…”

“Naw, it’s just…priests. When I was wee…a priest… Haha! Your face! I’m just fucking with you. C’mon, grab your crutches. I’ll let you buy me a drink, Father. Hair of the dog.”

There was an American-themed sports bar a short distance down the concourse. They ordered a couple of Thai beers and grabbed a booth, Matt hoiking his injured leg onto the laminated plastic bench.

“What happened there then?” she nodded at the cast.

“I’ve been telling people it was rugby – gotta act the part – but as we’re mates now, I should be honest.” He adopted an accent that would have made Steve Irwin blush, “Fair dinkum, I was attacked by a ‘roo.”

“That’s Australia, mate.”

He laughed. “Busted. Nah, there’s no great story. I walked into traffic in Manila. Told my friends to continue the trip without me, while I spent yonks alone in the hospital. But it’s all good now. Flew from there to here this morning, fly out at six.”

“Where you headed?”

“Meeting the lads in Berlin next. You?”

Kirsty sighed. Where was she headed?

Usually, she kept her calendar sectioned off into blocks of colour, like an overly-stressed Mondrian. She liked to know where she was and where she was going next: gym, coffee with Fiona, all staff meeting, birthday drinks with Denise. She blocked off time for sex with Sean as ‘movie night’, or ‘lunch date’ if he was lucky. All of it written down, right at her fingertips.
If she looked at it now, it would tell her she was en route to Koh Phangan. And she would yell, “Do I fucking look like I’m en route to Koh Phangan?!” 

There’d been a Tube strike in London so getting to Heathrow had been a nightmare. The plane to Zurich was late due to icy fog. Then her connecting flight to Bangkok was further delayed while the luggage handlers loaded the backlog. By the time she arrived in Thailand and made it through immigration, 23 hours after leaving her house, she had missed the domestic flight. 

“So, I bought some whisky in the Duty Free, found an empty corner to sit in, and had myself a wee pity party. At some point I fell asleep, and when I woke up my laptop was gone. Which was bad enough, but the fuckers finished the last of my whisky too. Although it’s possible that was me. Anyway, you know what us Scots say about the best laid plans of mice and men.”

“They ‘gang aft agley’,” Matt continued the poem.

“Fuck off!” Kirsty laughed, “You know Robert Burns?”

“Know him? We have a statue of him in Dunedin.”

Kirsty raised an eyebrow

“Seriously. He has his back to the church and he’s facing a pub.”

“Aye, that’s him. Well, he wasn’t wrong. My plans have gone the fuck agley. I was just considering whether to jump on the next flight home when you stuck your nose in.”

“I’m glad I did. Let’s have another, then I’ve got something I need to show you.”

“Cool. But I’m telling you now, if it’s your dick I’ll break your other leg.”

Matt laughed. “No, it’s even better. Swear.”

One more became two, which became three, with some food. They talked families, schools, films, music. Drinking, smoking, and other drugs. They covered travel, where they’d been, who they liked to meet abroad (the Irish, in small doses; Malaysians), who they didn’t (the English, obviously; Americans, even more so), where they wanted to visit.

“After Berlin, I’d like to see the other capitals: London, Dublin, Edinburgh. Paris, obviously”

“You know, I’ve never been to Paris? I think that was part of why we broke up, Sean and me.”

“He dumped you because you’ve never been to Paris?!”

Kirsty laughed.

“First off, he didn’t dump me, it was mutual. And no, I meant because he’s a snob. We never went to Spain, we went to ‘Catalonia’, or even better the ‘Basque Country’. He said he wouldn’t be caught dead in Paris. Too touristy’.”

“But it’s one of the world’s great cities; everyone loves Paris! Picasso. Hemmingway…”

“Daft Punk. Charlie Parker.”

“Oscar Wilde. Jim Morrison.”

“Hitler?” Kirsty offered.

Matt snorted. “Exactly!”

Of course, that wasn’t the reason for the break-up. She knew that. It was one of a hundred reasons. Yet she had still been crushed. She was doing it all as she was supposed to: school, uni, work, boyfriend. Check, check, check, check. She assumed life would continue in the same vein: fiancé, wedding, house, babies. 

Sean had his own plans though. Ones that might’ve included her – but not mortgages, definitely not babies.

Instead he moved out. 

Now here she was, semi-drunk with a stranger in an airport that wasn’t even meant to be a stop.

 “Shit! Look at the time,” Matt said. “We’ve got to get a wriggle on. Reckon we could cadge a wheelchair around here?”

With a lot of miming and broken English, a staff member wheeled one over, laughing as he did so. Matt directed her. Down this hallway. Turn here. Elevator. Roof level. More hallways.

“You do this a lot?” Kirsty wheezed. “Pick up wee lassies in airports and have them roll you around?”

“You’re my first. You’re killing it though, a natural.” He motioned to a door that looked exactly like every other door. “Here we go.”

It opened to a small glass-covered rooftop courtyard, maybe twenty meters by ten. There were four stone benches dotted around a miniature pond, amid ceramic pots of ficus and ferns. The sunlight slanted through the glass, leaves casting sharp little shadows across the pebbled floor. There was a scent of cut wood and mint.

Kirsty’s exhausted, confused brain seemed to stutter for a moment, her jaw dropping open in wonder.

“Isn’t this unreal?” Although there was nobody around, Matt was whispering. “It’s for the airport staff to come and pray or whatever.”

They were quiet for a minute. 

“You know,” Matt said, his voice still low, “I didn’t tell you the whole story about this.” He gestured to his cast. 

“I’d made a big show of not being bothered, insisting my friends carry on and I’d see them in Europe. But the hospital was a fucking nightmare. The food was half-deadly. I couldn’t walk, barely slept, and the bedpan,” He shuddered. “I got depressed. I was lonely and mad at the universe. I was supposed to be diving with whale sharks or whatever. Living. But there I was, lying on this bloody cot, listening to some bloke snore so loud it was like he was taking the piss.”

He paused. Looked up at Kirsty.

“But mostly I was scared. Proper scared. Like, what if this was it? What if my big, brilliant adventure just… stopped? I’d made all these plans, y’know? Places I was supposed to go. Things I was supposed to do. None of them involved carking it in a Filipino hospital where nobody knew my name.”

Kirsty swallowed, choking back the recognition she felt.

“But then,” he said, a smile returning to the corners of his mouth, “I remembered this place. 

“I was on a layover a couple of years back, heading to Mum’s for Christmas and got talking to this guy from Nepal who worked in one of the shops here. He had nothing, really. Sent every penny home to his family. But he’d come here at the end of every shift and just…chill for a bit. Said it quieted his mind, made him thankful. It’s so peaceful, y’know? Listen.”

Kirsty listened.

It was incredible. In the middle of one of the busiest airports in the world, it was practically silent. She felt the weightlessness of a kid shrugging off a school bag.

“I thought about it every day when I was in the hospital. I don’t know why this place. I’ve seen nicer gardens. Maybe it’s magic – or my subconscious was imagining it was. Maybe it was just the quiet. Doesn’t matter. Whatever it was, I’d try to picture what it would be like to be here. Like, if I could just survive the hospital, I’d come back and sit here for a while. Just be.” 

He looked up at Kirsty, giving her space to mock. She said nothing, just looked at him, the sunlight catching in her lashes.

“I know, it sounds so New Age wanky, it’s a bloody airport garden. But it kept me going. I realized sometimes plans just change. Why fight it? Maybe it’s okay to just be where you are for a bit.”

The words hung between them, as weighty as the stone bench and as light as the sun all at once.

Back downstairs, Kirsty continued to push the wheelchair until they arrived at his gate. Six hours earlier she hadn’t set eyes on him. Now she had to say goodbye? What the fuck?

“So,” Kirsty said.

“So,” Matt replied.

“Really, thank you for showing me your magic airport garden. I needed this.”

