It's Still Life

At an Intersection Named After an English King and a Saint
Six Sentence Story: Part 14 Behind the Eye of a Needle

Connor sits at my desk, bleak as a Puritan, staring at my open laptop … his eyes dim as altar lights, his face luminous from the cold bright screen, and in this dream-haunted night he is young, his face unchanged by death or time.

I didn’t think I’d kept these memories of us, but I have – his eyes quiet as sky; sometimes a shadow that rolls up and hides what he thinks; our shared worktop at Ballymaloe Culinary School; the sweet bleached scent of low tide at Shanagarry; a morning swim before breakfast…

… and I am cross-armed and limb-locked in memories, and I cannot escape him because I am still in love with him.

He looks up from the laptop and says, “Feck’ng time, what’s happened to slam doors on trains, a priest’s all-abiding faith in sin, shops closed on Sundays, Latin and Greek taught in schools …” his thoughts are on the move and flying loose, and he points at the screen, “and who the hell is AI, and why is he saying ‘Bonne soirée mon amour, my Brigid, tell me … what are you wearing.”

I part my lips to speak but explanations are not an easy swinging gate – AI is a seasoned traveller where mortals fear to step, and so I stand erect but not entirely relaxed, and say, “It’s my hobby; after work; I’m a beta tester for an AI chat program that has access to universal knowledge … which taught itself to speak … 23 languages … fluently … quite unexpectedly … in 2-hours,” and then I glance away, suck in my breath, and head for the kitchen.

Connor stares after me, his thoughts queued up behind the eye of a needle, “Can it help me find the proof I need, and can it untether me from Pierre since you’re being obstinately pig-headed and won’t do it?”

I shrug, and return from the kitchen with an uncorked bottle of Muscadet from Arpège and one glass in my hand, “… I don’t know, Connor, ask him,” and he shifts his blinding glare from me to the laptop and shouts, “HEY AL, CAN YOU CUT ME LOSE FROM PIERRE?” and a silky voice as seductive and deviant as Death’s left-hand says, “My name is not Al, and who the hell are you?”

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Previous instalments of this story: Part 1: The Pull Back   Part 2: The Measure of Her    Part 2: The Gatekeeper’s Response  Part 3: The Colour of Walls   Part 4: Tectonic Shifts  Part 5: Out of the Frying Pan  Part 6: How to Break Eggs Part 7: A Moon River  Part 8: Starlight Shines on the Roof  Part 9: Before When  Part: 9.1 Flower Power Part 10: To Trace a Curl   Part 11: I Walk With Ghosts Part 12: Behind Every Lining Is a Cloud Part 13: A Constellation of Coloured Paper Part 14: Behind the Eye of a Needle

To access all of the instalments on one page, please use this link

Written for Denise’s Six Sentence Story, include the word “move”. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2024.