A Mural of Dark Porches

"A Mural of Dark Porches " by April Fisher

Fiction

Sponsored by Mark Ari

You just came back from a walk; your lover is beside you. It had just stopped raining when you went, and you had just stopped fighting and, although you shouldn’t have, you laughed because all over the ground were frogs, big and little, and you had to tiptoe. You were reminded that you are in an apartment complex: someone was cooking beans and rice.

Then, when you came back, you sat where you’re sitting now, on the porch, and held hands, just like you’re doing now. You smelled laundry and sometimes paint.

You never figured out whether the world was romantic or static and still, but you think the first because everything you see makes you wish you were forever. You think you see a cloud floating past the other apartments. The person beside you is only there in movement. Maybe there’re people you can’t see sitting on the other dark porches. The tree is part of the building, and then it jumps behind. The dark makes these things.

When you try to squint a foggy picture clear, you finally understand. Your world is flat in the thick way. People have passed and looked. Some stared. Some cried, didn’t they? How often do you think of the frogs? Have you always held hands? Yes. And you always will. And the screen in front of you, it will always be there, and when it isn’t, quietly you disappear.