“And I’m glad I crashed your pity party. It’s not every day I get to meet a girl who can swear like a sailor and recite poetry.”
“Too fucking right. I’m one of a kind.”

Matt stood to hug her as Kirsty reached out to shake his hand. For the first time that day, things felt awkward. Forced.

“Well, enjoy Europe.”
“Enjoy Asia. You’re sticking around, I hope?”

“Might as well. I’ve no other plans. Find a hut on the beach. Just… be.” Kirsty winked, but she wasn’t ridiculing. She meant it.

They swapped WhatsApps and wished each other well. Goodbyes were so cringe. 

Matt wheeled himself away.

****

A few days later a newly suntanned Kirsty picked up her phone. She considered it for a moment before returning it to the shelf by her bed. Instead, she turned and walked toward the ocean. 

The sand’s warmth felt therapeutic on her feet. The waves, so gentle they were barely waves at all, kissed the edge of the beach. She walked in, beyond waist height, then submerged.

Kirsty lay on her back, letting the salty ocean take her weight, and watched the white clouds moving so slowly overhead. The scent of pine trees mixed with her coconut sunscreen. She stayed like that for an age, just floating, before returning to her beach hut. 

She wrapped herself in a towel, then finally, for the first time in days, opened her phone to the calendar. There was a lot of white. She blocked off three days, two weeks from now, and composed a text.

-Kia ora, mate! Turns out I’m going to Paris in a couple of weeks. Coincidentally, right around the time you’ll be there. There’s a wee garden near Notre Dame that sounds right up your street. I don’t suppose you’d like to Just Be there with me for a while?

Kirsty stared at the screen. Her thumb hovered. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it didn’t matter. She smiled to herself. Maybe it didn’t have to. She pressed send.

There was barely a delay before her phone pinged in response.

about the author:

Take Me Through the Finish | Tom Ziemer

He’s having another meltdown.

I know I should stay. I can’t stay.

I try to calm him one last time, try to coax him into belly breathing with me, try to force his blaring nervous system into some semblance of order. It’s no use.

“If I have to stay here, I’ll die, DAD,” he wails, sounding more like a toddler than the 7-year-old he is.

I can’t always tell if his tears are genuine or forced, desperate attempts to manipulate.

I want to run my hands through his hair, the same wavy, auburn locks I had when I was a kid, feel his arms wrap around my back the way they do the few times a year he willingly hugs me.

I want to grab him, will his body to stillness, shut him up, tell him how spoiled he is.

It’s all so confusing sometimes, the pushes and pulls of parenthood—especially with my son. 

He’s introduced me to all sorts of new terms over these past few years: neurodivergent, executive functioning, stimming. I had already heard of autism, of course, had seen the ravings of the anti-vaxxer conspiracy theorists who decided their internet research taught them more than medical school. I’ve only got an associate’s degree, but I guess I’m smart enough to sniff out bullshit peddlers. Either that or they just remind me of my dad.

Right now, though, I have to get to my second job, the only one I truly care about. Or at least I tell myself I have to work; I don’t know if it’s work or an escape at this point.

“Kirby, if you calm down, I’ll get you a snack,” my mom says in an annoying sing-songy voice, as if she’s talking to a puppy.

“Bye, bud,” I say. “Wish me luck.”

He doesn’t, just looks at me with a tearful scowl.

I grab my suitcase, roll it down the hall, through the kitchen, and out the side door of our story-and-a-half house, the screen door bumping against my shoulder as I clumsily try to retract the bag’s handle.

I load the black bag, one that’s accompanied me through the methy river towns and cornfield oases of the Midwest, into the trunk of my Ford Taurus, climb into the driver’s seat, and pull on my cheap neon-green plastic sunglasses. I shake my head and let out an audible sigh as I turn the key in the ignition and the dependable six-cylinder engine growls to life.

Will this ever get easier?

Enough with my single-dad problems. Time to kick some ass.

…

This crowd hates me. Which means I’m doing my job.

They boo and holler insults, most of which I can’t make out. It’s background noise; I’m too busy concentrating on the 200-pound guy in royal blue spandex across from me, trying to remember our carefully planned choreography. We need to take these people on a ride, let them think they know what’s coming, then dash their hopes. Thrill them, then leave them wanting more, so they’ll come back to this dumpy old American Legion hall next month.

My opponent, a young guy named Fulton from Chicago, stumbles out of the corner, ducks my flailing arm and kicks me in the midsection. He’s supposed to grab my head around his bicep, run up the corner ropes, and flip backward, sending me crashing to the mat. Shiranui, they call it. Or Sliced Bread. Whichever you prefer, Fulton doesn’t get quite enough momentum launching off the turnbuckle, and it takes all the strength in my lower back to heave him over my head and sell the move.

“Thanks,” he mumbles under his breath after we slam onto the canvas and he covers me. I kick out at two, push him into the ref, a guy named Nick who’s been around Dairyland Wrestling since I started helping out back in high school. With Nick temporarily stunned in the corner, I drive my right arm between Fulton’s legs for a low blow that outrages the crowd. It’s rare that I win clean these days.

Then I hoist tonight’s challenger onto my back and swing him around, dropping him to meet my lifted knee face-first. Nick recovers to slide down next to us and make it official.

One. Two. Three.

Before I stand and gloat, I whisper in Fulton’s ear. “All good. It gets easier.”

Then I’m up, grinning through exhaustion that’s both real and embellished, Nick raising my left arm and then handing me my belt.

The crowd bays. Kids a few years older than my son shout at me, tell me I suck. I wish Kirby could be here, yelling along with them, but we tried that once; it ended with him screaming and throwing popcorn until my mother could carry him out the back door.

A 30-something hipster in the front row claps for me, recognition I covertly soak in while glaring at him with indignation. A bearded guy wearing a Sting T-shirt tells me to go fuck myself, which is just as much of a compliment.

I walk toward the entrance, turn back to face the crowd, take in all the boos, bask in them, even, and hold up my prize.

It’s good to be the champ.

…

“Dad! I want some breakfast. Do we have bacon?”

My son expects a hot breakfast every morning, not the cereal I grew up munching while my mom got herself ready for work. If it were up to him, I’d fry bacon day after day and he’d eat only meat like the carnivorous dinosaurs he obsesses over. And then he’d shit bricks into our toilet for me to unclog.

He seems to have no idea I’m scrambling to get us going each weekday, get him packed and dressed for school, and make myself look at least presentable for my day job. Maybe I secretly want him to live that carefree … I sure as hell didn’t as a kid.

My back aches from last night’s exertions, so I pop a couple ibuprofen that will, in turn, make my stomach sore because I haven’t had time to eat breakfast. I’ll wait to take my Prozac until after I’ve mowed down a breakfast sandwich from Kwik Trip.

Kirby’s frozen waffle pops up from the toaster, so I plop it onto a plate and drizzle syrup into the four wells at the center—only those, nowhere else—the way he likes it. He’s contentedly watching cartoons, a trance I should break to give him practice coming to get his own food. But I’m tired, physically and mentally, so I slide open the silverware drawer next to the sink and walk his plate into the living room. He’s standing two feet from the TV screen, remote in hand, bouncing on his toes.

“Breakfast, Kirb,” I say.

He takes the plate without looking away from the screen.

“Can I have some meat, Dad?” he asks while dropping into a seated position and spearing the whole waffle with his fork. It undoes my careful work with the syrup, which never seems to bother him once he takes possession of the waffle.

“Sorry, bud, we’re out of bacon and sausages. We can pick up some more after school.”

“I hate school,” he says reflexively.

I wince internally, because I know sitting in place and focusing for seven hours is even more taxing for him than it was for me. And yet what other choice do we have? He regularly babbles on about things he learns and imaginative scenarios he plays out with his buddy Jasper at recess.

“Remember what we say when someone brings us food?” I remind him before walking back into the kitchen to sip my coffee.

“Thanks,” he mumbles.

