The Deepest Parts
—
Tommy Dean
HE CALLS HER OLD PHONE NUMBER just to hear her voice, the cadence, the rush of excitement of her leaving her first away message. When they were still teenagers. Before. He doesn’t know how or why the number still works, why it hasn’t been claimed by someone else, a man, curt, monotone, void.
He sends her outdated email pictures of herself, the ones he took when she wasn’t looking, the sly smile, the crease of her brow, the moon curved of her cheek, the twisted curl of her hair.
He posts videos, some of the last moments they were together, him sometimes a voice, a shadow over the lens, her running, calves flexing, caliche flicked into the air, her laughing, his joke unheard, the back of her throat and invitation to the deepest parts of her, the scream nowhere to be found. In the comments, he asks if anyone has found her, if they know where she is? If she’s happy?
He makes promises on outdated internet forums. He’ll reveal himself, his part in her disappearance, his lack of understanding and maturity, or a crossroad that he’s misjudged, hitting the gas and never the brakes, zooming into college, another relationship, a replacement, because time was his, the zones never quite lining up again.
She’s alive. The evidence is overwhelming. But hidden. Escaped. Happier with someone else. The responses find him in those midday moments before the coffee is ready, when sleep is snaking its fingers through his hair, his eyes, drawing him to the black nothing of time. The comments and likes and emojis fill the screens, one in each room of his home, in his hand, and in his car, and so many at his job where he moves names from spreadsheet to spreadsheet tallying risk and cost, and the numbers of lives distant, and unreal, searching for her in his charts.
He gets a job in private security, surrounds himself with monitors, eye flitting from screen to screen, access to a large database of CCTV footage, everything in real time. The eyes of pigeons staring back at him, pecking at the lenses, a code only they know.
He’s rigged a bank of phones, a computer code he paid a small vacation’s worth, each one synced to call and call, to find her new number. He pushes the button and waits, a new voice saying, Hello, Hello, Hello? •
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Tommy Dean is an associate literary agent with Rosecliff Literary, the author of two flash fiction chapbooks and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press 2022). He is the Editor of Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. His writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2022, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, The Writers Center, and The Writers Workshop.
Website | Twitter
He sends her outdated email pictures of herself, the ones he took when she wasn’t looking, the sly smile, the crease of her brow, the moon curved of her cheek, the twisted curl of her hair.
He posts videos, some of the last moments they were together, him sometimes a voice, a shadow over the lens, her running, calves flexing, caliche flicked into the air, her laughing, his joke unheard, the back of her throat and invitation to the deepest parts of her, the scream nowhere to be found. In the comments, he asks if anyone has found her, if they know where she is? If she’s happy?
He makes promises on outdated internet forums. He’ll reveal himself, his part in her disappearance, his lack of understanding and maturity, or a crossroad that he’s misjudged, hitting the gas and never the brakes, zooming into college, another relationship, a replacement, because time was his, the zones never quite lining up again.
She’s alive. The evidence is overwhelming. But hidden. Escaped. Happier with someone else. The responses find him in those midday moments before the coffee is ready, when sleep is snaking its fingers through his hair, his eyes, drawing him to the black nothing of time. The comments and likes and emojis fill the screens, one in each room of his home, in his hand, and in his car, and so many at his job where he moves names from spreadsheet to spreadsheet tallying risk and cost, and the numbers of lives distant, and unreal, searching for her in his charts.
He gets a job in private security, surrounds himself with monitors, eye flitting from screen to screen, access to a large database of CCTV footage, everything in real time. The eyes of pigeons staring back at him, pecking at the lenses, a code only they know.
He’s rigged a bank of phones, a computer code he paid a small vacation’s worth, each one synced to call and call, to find her new number. He pushes the button and waits, a new voice saying, Hello, Hello, Hello? •
Tommy Dean is an associate literary agent with Rosecliff Literary, the author of two flash fiction chapbooks and a full flash collection, Hollows (Alternating Current Press 2022). He is the Editor of Fractured Lit and Uncharted Magazine. His writing can be found in Best Microfiction 2019, 2020, 2023, Best Small Fictions 2019 and 2022, Harpur Palate, and elsewhere. He has taught writing workshops for the Gotham Writers Workshop, The Writers Center, and The Writers Workshop.
Website | Twitter