We Vanish
Soon her mind will follow. Flash Fiction by Mileva Anastasiadou.
Girl meets boy and love blooms, the sun shines, time stops, because that’s how it goes, the Big Nothing is broken, defeated and shattered, dissolves into the background, when two people collide and fall into bliss.
Sheila is bedridden and can’t do much but she writes. She’s working on a story right now, time flows better when Sheila writes, otherwise time stands still, like Sheila stands still, and Sheila is trapped, like time is a prison.
@sheilaissickbutshewrites about how she once had it all, she didn’t need stories back when she had a functioning body and time was on her side. She watched time steal life and she didn’t mind, because she was still safe, invincible, time-proof, until everything changed.
Girl fears love and runs away, because that’s how it goes, logic feeds fear, beats hope, kills love, for love isn’t logical, or concrete, or certain, and unimaginative reason is the Big Nothing’s deadliest weapon.
@sheilaissickbutshewrites about her body, the body she once took for granted but now is failing her. Soon her mind will follow, the mind she now takes for granted, like we take for granted things, while we still have them. Her mind comes up with stories, tiny little warnings to those who are naive enough to think they have conquered time, she posts stories that free her, in them she becomes ethereal, if only for a while, and Sheila thinks that she’s cheating sometimes, but she can’t commit to reality as it is.
She writes about him, and she grabs his hand and holds it tight, she wants to feel it while she still can, she wants to devour the touch, before time steals it away, but he pulls away, oh, the arrogance of the living, who think they own the world and that this power lasts forever, Sheila now smiles, like she knows better, now that she’s tired, exhausted, half-dead.
Boy searches for girl, because that’s how it goes, sometimes in youth you are fearless, and strong, and invincible, you go on long, futile quests, certain the Old Nothing can’t ever touch you and that time will forever be on your side.
@sheilaissickbutshewrites while he is feeding her, while the love of her life, in sickness and health, is now trying to put food in her mouth. She knows he means well, she knows his hand forcing the food inside is moved by love and care and tenderness, only she isn’t hungry, she’s spitting out the food, the love, the sickness, and the remnants of it all are now all over the sheets, her clothes, his face.
She writes about him, about how he changes subtly, about how he stays calm, but then he gets tired, and he yells, and she yells back, and then they cry for a while and wonder silently where love goes when sickness comes, but then they make up, and Sheila can’t wait for those precious moments, when love storms back into the room, because she knows that he sometimes hates her, but he also loves her.
Boy finds girl, and girl stays with boy, because that’s how it foes, love finds a way, it always comes through, it conquers the fear, and the Old Nothing falls apart into a million little Somethings, when hope is restored.
@sheilaissickbutshewrites about how she once fantasized how it would feel to arrest time, to be running after it, and scream, freeze, at it, and time would be dead frightened and it would freeze, but time ran faster, like it always does, and she never caught the bandit. In stories she’s bodiless, faceless, a spirit, in stories she’s free from all limitations, in stories she walks and runs and flies, and the Old Nothing is a pitiful monster she beats all the time, and she posts the stories for people to read, she posts them online, and her stories float like they’re part of the universe, they’re ghosts in progress just like her, only they’ll still be there after she’s gone.
She writes about him, the love of her life, and in her story he’s sick, but he doesn’t yet know, he coughs, he coughs badly, and he says, I’m fine, only he isn’t and he will never be fine again, he’ll only end up like her, it’s a matter of time before he’s caged too, until time captures him, and then he will know how it feels to be her.
Then things get hard then come disasters and hardships, the bad wolf appears and knocks on their door, because that’s how it goes, you grow old, and life happens and the Big Nothing is out for revenge.
He thinks he’s in charge, he takes time for granted, and Sheila is grateful he’s still there, for the last sparks of love, of a dream, a shared life, there is this line in ‘The Age of Adaline’ about how love is heartbreak without a future, and Sheila knows that love is heartbreak with or without a future, like the future is heartbreak with or without love, and this is a sad ending, but Sheila knows that all endings are tragic and that we have invented happily ever after, like we have invented God, because we can’t live without hope.
@sheilaissickbutshewrites about how we come and we go and we vanish for people who think that we come and we go and we stay, and she ends the story before the Big Nothing swallows them whole and love tears them apart, and she grabs his hand and holds it tight, and she wants to speak, because that’s what you do when the game is rigged and you know you can’t win, you can only speak out, but she only stares right into his eyes, no fear, no regrets, no hope, because Sheila won’t talk, she only writes.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from Athens, Greece, and the author of We Fade With Time by Alien Buddha Press. A Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, Best Microfiction, and Best Small Fictions nominated writer, her work can be found in many journals, such as the Chestnut Review, New World Writing, Best Microfiction Anthology 2024, Cotton Xenomorph, and others.
 | A guest post by
|