Twenty minutes later, after Kirby has brushed his teeth under my supervision and pulled on his preferred windpants (the non-scratchy ones) along with a Sonic the Hedgehog long-sleeve shirt, we’re out the door to run another weekday gauntlet.

I watch as he slowly buckles himself into his booster seat, strapped into the passenger’s side of the back so I can easily reach back and squeeze his leg while he’s absorbed in his own world. Most of the time, he just pulls his leg away.

We listen to rock music from the 90s and early 00s; it’s like a portal between our two worlds. He likes loud, heavy electric guitar riffs. Chris Cornell’s voice comes on the radio and I ask him if he knows who’s singing, trying to tap into a flash of knowledge he surprised me with at age 4.

“Dad, I just want to listen,” he says.

I back off, because I want to be the kind of dad who respects boundaries, even when it feels like I have to bounce between endless walls and constant harassment from him.

We drive along the riverfront, the reason Commerce became a town in the first place, now a neglected relic. If I ever make it big—or if one of the lottery tickets I buy every couple months hits the jackpot—maybe I’ll buy some of these buildings and revitalize them. Make it my thank you to my hometown, a more substantial display of gratitude than the performances I deliver at the Legion hall every month.

The trees are donning their fall costumes, putting on their own show for the people of Commerce. Kirby’s school is a 10-minute drive from our house, but I usually add a couple of minutes by taking this more scenic route. He should see the best version of his hometown. 

I park on the street, walk him to the classroom doors, and wave to his teacher, a 40-something woman with a dyed-blond pixie cut and tattoos on both arms. I wish my teachers had looked like her. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like such an outcast, more interested in drawing than playing football and self-conscious about needing speech therapy, while struggling to focus for tests.

I want to go home and sleep, but I have to go sell car insurance.

…

My music hits, but I wait until Kevin Martin’s voice reaches the chorus to stalk through the curtains, much to the chagrin of our crowd. My reputation precedes me, just like it always does, and I find I enjoy that. It’s predictable.

Boos ring out. A kid Kirby’s age stretches to give me five, but I just scoff at him, don’t even bother to fake him out by extending my hand and pulling it back. As the top heel, I’m above that sort of playful shit. I don’t need to build heat with little antics like some bottom-of-the-card act.

They used to cheer me, but I got bored with that. It was too basic, too simple. It couldn’t deliver that same sense of thrill I felt my first time in a ring down at wrestling school in Rockford at age 19. Don’t get me wrong—taking my first bump in the ring knocked the wind out of me, and I had bruises on my torso from hitting the ropes that first week. But I also felt something come alive in me, unlike anything I’d ever experienced. Better than sex, the way the buzz lingered in my brain and body for hours afterward.

Now, almost 20 years later, this might be one of the last times I make this walk to the ring and step through the top and middle ropes.

Ever since Kirby’s formal diagnosis six months ago—confirming what we had all suspected for a few years—I’ve been steeling myself for the end. On one hand, I need this outlet more than ever. On the other, how can I devote so much time, so much energy elsewhere? What kind of dad would that make me?

“I don’t think you guys are ready for this,” my dad told me when he learned of the pregnancy. Considering his own failings as a father, it was a laughable take, even if I knew, at some level, he was right. Then again, who really is ready?

Kirby’s mother, apparently intent on proving my dad omniscient, skipped town six months into motherhood, to no one’s surprise but mine.

“I can’t just be a fucking cow!” she yelled at me on the night she packed up her Mazda and left to self-medicate and reconnect with her ex in Ohio. It’s subsequently dawned on me that the way she bellowed sounded a bit like the heifers on my uncle’s farm in Albany growing up, the ones my cousins and I gawked at while they mounted each other.

Tanya had shown up in town after I finished up at the tech school. She was a year older than me, the first girl that approached me at a bar (even if she was drunk), and the first one who sucked my dick. Never mind that she didn’t seem to remember having done so the next morning.

Our on-again, off-again relationship was a one-night stand I insisted on trying to drag across the better part of six years. She could be sweet, waking up and making me breakfast the morning after a show. But she’d tune out my ramblings about my long-term career plans because she never seemed to have any herself. And when she drank, she’d go hard and turn mean.

The mornings after, she’d sober up and cry, tell me how she needed me, how her dad had hit her while her mom just sat there, stoned. I’m ashamed of how my pride swelled on those occasions, eclipsing the hurt from her inebriated insults and the pity I felt for her. I was wanted, unlike how I felt most of the time, probably a vestige of my dad moving out when I was 8 and only periodically showing interest in me before or after.

I guess it’s the same feeling I experienced the first few times I got in the ring in front of a live crowd, the same feeling I’m chasing when I pull Kirby into a hug and he wriggles free.

Just in case these are the last chops I’ll deliver, I add a little extra oomph, stinging the babyface’s overtanned chest. I used to spend money I didn’t have on spray tans and hour-long sessions in cancer-causing tanning beds, an expense I’m grateful to Kirby for forcing me to cut. I don’t need that shit anymore; I’ll let my wrestling sell me more than my looks. Which is probably why I’m working this Legion hall month after month instead of professional arenas.

I made it there once, back in my earlier days on the indies, had a tryout match with one of the big promotions in Milwaukee that ended with a blown spot. Everyone involved knew it wasn’t on me, but the other guy already had a contract and a body I could only dream of—or kill myself pursuing—with pecs that bounced and traps that cascaded like mountains.

When I roll out of the way of a moonsault and then hoist tonight’s hero on my back to steal another win, I feel numb and distant, as if I’m watching the finish of our match from above the ring.

I’m done.

…

Kirby’s occupational therapist greets us as we walk into the cinderblock and metal building sitting amid an endless cluster of bland offices on the southern outskirts of town. She’s a cute brunette named Carly who is far more skilled—and patient—when it comes to working with kids like mine. I know it, and so does Kirby. A flash of warmth glows in his big blue eyes when he sees her, before his social awkwardness extinguishes it. He only mutters hello back to her.

“Any updates?” she asks, turning to me.

She’s suspiciously nice, too nice for me to even fantasize about her like the pervert I am. I suspect that, deep down, she sees me as a meathead, the costume I present to the world to hide my inner nerdiness and other insecurities.

“We’re still trying out some of your emotional regulation strategies,” I say, hoping my use of OT-speak will impress her, “but he tends to fight me on them.”

“He’s not the first to sniff them out,” she says with a smile. “We’ll keep practicing, won’t we, Kirby? You ready to head back?”

He nods his head as a slight grin creeps across his face, and they walk down the hallway. I turn and head out the door to drive to the gym down the street for a quick lift. Like the meathead I am.

It’s a happy coincidence, one of the few in my life, these weekly opportunities for us to each work on ourselves. I need every chance I can get to maintain my muscle mass—or at least slow my march toward the middle-aged dad bod that awaits me.

I should probably instead call Tyler, the head of our little regional promotion, to tell him I’m tapping out. We’ve known each other since high school, when we both played drums in the band. He was two grades above me, the older brother I never had, the type who let me hang around but resisted laughing at my jokes, as if it was his way of keeping me on the proper rung of our pecking order. He’d been helping his stepdad, Jeff, run shows since he was in middle school, back when Stone Cold was slamming beers and flipping birds and making every boy with a chip on his shoulder want to hit his gym teacher with a Stunner.

I worry he’ll try to convince me to stick it out, that it’s really the best move for both of us, that I need to wait and see what he’s got planned for next year. I’ll postpone that call until later, I tell myself, as I pull into the parking lot.

I alternate between squats and overhead presses, sipping my protein drink in between and scowling enough to scare anyone away from using my machines. It’s the one time I live my character in the outside world, and it’s purely for utility; I only have so much time to exercise and need to be efficient.

Next, it’s on to power cleans, triceps dips, Russian twists, shoulder hangs, a quick jump rope and everything else I can fit in before I hustle back to the OT clinic, where Kirby silently greets me and defers all details of his work to Carly. Maybe I should take him with me to the gym sometime, let him unleash some of the molten energy that seems to be bottled up inside him.

