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Christ, I could use a cigarette.  Margie left two weeks ago, but like that matters anyway.  The whore's not worth fuck. I keep on lamenting about the money I spent on that bitch. And the ring she wore, my magnun pawned for shit.  The sex was great, yeah.  Just another shot of this piss-ass shit and I might smell her perfume on my sleeve again. I'm too dumb to do sleek shit on the go. I like to keep it simple.  A couple of weeks to think things through, like a good boy. Damn Margie. I need a good shot.  Let's pour us one.  Just one more for your sexy dumb ass.


The cold steel of the gun brushes my fingertips as I set it down on the desk.  I didn't buy it.  I snatched it from that kid down two blocks away.  Thought he was smart as fuck pointing it at me. Last thing he saw was the empty wallet I threw down his open eyes.  Fifty two bucks and a couple of rocks.

Fast forward.

My brain throbs and I have to keep my eyes open. It's beautiful to imagine Margie again in my arms.  Hmmm....so damn stupid too.  I hurl the empty glass, can't help but smile as it shatters on the plaster wall. It's never easy to let go.  She smells good, Margie, and when she smiles she's pretty decent.  But what if Margie's dead? She won't fuck with me anymore. I load the gun, six bullets are too many for a man like me.  

She slid out the folded letter stuck to the diary by a red elastic band. Her hands were trembling. Full of questions, she sat down as if what was about to be revealed needed her off her legs lest they give up.

Ms. Eleanor D.,

From the day I opened your journal I made it my goal to find you.  The treasure I had the forbidden curiosity to read could not remain mine to keep. I had to find its owner and that is you, Miss Eleanor Dasselty.

I spent twenty six years of my life for this journal to find its owner.  I do not expect monetary rewards of any kind and as I know you know, money holds no pull toward the priceless content of the journal you are once again in possession of. 

I have dutifully arranged a  meeting with you.  I was afraid you would refuse. Knowing this I have something else of yours too; something I know you regret losing. 

I will be visiting you this week.   Please, do not assume I won't come uninvited.


T.H.R

Mrs. Dasselty was eighty four when she found a peculiarly heavy package in the mail.  She didn't get much of anything in the mail anymore, except for the Reader's Digest subscription every month and a couple of mail order magazines she kept aside in the summer, ready to order from for the end of the year holidays.   Every year she'd get a Christmas card from relatives she'd only heard by name. That didn't bother her. She kept the cards pinned on her wall, close to her books. An all-year display to stare at and maybe, rely on.  Christmas is the best time of the year as they always say.

She kept leather bound books in every nook and cranny.  They piled up disorderly (so her guests always said). Angel-themed trinkets and a long forgotten collection of tea pots waited for her to dust them, but her arms pained her too much lately; there wasn't much she could do to make her place more presentable and that was acceptable by her (but not by her guests) .

Mrs. Dasselty, a lonesome woman, had spent her life quietly, something her nurse called a coccoon (to her disgust).   In the end, it didn't bother her what her nurse thought. A dismissive gesture would shut her up, and she'd go about her duties (thank God).

But Mrs. Dasselty recognized at once what the package revealed once the brown paper and strings fell off.  How could it be? How could the diary of her teenage years reappear so suddenly in her hands? Her weak heart skipped a beat, or two.

The heavy round man felt tired to the bone when he slumped on the stool facing the reflection of himself.  The obnoxious red plastic nose was now askew, the whitish paste he'd so carefully applied earlier had melted miserably, and sweat oozing uncontrollably down his forehead was making him look like some horror freak show.  Something he'd despised most of all.

He reached down and opened the drawer on his right. With a sigh, he took out a lotion he knew would wipe the smile off his face.

He had a good reason to. Mrs. Uglehorn kept staring through the vision of a colored photograph inside an elaborately hand decorated frame.  By his side she was smiling, kind of forced, with a bit of rouge on her lips. 

The clown looked back into her paper eyes.  Much sadeness flashed through around the corners of his masterly drawn smile.  But there was nothing to be sad about tonight! Tonight, he reassured himself,  was the night he'd made about twenty kids laugh. What a gift! 

The little prince of the party had turned six and he was sure he'd accomplished the funniest tricks he could remember for him. 

But Mr. Uglehorn wiped a lonely tear.  He'd gotten too flustered getting ready to go out that he could not remember why he had made three young girls cry.  They hadn't try to make him feel better too.  They'd sped off spending the remaining of the night as far as they could to get away from him, as if he were a giant spider. 

But Mr. Uglehorn had patiently spent the remaining of the evening waiting for all the kids to take the first steps.  He'd never retreated like some of them had, even though, at times, he couldn't have been happier to.  He'd doubled his efforts to be funny, and by the end of the night the parents paid him twice what he'd been supposed to get all along.

There was a warning, however, that he was not to contact them for future parties.

You play magic with your fingers. We both agree. Your violin snuggles lovingly where my lips have touched.  I made you sigh, as your talent did me.  A warm evening of October we shared the wine of love and the bread of laughter.

A bleeding diamond of a memory.

Once, in my foolish head, I imagined you mine, a queen's ring wrapped jealously around my finger. But the tears I have are the only jewels I possess.  The rest, I have given away much too cheaply, much too desperately.

I stole an instrument just like yours. I played it in front of the mirror. The violin had no strings but I swear I could hear your enchanting music. I danced with it. When no one could look, I held it close to me. It took me to you in dreams, and I swear those were real too. I saw you while I struggled in the arms of other men, I saw you behind the stained mirror, your hands encircling me, your lips on my ear with words of love quietly singing through me.

But there you stood with her this morning, magnificent as always before my eyes. The sun shone bright above us, giving me the tiniest speck of hope.  If I could just muster the strength to run to you, to  embrace you again...Maybe, just maybe. But she was there.

And you turned away.  You didn't look back. Your silence broke me into pieces. I was once again swimming in the puddle of shame I'd always accepted as inescapable until you. I managed to walk back to my boudoir and found the dreaded violin still laying on my bed. I lept and flung it across the room. The wood splintered, the handle broke. I stared at it for the longest time.

The sun turned purple when I disappeared from your world, beloved. I escaped the puddle of shame once and for all.  In a flash of red and much pain I understood everything.  The diamond inside bled once more but it wasn't for you, it wasn't for all the men I had invited in my bed; it was for me.