Locked-down, Loved-up Literature
Canvas asked four New Zealand authors to write about love, how does it look right now. So they each wrote a short story. Part two: Tina Shaw and Ian Wedde.
I’m in one house, you’re in another. There’s a swollen creek between us, filled with shards of glass and murk-brown like other people’s fear. The internet comes and goes, maybe it’s overloaded, there are so many things right now that are overloaded, or not loaded enough. I’ve got a freezer full, yet still I go hungry.
You’re in one house, I’m in another. Can I dinghy across the divide and hold your hand? There’s some stuff that got left unsaid. Like,
I’m sorry we had that fight over … what was it again, dessertspoons and tablespoons? In all the excitement, it’s slipped my mind. No, nothing as essential as that slips my mind, my mind is like a sieve full of slop. I wish it wasn’t so. I lie awake in the silent night of lockdown and hear your voice, once so sweet, now gone harsh: It’s a tablespoon, goddamnit. And now I can’t even hold the dessertspoon to your cheek and say how alluring you look in convex.
I’m in one house, you’re in another. There’s a ravine between us full of spiky plants and biting insects. But I can be brave, if you can. If we can just come out of our houses — out of yours, out of mine — maybe we could reach our hands across that crazy divide and flutter fingertips at each other. Did I ever tell you what beautiful fingertips you have? I have to say it now, because time is running out, while also stretching into infinity and we don’t know where or when it will all end. The main thing I know right now is that it doesn’t matter if it was a tablespoon. The tablespoon is innocent in this matter and deserves to stay at your house. Just like I want to stay at your house. Or you in mine. Can we please be friends?
Your house, my house. Let’s float them together — just like you wanted. I’m sorry about the fight, it was stupid. I was stupid. We were both afraid, fear clenching between us like creature-teeth. Let’s build a bridge instead, no matter how creaky.
Tina Shaw’s new novel, Ephemera ,is available as an ebook (Cloud Ink Press, ($14.90)