He hands me a drawing as we walk out to the car. It’s of a boy surrounded by lightning.

…

I’m dropping my title belt, Tyler informs me. It’s the perfect opening for me to tell him my news, but I hesitate.

“Gunner is ready, we’ve been building him up for six months now,” he says. “It’s his time.”

I nod and grip his hand.

“I get it, Ty. See you out there.”

Gunner and I put on one hell of a match. Give these people who shelled out $20 a pop their money’s worth. Soar off the top rope and slam each other down, wrench each other’s arms and trade kicks to the gut while they down hot dogs and Pabst Blue Ribbons.

I go for my finisher, but he slithers free, just like we planned. The crowd gasps. They can sense something is afoot, that this isn’t like any of my past dozen title defenses, that Gunner might just unseat me. We have them hoping despite themselves, believing our story even though they know it’s all rigged.

When I flop my body forward and flip over to sell Gunner’s piledriver and he hoists himself onto the top rope, the noise is building, waiting to explode. They crave this ending. I gaze up at the dingy, discolored ceiling, watch Gunner pump his body through a frog splash and brace myself for the impact that will end my reign. The fans yell along with the ref’s count, and the party is on.

As I stumble my way to the back, my disequilibrium is only partially contrived.

…

My mother is asleep in the armchair when I get home. Kirby wears her out, especially when her fibromyalgia flares up. I rely on her more than I should, even though she tries my nerves with her incessant worrying.

“Do you think you should try a dairy-free diet for him?” she used to ask every couple of months when Kirby was a toddler and still didn’t say many words beyond “Dudda.”

I pull an afghan over her snoring body and hope like hell she won’t wake up until I’m already in bed. I don’t want to talk, even if she could manage to push aside her judgments of my lifestyle to listen.

I quietly roll my bag into my room, change into fresh boxers, and tiptoe across the hall to Kirby’s room. He’s curled up sideways across his queen mattress, which I bought so I could fit next to him during marathon bedtimes reading enough Eric Carle books to sear the words into my memory. He’s easier to get down these days now that naps are a thing of the past and he runs himself into the ground with rapid-fire thoughts, if not physical exercise.

When I stoop down to triple-check that he’s breathing, his eyes pop open. He rarely wakes up in the middle of the night.

“Dad, did you win? Do you still have your belt?”

I wasn’t sure he even knew I was the champ, let alone felt any sense of attachment to my title. The morning I told him I’d won the belt, he didn’t even respond, just complained I was blocking his cartoons.

“Nope, buddy, it was time for me to give it up.”

Tears fill his eyes and his chin juts downward. 

“It’s OK, Kirb, it’s just someone else’s turn, that’s all,” I try to reassure him.

“You gotta get it back, Dad. Gotta be the champ.”

I brace myself for a late-night tantrum, but instead, he rolls over, curls his arm around his stuffed sloth, and closes his eyes. I crouch on the floor next to his bed for several minutes, scratching his back. His brow furrows, then relaxes, and a hint of a smile spreads from his lips up into his round cheeks. They were the first thing I noticed when the sonographer showed us the 3D ultrasound. My little bulldog.

I stand, pad back across the hall to my room, and gingerly ease myself into bed.

Maybe I’ll call Ty tomorrow.

Read by the author:

about the author:

When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort | Sharon Lee Snow

The brisk Monday October night when Mr. Boppo flounced into the glass-walled English Department Classroom 301, we all looked up bleary-eyed from our critique group stories full of suicide ideation, suspicious yarns of days lost to raves from another era, and the usual amount of coming out tales to find a small man hovering at the door, costumed in a ruffled white tent of a shirt that bounced with a life of its own. Under a ridiculous pointed white hat, an equally white face with expectant eyes framed with black triangles smiled at us despite our obvious discomfiture. He headed straight to the empty seat beside me, bowed quickly to the class in general, and bounced his hula-hoop shirt with its red pom-pom buttons with a flourish as he sat down. 

We turned to Professor Corelli – who we called Jim since we were grad students – but Jim didn’t seem to know what to do with the little clown either. He scrolled his enrollment rolls and looked up just as perplexed. “Mr. Boppo?” he asked the man. “You were approved for this class?”

The small man stood up and bowed again; this time, a proper bow. 

“He’s one of them French clowns,” whispered my critique partner, Kelci, as she appraised him. “The sad ones.”

“I think you mean Italian, like Pagliacci,” I said. 

Kelci didn’t appreciate my interjection, and I admit I was somewhat doubtful too. I wasn’t so sure of my clowns, and my opera knowledge was limited to what I watched on The Simpsons combined with my mother’s love of a great tenor solo from time to time. 

In truth, I hated clowns. For no particular reason. Just like most people I knew tended to hate them. 

We stared at the clown. 

I was waiting for a French accent, or for him to begin belting out an aria, or jump to life, honking a horn and talking in a goofy clown voice. But a neutral North American accent simply stated: “I am Mr. Boppo.”

The class was silent, watching.

I expected a lot more questions from Jim, but he threw up his hands and said, “Welcome,” because he had tenure and one more year before retirement. 

At that, Mr. Boppo sat down, scooted his chair closer, and joined our group. I figured he would sit back and take stock of the situation, but instead, he produced a neatly stapled short story. “I’m Mr. Boppo,” he said again, as he passed out the required three copies to the three of us already in the critique group. He waited for us to announce ourselves and to read his story.

Kelci was serious about the class and the MFA program. I could see her mind working. Was this experimental writing? Was this performance theatre? Was this some test? Wyatt, next to me, secretly worked gig jobs and studied pre-med as a practical backup to being an MFA student. Wyatt had zero patience for nonsense, but he could write like a son-of-a-bitch.

“Look, clown,” he began, but Mr. Boppo held up a hand. 

“I’m just a student,” he asserted. “Same as you.”

So, our small critique group introduced ourselves and passed him our stories which worked out strangely well since we were short a group member with Emma home puking. I pulled Mr. Boppo’s story over to me, angry about it and Mr. Boppo in general. Still, I was intrigued. I picked up the paper, hoping for a fascinating insider’s insight into the circus, or about his unique life living as a clown outside of the circus. 

But it was none of those things. The story was surprising from the first line. It sang, it cried, it was light like a communion wafer on the tongue, cleansing you of tired tropes and metaphors and themes. The noise of the elevator opening and closing outside our classroom door, the hum of students talking, and the bright fluorescent lights dimmed and went silent. I went to a new place I didn’t recognize. When I put the story down, I couldn’t remember what I read but felt like the weight of the girlfriend in trouble had lifted, that things were clear, beautiful even. I handed him a paper with marks written that I did not recall making, and he thanked me with a tiny bow from his seat. 

I could see that everyone was reacting the same way to Mr. Boppo’s story. At the end of the evening, everyone in our group was at least somewhat entranced with the clown – even stoic Wyatt – and Kelci posed all of us for her Instagram post. 

When I got home, Emma had finished throwing up and was curled up in a fluffy pink blanket on the couch, like a fuzzy, helpless kitten. Her face was gaunt, her skin white and translucent, dark smudges of bags under her eyes. My worry for her was a constant ball in the back of my throat, choking me. We both knew what had to be done but couldn’t explain why it hadn’t happened. Nothing was happening at all, and I was terrified.

I sat by her and stroked her hair and told her about Mr. Boppo.

She didn’t believe me at first, but then I showed her the picture of our critique group plus Mr. Boppo on Instagram, and she laughed but then grew worried. If clowns can join the MFA program, she mused, then what value did it have anymore? Why were we going into hideous debt for a clown college? 

“I think it’s some kind of experiment,” I offered, trying to cheer her up. I couldn’t explain exactly how it felt reading his paper, so I brought out his remarks on my draft. “Let’s read them together,” I said, and she cuddled up next to me. 

