Short Fiction
Jude Lopez
Three Stories
In a land of broken promises The last time he learned how to love, it ended in bitter failure, teaching him the delicate nuances of losing love and how to endure a loveless life. The man-boy who looked frustratingly younger than his years spent countless hours trying to figure out what went wrong, what caused the two hearts that beat as one to abruptly lose all synchronization he so ardently nurtured The rains continued, adding to the grim delight of the days that saw bitter conflicts. She was always in no mood and rightly so, for his breath often brought forth the demons of intoxication, she and her father and her father’s father had ever so scrupulously expelled. “I’ve forgotten what its like to talk to you” she said with despair and disapproval all over her face. He did not reply for a reply, a mere reply was not what she wanted. She wanted to be loved the way he promised her, the unconditional love a mother gives to her suckling babe, that was what she wanted and nothing less. * It took Miguel a month after they both met to sum up the courage to give her a call. The night they met had been one of the strangest love-at-first-sight-moments he could think of. “You look lovely” he said to her, in a voice reeking of confidence that had literally shocked him to a point in which he could no longer speak to her that night. Pulling him closer she smiled and dragged him, the temporarily mute, toward her lips. They kissed and kissed and kissed and later made love. “How old are you?” she asked him, teasing him with an air of seriousness. “Old enough to get you into bed” came the reply. She loved his immature wit and held him close, fighting off the advances of the winter cold.
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