Tell me your name, he says. I say, I’m not going to lie; I’m giving you a fake name. What’s your fake name? He asks, his eyes dancing. There are flames behind those eyes. He holds me in the cobblestone alleyway, kisses me as a Lucia should be kissed and gives me his name to use for one night only. Otokar and Lucia, like characters from an East European fairytale.
New Year’s Eve and I was sober as Diet Coke, sober and sombre and ready to slit my wrists. Before I walked, alone, to the Hemingway Bar around the corner from my hotel, before the barman seduced me with absinthe. Slotted spoons, water, sugar, fire, yes.
The night is nearly over. I take Otakar back to my hotel where he spreads me across the bed like a starfish. There are fireworks in the windows and wood smoke in his hair. He makes love to me in Czech and I don’t understand a word, but years later I’ll know them as the truest words I ever heard.
Jsi podivně krásná. You’re strangely beautiful.
Eileen Merriman’s awards include second in the 2015 Bath Flash Fiction Award, commended in the 2015 Bath Short Story Competition, and third in the 2014 & 2015 NZ Sunday Star Times Short Story competitions. Her work has previously appeared in the 2015 Bath Short Story Anthology, The Sunday Star Times, Blue Fifth Review, Takahe, Headland, F(r)iction and Flash Frontiers. Her flash fiction has been nominated for the 2016 Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net anthology and Best Small Fictions.
Art by Marja van den Hurk and Stephanie Ann
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