Initially, his markings didn’t appear to be language, and we looked at each other. “Gibberish,” she said, but then the writing began sorting itself out, smoothing out into a lovely handwriting like magical self-writing elvish runes. We watched as it took shape in the margins, swirling up and around paragraphs, curving around bad sentence structure and cliches as it went. In the end, an exquisite red vine of words, both encouraging and meaningful, flowed through my story pages. We leaned in and read it, sighing in places where he’d nailed a particular problem in the plot line, smiling at his kind support of a well-written phrase.

“It’s wonderful,” Emma said, looking brighter. “I must meet this clown.”

Our cohort took our classes together, so we were not surprised to see him in our class the following morning. Emma had put her makeup on and looked happier than she had in days. She took a seat next to Mr. Boppo, who stood up briefly, bowed, and kissed her hand. Emma giggled. 

He looked exactly the same, as if he slept in his costume and makeup, as if they were not in fact applied but rather a part of him – or more specifically, him, himself. I found myself annoyed at how Emma continued to smile a little to herself. All the things I had been doing to cheer her up: her favorite foods, cleaning up puke, binge streaming through her favorite shows that I secretly hated…and now, a clown. It took a clown to make her smile again.

My suspicions about Mr. Boppo were back now that I was removed from his magic writing spell. And my pregnant girlfriend was giggling with him over something, like they’d been best friends for years now. 

I felt like screaming out the obvious. Nothing good could come of this infection of our tight cohort group. Why is a clown in our class? But the class was moving into place like nothing strange was happening, even those who’d missed last night’s workshop. 

Mr. Boppo looked up from regaling Emma with a witty remark that had her chuckling. He stared right at me. There was no mirth in those black clown eyes. The corner of his mouth quirked up.

Yeah, I made up my mind. I would bring down this fucking clown, this ridiculous Mr. Boppo. This imposter in our midst.

It wouldn’t be too hard, I figured. We were working on short memoir pieces, so that would provide some details on this clown. He couldn’t hide who he was forever. At that moment, the door opened. The students and I watched with interest as Professor Beadle strode into her class. Professor B was young, but also ran a tight ship. 

“Good morn—” She halted to a stop in her practical black pumps, frowning at Mr. Boppo. She looked around and verified that we were indeed her 10 a.m. memoir class. She made up her mind and walked right over with a brittle smile. 

“Good morning! Are you auditing our class today? I didn’t get any notice.” 

He popped up and bowed. “Mr. Boppo!” he said with a flourish of his hand. “I’m a student, Professor.”

She sucked in a deep breath. Her brows knit together in pain. You could feel her thinking, just what I fucking needed. She nodded and went to the computer where she furiously tapped in her password to get to the enrollment page. With a resigned sigh, she stared hard at him as he smiled back at her with a circus-wattage smile. Then she shrugged and opened her slides. “Let’s begin.” 

Mr. Boppo stayed attached to Emma’s side when class ended. I was even more annoyed then, because we knew nothing more about the mysterious clown now than we had at the beginning of the class. Professor B was delighted with his ability to parse dense material and create a discussion around Roxane Gay’s story so intense that everyone seemed disappointed when class was over. For all his talking, he had said, I realized, actually nothing. 

“Good morning!” he said, bowing at me when I finally managed to insert myself between him and Emma as we packed up to leave.

“Great discussion, right, babe?” Emma was glowing like she used to when we’d started dating. 

“I look forward to reading your memoir next week,” I told him, making a point out of grabbing Emma’s hand. A bigger man would have been grateful for anyone who got their clinically depressed girlfriend out of her funk. But staring down some challenge in his clown eyes, I found I wasn’t that man. 

When the class made plans to grab lunch in the Student Center, Mr. Boppo came along as if he did this every Tuesday. Emma dropped my hand and joined the herd. I hung back with Wyatt, who had just finished an online quiz for his Organic Chemistry class. I wanted a reality check.

“Don’t you find him strange?” I asked him. “The whole thing – this Mr. Boppo clown?”

“Of course I do!” he said, stuffing his computer into his backpack. “Why is a fucking clown in our program? I worked hard to get into it and now they’re letting in any clown?”

“Well, there’s that, but him in general. Being a clown. Like all the time.”

Wyatt shrugged, tossing on his backpack. “There is something weird about it, yes, but I don’t have time to care.” He patted me on the back. “I’d watch my girlfriend if I were you, though.” And he winked. 

In the lunchroom, Mr. Boppo regaled us with funny stories without monopolizing the conversation. Everyone laughed over their cold, shitty pizza slices. I noticed Emma had a better appetite and didn’t seem inclined to throw up in his presence, something I resented. 

When we migrated to our next class, I walked behind the clown. He was asking Emma about her writing, and she hadn’t noticed when I slipped back. Surely someone else could see how ridiculous this all was. 

“What do you think,” I whispered to Kelci, “about this clown?”

Kelci shrugged. “It’s odd. I find myself forgetting things. Like, what did we just talk about at lunch? And what did he even think about Roxane Gay’s piece? I wanted to remember it, but I couldn’t. Still, I like him. There’s just something about him.”

The week went on, and Mr. Boppo became a part of the cohort as if he’d never not been a part of it. Emma began washing her hair and putting on makeup again. Her clothes were clean, and there was color in her cheeks. Her eyes sparkled. She couldn’t wait to get to class, where she always sat next to Mr. Boppo, forcing me into an odd man out role. 

Thursday evening, we all went out to the local student drinking hole after Jim’s class, as was often our custom. Jim came too. Emma was talking quietly with three girls from the cohort. 

For once, I caught the clown alone, sitting at the bar by himself. I sat down and bought him a beer. “So,” I said to him. “How are you enjoying the program?” 

“It’s great,” he said, smoothing his white tent shirt. “Such talented writers.”

I nodded. “You seem to know all about us, but we know so little about you.”

He smiled at me and took a sip of beer.

“What’s your name, for instance?”

“You know my name,” he said. 

“That’s not a real name. What’s your first name? Where are you from? Why are you here? Why do you dress like a clown?” I spoke as fast as I could with an eye on our group slowly making their way to us. 

Mr. Boppo leaned back. “You’re an angry man,” he said. “So much anger for a young man. You can’t appreciate that something can just exist. You can’t see the miraculous.”

“That’s just stupid,” I said, practically spitting as I whispered. “What are you here for?”

“That’s a good question, Evan,” he replied. He looked concerned, then nodded at Emma. “Don’t you have more important things to consider, though?”

After that, I really hated the clown. I began to hate his fucking guts. My whole existence became entwined with pulling off the mask of this clown, exposing him as a fake, as a fraud, a pretender. We had all earned our way into this program, and some sketchy guy in makeup had become the sudden darling of the cohort, the mascot of our MFA program. But who the hell or what the hell was he?

I spent my nights on the computer trying to smoke him out. There was nothing. Just a million references to Boppo the clown in cartoons or in general, but nothing about our Mr. Boppo. And the whole Pagliacci story worried me, with its sad, vengeful unraveling clown, the faithless wife. I began staying up until 3 a.m. just to get to my schoolwork. When I did sleep, my night was tormented with violent dreams that didn’t end well for clowns and with me getting nudged awake by a frightened Emma. 

Emma would not listen to reason. “I feel better around him,” she said. “He makes me happy. What have you got against him? Everyone loves him except you.”

One late afternoon after we’d come home from class, she was still smiling. She wouldn’t show me what Mr. Boppo had written on her paper, the vines of beautiful writing swirling around her pages. 

“I think we need to speak about what we’re going to do,” I said. I hated to do it while she was so happy, but for some sick reason, I felt a need to kill whatever joy the clown had given her. I also needed her strong enough to hear the truth. “We are running out of time.”

There. We’d danced around this for too many days. It was finally out.

