Three Stories

by Mileva Anastasiadou

1. A Short Guide to the Economics of Time and Grief

I haven’t been spending my time. I save it in bottles instead. So far, I have saved five years and twenty-one days to spend them with Dad. I hope he saves time, too, or else we’ll have to share the time I have been saving, and it won’t be enough.

Mom tells me he won’t ever come back. She’s combing her hair while I stay still to not waste a minute without him. I fill one bottle after another, but Mom insists that my collection is useless, like her time has already run out, and she has succumbed to the call of the void, and I know she doesn’t know much about the economy and what it means to invest, but still I don’t talk back, and I pretend she knows better.

Brother says it’s not time I keep in the bottles. He says it’s dead pieces of me I cannot let go of. And he claims it all started when Dad left. I collected what had broken inside of me and placed it inside bottles. Everyone leaves in the end, he says, but I tell him that if he is right, there will be nothing left of us in the end but a huge empty hole. He speaks like we are all replaceable, and I don’t tell him how empty I am inside, how I wait for Dad to come back.

Dad writes letters only to me, and sometimes I spend a minute or two reading them, which I hope isn’t time wasted, but it always proves it is, because Dad never answers my question. He never says he’ll be back. That’s when I long to empty my time account, break all bottles, and spill time on the floor like it doesn’t count, the void keeps screaming, inviting me, grabbing me from the neck and pulling me down into the abyss, but I remain calm, I let go of the tight grip, I refuse the invitation, tighten the caps on the bottles, straighten them on the table, and I don’t waste another minute thinking, feeling. I close my ears, my eyes, my heart, but still I can’t save enough time, or us, I stay hollow, the bottles are full of what has been emptying me, and grief is a hole inside that keeps growing and growing and growing.

2. A Short Guide to Beating Loneliness Without People

Whenever I’m lonely, I split in two. I become two people, just like it happens in books and movies, but I still lack ambition, I’m not Mr. Hyde, I don’t get vicious or cruel, I’m not Tyler Durden either, I’m not bolder or wiser or philosophical, a better, improved, updated, version of myself. I’m just myself but twice. 

Whenever I’m lonely, I make up stories and hide in them. In made-up stuff, I feel safe, because stories make sense, unlike life, and I jump inside like I’m the main character, and I travel the world, and I see things, and wherever I go I meet myself and we have fun, and bad things happen, too, but I kill all dragons, because I’m also the author, and I give me hints, that’s how I know what happens next, and nothing truly finds me unprepared, and everything happens for a reason, and everything makes sense again.

Whenever I’m lonely and overwhelmed and can’t deal with stuff because it’s all too much, and I can’t take it, whenever the human urge to feel backed up by my people sneaks inside, only my people aren’t there, because people say they’ll be there for you all the time, and then they aren’t, that’s when I divide myself and multiply myself, like I give birth to the person I need, and I tell myself what I want to hear, and I run after me to take care of me, and we merge back into one me, when I no longer need me.

Whenever I’m lonely, I turn to me. It’s not easy or effortless, it takes talent and practice, but I have mastered the art of shape-shifting into myself and save me. I turn into my imaginary friend, only I’m not imaginative enough to envision a brand new character, or hopeful enough to trust people, I only become myself again, but I never bore me, never tire me, I’m not too much or too little, I trust myself to be there for me when I need me, I rely on me to comfort me, and that’s a safe method at hand to fight loneliness without people, because people promise they’ll never leave, that they’ll be there, and then they vanish.

3. A Tale of Two Cities But Less Deep and Roaring Loud

It was the brightest of skies, it was the darkest of nights. Hot girls get songs written about them, but my love can only paint. He can’t decide on the perfect landscape, he watches me closely, checks my reactions, like I’m not only his muse but also his worst critic. He draws a meadow below a moonless night sky, then fills it with color, dark green grass with yellow flowers, deep blue sky with tiny white dots hanging like fairy lights, steps into the painting, invites me in, and we board, like innocence is our weapon, like love is our strength, like the painting is the vessel that will transport us into our common future, into forever, but all I think of is the song he won’t write about me.

It was the highest high, it was the lowest low. He thinks it’s the landscape that bores me, he looks at me like I’m an exotic place he isn’t sure he loves or hates, because he’s a water sign, and I’m an air sign, too Siamese to stay apart, but incompatible, too, he thinks in colors and images, and I think in music, he hurries and dips his brushes into the paint, like I’m jumping off the painting next minute and into a love song, he pours more color in the sky, we then lie down and sing loud, from the top of our lungs, because we’re young and free and strong, we sing loud, louder, we roar like lions before the world devours our voice, we burst like the fireworks in the sky, and we watch the colors explode, like watching the history of the world unfold, the universe starting with the big bang, expanding, then fading away, like an imaginary song playing about me, the intro, the chorus, the silence.

I’ll never be that kind of hot, or he’ll never be a poet, but he blows a kiss my way, and we’re neither in a painting, nor in a song, we settle for a novel instead, we walk into a Dickensian novel of two cities, or separate dreams, only it’s less deep, not classy or classic, for we dream big, but we’re small, he’s water and I’m air, and the fire will devour us at the end, but in a plot twist we will someday devour the world, only we play innocent now, although we’re bloodthirsty and fireproof, we close our eyes to fall into the great beyond, the realm of sleep, into dreamland we enter and we hold hands to go together, and it is a far, far better song that I’m singing, the song that someday, on my own, I’ll write, it is a far, far better dream that we dive into, hoping we’ll last after the painting fades, and we grow into who we want to be, and that we won’t get crushed by life, reality, the world, once we wake up.

BIO: Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece and the author of "We Fade With Time" by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found or is forthcoming in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, New World Writing, Best Microfiction anthology 2024, Cotton Xenomorph, and others.twitter: @happymil_ instagram: @happilander