Photo by Dan Stark
Invisible Love
Flash Fiction
Drawn to a shore laced with endless pillars of stones amid a tired, hazy sky, I stare at the enormous rocks. My eyes follow every line running through their rough surface. Cracks. All cracks. A visible thirst none can fill—like I am, barren, a gaping hole.
In the distance, a man sits on a giant boulder with legs dangling near the coming waves, and I’m pulled toward him. It is you, for I can sense your sorrow and read your mind. One syllable at a time.
My breath lingers in my lungs, then charges out in a cry. A howl—like a force of nature. Like the wind. You jolt forward, searching the ocean for anyone who’s drowning, yet you don’t look at me.
I’m here, right before you! Can’t you see me? I wail, but my voice gets stuck inside, swirling around in my head.
I glance down and can no longer see my hands. I’ve become invisible, even to myself. Yet a power greater than my own thoughts, as gravity, binds me to this Earth. Like glue. I hover above and around you like the breath I had last exhaled. I cannot leave.
I picture you stuttering your last goodbye as my body lay in the coffin, motionless, pale. Self-blame washed away the admiration from your face as I observed you from above. Your eyes were a puzzle, secretive and dull. I wanted to tell you; it wasn’t your fault. We left the candle burning. How could you have foreseen the destruction of fire from a tiny flame?
I longed for a future by your side, but I wasn’t enough.
Now her womb carries your seed. Proof of your existence. While mine rejected the part of you that could bring life and killed the fruit of our love. Each time. Still, I’m drawn to you.
A tremor shoots through my intangible body, and the thoughts shout in my invisible head. Love will never die!
I’m only a spirit, so I must let you go. I accept it for now. “Find me again,” I whisper, though you can’t hear me. “When you’re released from your physical bond.”
Endless ocean waves thrust pebbles towards us, and like tiny mice, they scatter around your feet. I stand in the pool of water trapped by the rocks. Invisible knee-deep. The tide pushes the body of water close to us. Soon the ripples will recede as I should, but first, I must help you live.
I arrange the pebbles right in front of you to form letters.
Your eyes widen. Cradling your forehead in your hands, you read aloud, “I set the fire.” Your voice fractures and falls limp.
Oxygen depleted in my breath. Insufficient to satisfy and carry through my blood into my cells to revive and make my body new. A slow death. Yet, in my heart, I was already dead if I couldn’t give you what you craved. So I sent you to her. To conceive for us.
Peering into the air where I stand, you ask, “Why?” You reach out toward me with both hands and drop the poison you chose, spilling the white pills. “I loved you.”
The wind picks up and carries away your shriek and rolls the bottle into the sea.
Your gaze glistens above the dark circles of your eyes. “I still do,” you whisper.
I float into your embrace, wanting you to hold me, imagining we’re new lovers on a star-filled summer night. No limitations. No guilt. In these moments, we resonate with music undetectable by others’ ears. The sound of the ocean reverberates into the hidden depths of our souls.
Then, I pick up one pebble at a time, piling them on the side, and form new words on the canvas of rocks beneath you.
Your face contorts. With the agony of knowing you read aloud, “I was dying.” Your body shakes. Eyes demanding, you ask, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
The waves clear away my last attempt to ease your pain—my lie.
You watch with a tear-filled gaze.
On our last night, we cuddled on the sofa by candlelight. I fell asleep in your arms, but you left to go to her. You couldn’t hear my cries. Awakened by the flames, the smoke surrounded me—circling, weaving like a ghost, and absorbing into my skin—painting my bedroom walls the blackest black. No time to escape.
I step inside you one last time before we separate. And I know you can sense me within your mind whispering my goodbye.
For now, you must live for our child. Without me, my love.
Invisible Love won Honorable Mention from WOW! Women on Writing in a 2018 flash fiction contest.
The Author
E. Izabelle Cassandra Alexander writes short stories, creative nonfiction essays, flash fiction, plays, and poetry. She's also working on a few novels, a series of children's books, and illustrations.
Her work has been published in Spark Literary Journal 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2020, in the Illinois State Poetry Society’s (ISPS) Anthology, Distilled Lives, Volume 4, 2018, and on the ISPS website, 2017-2019, in Yearning to be Free by The Moonstone Art Center, 2019, by The Scarlet Leaf in 2018 & 2020, by WOW! Women on Writing, 2019 & 2020, by The Book Smuggler's Den, 2019, Tint Journal, 2020, Unlimited Literature (UL-LitMag), 2020-2022, Ariel's Dream, 2020-2022, Pages & Spine, 2020, Beautiful Words by Ariel Publishing, 2020 & 2021, L.eX | Literary Excellence, 2021 & 2022, The Bookend Review, 2021, and more.
Author/Critique Site: https://izabelle2012.wixsite.com/izabelle
Facebook: www.facebook.com/E.IzabelleAlexander
Twitter: Twitter.com/IzabelleAlexan3
Patreon: www.patreon.com/IzabelleAlexander
E. Izabelle Cassandra Alexander
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