She stopped smiling and stared at me. “Is this about the clown? Why are you so jealous of Boppo? Is it because he makes me happy? All you do is bring us down with your focus on what is wrong. In your writing and in life.”  

That hurt, but was so off the point that I lost it. 

“It’s not about school!” I screamed. “It’s about our fucking predicament. We are running out of options and it’s time we got our heads out of our asses!”

I felt bad when I said it, but only for a minute because she wasn’t looking sad or helpless or kitten-like at all. She was glaring at me, through me, like I was the clown, a buffoon, a piece of shit. 

That did it. “Enough about that damn clown! That stupid, stupid clown! Who the fuck does he think he is anyhow? Mr. Boppo. I hate his fucking guts! And you need to stay the hell away from that psycho!”

She didn’t wait for me to finish yelling. She marched to the bedroom and threw things in a small suitcase, grabbed her computer, her marked-up story, and told me she was going to stay with Kelci.

I didn’t sleep that night and was even more furious the next day. This was going to be my chance, I thought. I was finally going to critique Boppo’s memoir piece. I couldn’t wait to read that bullshit and rip it to shreds. In front of everyone, I decided. Time to end this shit.

When we got into our groups, I was sad to see that Emma wasn’t in our usual spot, but glad on some level. Kelci flipped me off and went into the other group with Emma on the other side of the classroom. Wyatt joined me and Mr. Boppo to make the required minimum of three participants.

Mr. Boppo was serious today, watching me. 

“I’m worried about you, Evan,” he said, handing me his paper. 

“I’m going to find out your game, you fucking clown,” I whispered. “I’m bringing you down, Mr. Boppo.”

Mr. Boppo actually frowned, and I saw the paint crack on his forehead, which made me smile until he said, “Is this really what you should be focusing on? Is that really what you want?”

Wyatt ignored us and plowed right into the work. When he was done, he tossed his comments on our desks and began working on Organic Chem homework. I finished Wyatt’s excellent piece about the Christmas tree he and his single mom had made inside the car they lived in when he was a little boy, and then I went to work on the clown’s essay.

It was a short piece, slightly shorter than the required page limit, and I marked him off for that right off in gleeful, savage strokes. It began in a weird place, too, in the future, which seemed odd for a memoir. Try as I might, though, I could not escape the pull of his beautiful words, his magic art of storytelling. The memoir piece was like everything he wrote: deep, packed full of meaning without being pretentious, but light as well, full of airy hope and tears mixed, like a beautiful composition balanced with both salty and sweet candy, like hitting the perfect note on a beautiful aria. He was at once a child living in a world that only loved creatives when they were confined to specific places, and a man yearning to be more than this clown, pushing at the boundaries of allowed place and time. 

When I finished, I was wiping away tears. I found I had written in the margins in a beautiful vine-like way, and the words were encouraging, wanting more of this story. I sniffled, handing it to Mr. Boppo. 

Wyatt looked up once and shook his head, muttering something before going back to tapping on his computer. 

“Thank you,” Mr. Boppo said, reading my critique. He smiled, and it was a normal smile, not his big-ass clown smile. 

“It’s not been easy,” I said to him, picking up my story with his critique, knowing it was the same story as his, the future my future, the pain my pain.

“It’s not been easy,” he agreed.

“How will I know?” I asked him, understanding at that moment that he was going to walk out the door forever in two seconds. “What is the right thing? What the hell is real in all of this mess?”

He just smiled. “Art, beauty, truth. It’s not about the right thing. It’s about what is important, Evan, what is important…to you.”

He was at the door now, and only I was watching him leave. “How do I know what’s important?” 

But he just bowed and shut the door. 

Wyatt pulled his head up for a moment and stared at the closed door. “I thought that clown would never leave.”

Read by the author:

Sharon’s story was selected as the 2025 Honeybee Short Fiction Prize winner by Michael Czyzniejewski. Mike had this to say about the piece…

“When Mr. Boppo Joined the Cohort” is a story that works on so many levels. The surface weirdness of a sad French clown joining a fiction workshop in the middle of a term is a surreal type of absurdity that drew me right into the story. Then, as it plays out, the narrator’s insecurity over his writing, his relationship, and his life choices in general tells me that this author understands character and how to control narrative. It’s a terrifically weird and wonderful piece of fiction.

about the author:

Tbilisi | Sara Maria Hasbun

The morning I arrived back in Tbilisi, I messaged my old trainer, who met me just inside the door to Urban Garden. He rested his swollen hands heavily on my shoulders. 

Ana, he said. Anuka. You came back. 

He looked into my eyes without a smile.

Of course, I said. How is everything here? How are the protests?

Immediately, he disengaged. With his bear paw he swiped away the thought of protests.

No protests, he said. You watch too much foreign media. This is just a few kids.

He set up my weights, gestured impatiently that I should start. Almost noon, he said. Very busy at lunch. Hurry up.

The gym was already busy. Russian women with their swollen lips, a group of German twenty-somethings in old t-shirts. And Israelis. So many Israelis. Later, Davit told me that Tbilisi was “crawling with Mossad.” Anytime there were protests, Tbilisi swelled with Israelis.

Where do the Georgians work out? I asked my trainer. I never see Georgians at this gym.

Georgians don’t work out, he said.

You work out, I said.

I work, he said. This is my job.

###

After the workout we got a coffee at Slink. Wi-Fi password: putinkhuilo. Putin Sit on a Dick. 

The trainer drank his black coffee and looked at my face. You’re drinking again.

I was always drinking, I said. I didn’t stop.

He shook his head. If you stop drinking, I’ll put you on my Instagram.

I don’t want to be on your Instagram.

You foreigners drink so much.

You Georgians made the wine, I said. Did you think we came here for the Wi-Fi?

He laughed, then got up and walked away. Tomorrow, Ana, he said. Anechka, Anuka. Legs. No drinking.

###

I didn’t make it to any more training that week, mostly because of the drinking. But also because there were a lot of people to see. I was based in Beijing then, but Tbilisi is one of those world cities that absorbs you quickly into the fabric, social digestion of the most expedient order. 

In the hours I had free, I wrote, and once I had adjusted to the timezone I finally called Davit. 

Davit had been a diplomat in Beijing. The Georgian embassy there was small, they were badly understaffed, Davit was overworked. But he was always good for a nightcap, always good for some dancing at the sandwich shop that turned into a disco. 

Now Davit was back in Georgia’s capital, working for his family business, taking a break from foreign service. We met at a posh bar in Vera, the embassy district, and sat outside next to the heaters. I should have known where the night was going when he violently ordered shots of chacha to start.

The chacha settled into our bloodstreams, hot and fiery and reassuring, and Davit filled me in on the latest. Georgia’s accession to the EU was “on pause.” Protesters were irate. It was enshrined in the Georgian constitution, he explained, that Georgia should aspire to join the EU.

Should you be talking like this? I teased. Don’t you work for the government?

I should not be talking like this, he said. Seriously. Why do you think I needed a break from foreign service? I’m tired of letting them speak through my mouth. Don’t get used to this, Ana. Hearing my own words from my own mouth.

I asked him if he had been to any protests, and he said no. That if he went, he’d lose his job. 

A cat jumped onto his lap; there were cats everywhere in Tbilisi. They were clean and chipped, but numerous. Belonging to no one and everyone all at once. The cat sniffed the glass of chacha, retreated.

How big are the protests? I asked. Bigger than last spring?

Tens of thousands, easily, he said. They’re small in the evenings, but by the late hours of the night it looks like a New Years party. A really angry New Years party. 

My trainer didn’t think there were protests at all, I told him. He said it was all a foreign hoax.

Is your trainer Russian? he asked.

No, I said. He’s Georgian. He speaks Russian, though.

Well, said Davit. We all speak Russian here. Speaking Russian doesn’t make you less Georgian. Except in some cases, when it does. Anyways. That’s enough politics. 

