The Sisters by Karla Valenti

The three of them stood at the corner, the rain slowly melting their umbrellas. A red umbrella, a yellow umbrella and a green-and-white striped umbrella, drippity-dripping into a puddle at their feet. The littlest one poked the tip of her shoe into the swirl of colors dancing on the sidewalk before her and soon there was nothing left of their umbrellas. Then the rain started on their hooded jackets, three bright pink jackets all in a row drippety-dripping as the color puddle beneath them grew. Small rivulets of what used to be their umbrellas sped away towards the drain, its black mouth gaping wide at the end of the street. The streaks of pink jacket followed closely behind. Then, they were left standing in nothing but their summer dresses: one red dress, one yellow dress and one green-and-white striped dress. The rain soon washed those away and the drain greedily gobbled them up. And that was when the sun decided to make an appearance, turning its golden glory upon that threesome standing at the corner, strong, confident and beautiful in their naked skin.

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Home by Karla Valenti

I watch them as they sleep, the three of them sprawled into each other, their limbs of varying sizes intertwined in the backseat of the car. The oldest rests his head against the window, his arm lays gently across his sister’s lap. The middle one holds her brother’s hand and has lent her other hand to the baby who, in his sleep, has wrapped his tiny dimpled fist around her fingers. Our tiny mess of a car shuttles them through the night, their moonlit sighs mingling with the warm breeze that spills in through the open window, while the road ahead holds steady in its course determined to get us home, seemingly unaware of the fact that we are already there.

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The Line by Karla Valenti

There is a place not far from here, a tiny spot of space where people like to go to forget. It’s always quite busy, as there are many with much to forget. Sometimes you have to wait for days before you get a turn but people don’t seem to mind because it gives them time to collect their memories. You can see them as they stare ahead, their eyes open to their past, trying to recall each moment so they can let go of it once and for all. As their turn approaches, they seem more desperate to remember and so they spend more time away. They seem to get heavier as they get closer to their turn, as if the weight of their memories was becoming unbearable. Sometimes they cry. When their turn is up, they step on the spot and close their eyes. For that one instance, they are blinded to their past, they have no memory of who they were or how or why, they only know to be. And then, the moment is over. They always look up surprised to be there and then they simply walk away. They never look back at the long line of people waiting behind them for their turn to forget.

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Fragments by Karla Valenti

It is raining today, that unforgiving wall of water, the kind that washes away one world and leaves you gazing out at the possibility of another. *** You wake into your dream, opening your eyes to a site that otherwise lies dormant within your daytime mind. Before you, another world begins to form while the threads of all you know unravel behind you. *** She gazed at the painting on the wall, its colors evoking a memory she’d once had, many lifetimes ago. She couldn’t quite place it, this other world spinning before her, and yet her heart mourned at the recollection of a fall and the death that enveloped her as she sank. *** They say he stood in the same spot for ten hours, didn’t move an inch. They asked him what was wrong, if he needed help. He just stared back, his face a blank washed out shadow of the great man he once was… in another time, in another world. *** For months I carried him around with me, everywhere I went. I talked to him, I thought of him, I shared with him my every hope and dream. Throughout this time, he was mine, sharing my body and my world. And then one day, there he was staring up at me, no longer simply my own, bringing with him another world, for now and evermore.

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