He called the waiter over and they chatted in Georgian. We ended up with two bottles of Saperavi, a Mukuzani and a Khashmi Oak.

Two at a time? I said. 

Let’s not pretend we don’t know where this night is going, he said. Let’s dispense with the modesties.

And where is it going? I asked. My hand was easily within reach of his; in Beijing he had been greedy with my hand, in Beijing he had clasped it, traced it, squeezed it. 

But he just shook his head, and poured two glasses for each of us, encouraged me to switch between the two wines, to enjoy the comparison. The Mukuzani was chocolatey and herbal. The Khashmi was nutty and earthy. If we hadn’t said a word for the rest of the night, I could have happily sat there switching off between the two glasses, watching cats slide noiselessly along stone walls, meowing, waiting in vain for us to order food. 

I want to work on problems that are mathematical, he said finally. Logical. Cold. I’m done with foreign service, I won’t be bidding again. I want to track the cost of goods sold. Top line, bottom line. I don’t want to deal in the abstractions of sovereignty. I don’t want to deal in the currency of relationships. People suck, you know, Ana.

Not all people, I said. 

Some of our best friends are people, I said.

Not all people, he repeated.

You’re people, he said. You’re good people.

Thanks, I said. You’re good people too. I reached out my hand, but he looked away. 

Most people suck, he said. I wish I were like you, Ana, I wish I still didn’t know about how much people suck. Why did you even come here to Georgia? 

I thought about it. I guess I’m the opposite, I said. I’m tired of business. I’m tired of the black line. Top line, bottom line. All the lines.

The only lines you should care about, he said, are the ones you’ll do off a mirror if we go to Bassiani tonight.

Where? I said, absently. I was trying not to think about the fact that he still hadn’t taken my hand. 

You don’t want lines, he said.

I guess I want inspiration, I said. I’m still trying to write. I think I’m your opposite. I’m done with business. Abstraction is what I want.

Abstraction is fine when it isn’t your abstraction, he said. When it isn’t your country’s abstract problems. When it isn’t your country’s muddy pain. Then abstraction is just art.

He smiled at me. That’s good, right? Put that in your book.

You’re drunk already, I said.

Maybe.

Over the course of the next few hours, Davit and I both got ragingly drunk on the Saperavi. We had forgotten to eat. Davit got louder and louder, and I laughed harder and harder. He became more and more insistent on the idea of going to Bassiani.

You want something to write about, he said, I’ll take you to Bassiani.

The waiter was pouring wine at that moment and momentarily paused the flow. Then clucked, shaking his head, muttering in Georgian.

Davit was clearly displeased at the intrusion and sparred with the waiter in language I didn’t understand. Then the waiter shrugged his shoulders, turned to me, and said in Russian, it’s not a good idea. 

Then I suppose the waiter had reason to doubt my Russian, because he squeezed out, in effortful English: Is. Not. Good. Idea. Understand?

She’s American, said Davit to the waiter, in Russian. She’ll be fine at Bassiani. 

The waiter shook his head and spoke to me in Russian again, slow and careful. Bassiani. Police. Many police. You understand?

Davit waved off the thought. The police came once to Bassiani, he explained to me in Russian, for the waiter’s benefit. Only one time. 

He switched back to English. It’s great music. They say it is second only to Berghain. But it can get political, he said. At Bassiani. If you look Slavic, you must show your passport to get in, to prove that you’re not Russian. But you don’t look Slavic. You’ll be fine. Police resources are very low because of the protests, they’re not going to raid a dance club.

We paid and called a cab.

As our cab crossed the river, I put my hand on Davit’s hand. He squeezed it, then put my hand back in my lap.

I can’t think about that right now, he said. I’m sorry, Ana. I’m feeling terribly old.

You’re forty, I said. Spring chicken, I said. Spring chicken kebab. 

He was quiet. Our cab crept through the Chugureti weekend traffic, slow enough that I could read the English and Russian graffiti that crept over building facades, like so many vines. Russians Go Home. Glory to Ukraine. Georgia is Europe.

I feel so old, he said again.

You’re a spring chicken, I said. Spring chicken mtsvadi. I drunkenly stumbled over the Georgian consonant cluster. Not that I could have done better sober.

Or too young, I don’t know.

You’re older than me, I said. Is there someone else?

Davit took my chin in his hand, kissed my mouth quickly, chaste. It’s not you, he said. It’s not anyone else. I haven’t jacked off in a month.

Ah, I said. 

I’m just stressed, he said. It really isn’t you.

###

The Bassiani idea didn’t last long. As we pulled up, Davit saw some friends who had already been waiting in line for an hour, ready to give up. They convinced us to go instead to a wild little corner bar where glass shards already lined the floor, already crunched under our shoes, and where two Spaniards were already dancing on the counter, singing in Spanish.

It’s all fucking foreigners here, said Davit, perhaps forgetting I was a fucking foreigner.

A man at the bar turned around, leaned back on his elbow, and spoke to Davit in English. That’s because any real Georgian is at the Parliament building, he said. 

I felt Davit go very still.

The man spoke calmly, but those within earshot had gone quiet. 

I looked at Davit’s face. His features did not change, but he put his hand on the back of my neck. I could feel the heat from his fingers.

Excuse me, said Davit to the man at the bar. Excuse me. You’re here. You’re not at Parliament. Are you not a real Georgian?

I’m from Abkhazia, said the man. I’m a Georgian from Abkhazia. A real Georgian. And I’m only here to pick up a friend, then we’ll go back to the protests.

Well, Abkhazia, said Davit. You don’t fucking know me. You don’t get to fucking judge me. 

Abkhazia shrugged and sipped his drink.

How do you know what I’m giving, said Davit. What I have already given.

Davit switched into Georgian, then, and let forth a barrage of words I couldn’t hope to understand. Abkhazia was unperturbed; he shrugged and turned back to his drink at the bar. 

Davit turned back to me, put his hand on my lower back, guided me to another part of the bar. He waited for the bartender’s attention but kept glancing over at the Abkhazian.

Abkhazia’s friend soon arrived, as forecasted, and took a barstool. He was a dark man in a black t-shirt, very built. Had I seen him at Urban Garden? 

The two friends slapped hands, did a half-hug. Abkhazia showed off the contents of a plastic bag full of little plastic bottles, and the friend seemed to approve. They left the bar without another look at us. 

Davit’s friends were already nowhere to be seen, but we befriended the Spaniards who had been dancing on the bar. Then some Belorussians showed up and we started throwing dice. We tried not to talk about the protests, or at least Davit tried, and I definitely tried. But one Belorussian had just come from Minsk that morning; he wanted to see what it would look like, a protest in Georgia. Protests in Belarus are very different, he said, I can assure you. You Georgians don’t know how good you have it. How lucky you are. His face tightened and he did not elaborate. 

Davit’s dark eyes grew darker by the hour, he threw dice and didn’t even watch where they went. He couldn’t hold onto the thread of the conversation, he laughed a few beats behind everyone else, he grunted at the wrong times. I nudged him when it was his turn to play, and he threw, then smiled and patted my hand, the smile disappearing as quickly as it had appeared, as he stared down the bottom of his drink. He got up to order another round of chacha.

I thought of a TV news producer who had taught me about “gear shifts.” Sometimes, he said, after reporting on a terrible tragedy, you need to switch to a lighter story. But you can’t make the switch right away of course, that would be gruesome. Sometimes, at the very least, you need to say, “the time in London is 10:30, fog is expected to last through the evening.”

Our new friends were rowdy, silly, we were at that part of the night where everything is hilarious, everything that happens is in the service of hilarity. But as drunk as we all were, as accepting as I knew the group would be of any insanity that came out of my mouth, at 3 a.m. in a bar in Chugureti, I couldn’t think of how to say it, the gear shift. The time in London, I thought desperately, watching Davit. The time in London.

It all started to get very dark. Not even the wine and the chacha could keep us light although we were really trying, even though Queen was playing, then Carly Rae Jepsen, then Tatu, then Abba. Davit and the Spaniards and the Belorussians were groping desperately for lightness, ordering drinks with a vengeance, twirling me halfheartedly, laughing loudly, translating terrible Belorussian jokes for my benefit. But the lightness wouldn’t take. Protesters were coming into the bar with red eyes from tear gas, washing their faces in the same sink the bartender used to wash our glasses. A protester came in with a broken nose, the bartender gave him a stack of branded napkins to stuff into his nostril. One of the Belorussians started to cry and told us he could never go home. I felt their sadness take shape in me, and I shuddered involuntarily with fear. I didn’t, back then, have the faculties to cope with that kind of existential precarity. 

Around two in the morning, I got a phone call from an old lover and there it was, a chance for lightness. I stumbled outside to take the call, to listen to sweet words, to lower the stakes a bit. 

Davit came out to the street shortly after, to throw up into the sidewalk trash can. I told the lover I’d call him back.

They didn’t understand, Davit said to me. That Abkhazian, those Georgians. You should have told them I’m a diplomat. That I’m serving my country. Even if I have to pretend it isn’t all just a puppet show for Bidzina. You should have told them that. I can’t tell them that, I’d sound like a jackass. But you could have told them. You could have defended me.

I’m sorry, I said. You’re right. I should have told them.

I’m so old, said Davit, I’m so, so old. But I’m really not in a hurry to die.

Who’s dying? I said. No one is dying. Who’s dying? Jesus, Davit. It’s the weekend. 

Not me, he said. I’m not dying. Because I’m staying out of that abstractionist bullshit. I’m not trying to be some hero, I’m not trying to pretend like the future of Georgia depends on whether or not I’m standing in front of Parliament acting like an idiot.

Davit, I said. I tried again, like an idiot, to take his hand.

Don’t fucking judge me, Ana. I’m still a man. I’m still a man.

He kicked a wall. I backed away a few steps.

I’m not judging you, I told him. Do I look like I’m judging you? Do I look like I am risking my life for my country? Do I look like I am risking my life for anything? 

Just then my old lover called again, so I told Davit I was going to take a walk around the block. He shrugged and went back inside.

I walked around the block, I walked some more, and then I found myself back at my Airbnb. I pulled the covers over my head while I listened to the lover’s sweet words. There in my bed I let the phone sex pull me out of the abstractions, let it pull me into the singularity of a present moment, the tunnel vision of desire. The absolution of having, as the single most important short-term goal, the release of orgasm. No other thoughts in my head. No other abstractions. I came hard, then immediately felt guilty. I felt bad for leaving Davit, in that state.

Come back, texted Davit. The Abkhazian came back with his friend. They almost smashed a bottle over my head, but now we’re doing shots.

You’re really selling it, I told him. 

I considered going back to Davit; I did feel pretty bad about abandoning him at the nadir of his moral reckoning. But I quickly realized the guilt I felt was not enough to propel me outside. There was no fucking way I was going back out, not into that darkness. The lover was still on the phone. He kept going, mostly for himself by then, he kept saying his sweet, pretty, filthy things. I half-listened, half-scrolled through Georgian news alerts. Took some notes for my writing.

Did you come? asked the lover. Yes, I said. I came. But keep going. I can come again.

###

The next morning Davit called and woke me up, I’d forgotten to mute my phone.

 He was having brunch at Slink, with the Abkhazian and his friend, they’d gone all night, they were friends now. They’d lost the Belorussians but had ended up at Bassiani after all. They’d ordered too many syrniki, he said, your favorite. Come eat syrniki.

I threw on my clothes and hoped I wouldn’t run into the trainer, since Slink was right next to the gym.

I joined the group and dug right into the fluffy clouds of cheese syrniki. Hunger was clarifying, it had temporarily eliminated my fear of Davit and his existential dread. Once I finished a couple fluffy clouds I looked up. They were all watching me eat. Davit reached over and dumped more cherry sauce on my plate. 

So much sugar, said the Abkhazian’s friend.

Do you work out at Urban Garden? I asked him.

Of course, he said. Every Israeli works out at Urban Garden.

So are you Mossad? I asked. 

He laughed and shook his head. No, little girl. I’m just here for the party.

Davit raised his eyebrows at me. 

The Abkhazian told me his story. He had fled Abkhazia during the five-day war in 2008, when Russia had occupied the region. He had ended up a refugee in Istanbul. When he finally sorted a proper Georgian passport, he came back, this time to Tbilisi. He opened a poetry café. The police had closed the cafe last Spring. Health code violation, he said, making quotation marks of his fingers.

Stupid move for them, he said. Because now that I’m not supervising pourovers I can work full-time in service of a European Georgia.

The Abkhazian put more food on Davit’s plate. Eat up, he said in Russian, yesh, yesh. You’ll need your strength for tonight.

Davit shook his head. I’m not going out tonight, he said.

Are you going to stay in and cry? asked the Israeli. Like you cried last night?

You cried? I asked.

Davit shoveled food into his mouth and watched the Israeli. I was drunk, he said. 

Well, tonight you can cry from tear gas, said the Israeli. Or if you prefer, you can stay home, and you can cry because you’re a little bitch.

I tensed, but Davit was either too drunk or too sober to be baited anymore. 

It’s so much more complicated than that, he said to the Israeli, looking exhausted. Trust me. I told you. I work in government. You guys have no idea. You have no idea what else is going on. Even if you get what you think you want—it’s so much more complicated than you think.

The Israeli shrugged. I’m sure it is very complicated, he said. But if so, then I am glad to have no idea. As long as I can still see what’s right in front of me. And if you’re having trouble seeing what is right in front of you, they say just a few drops of these can help.

He held open the plastic bag that the Abkhazian had given him the night before at the bar, showed us the contents. Inside were dozens of bottles of saline solution.

###

A few days later I was back in Beijing, back at the café where Davit and I used to go, where we used to have breakfast after a night of dancing. I met with a journalist from Russia Today, an old friend. A longtime Beijinger, originally from Siberia. 

I’m glad you went to Georgia, she said, I’m glad you could see it for yourself. How much the media is blowing everything out of proportion. You didn’t see any protests, right? No drama? Just a few kids making trouble, right?

I thought about it and realized I hadn’t actually seen the protests. Not with my own eyes. I hadn’t gone anywhere near the parliament building. I shrugged.

Just then my phone rang. Davit. 9 a.m. in Beijing, 5 a.m. in Georgia, I did the math.

You ok, Davit? Everything ok?

Yes, Ana, he said, Anyushka, Anuka. Aniko. 

He was drunk, perhaps. Or amped. Using all of my Georgian nicknames at once.

I just wanted to show you this, he said. He turned on his video, and I pulled the phone away from my ear, to watch.

Around Davit was a colorful wave of people and flags, a wave that licked and retracted, flowed and receded, seemingly meters from the steps of Parliament. No, not quite reaching the steps of Parliament. In between the steps and the crowd was a black mass of police. With the poor resolution, I had thought the mass was an empty shadow. As the details came through, as the pixels multiplied, I saw helmets, shields, yellow reflective stripes.

You’re at the protest, I said. 

Yes, he said. Can you see?

I thought you didn’t want to deal in abstractions.

What? he said. I can’t hear you. Sorry, it is so loud. I saw the Abkhazian, pulling on a black balaclava. 

Be safe, Davit, I said. Please be safe. 

He laughed and shook his head. I can’t hear you, he said. I just wanted you to see. Can you see?

I can see.

He laughed, I can see now, too. 

Mid-laugh, the line cut off. Perhaps the signal was weak in the crowd, thousands and thousands of mobile phones guzzling data. Or perhaps Davit had given up, since he couldn’t hear me, perhaps he had ended the call. 

My phone screen returned to black. In the dim and distorted reflection of the screen, all I could see was my face.

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