One Definition of Irony

One Definition of Irony

Driving my car, I saw this mass of stench. Not a smell but the visual kind. The kind that knocks on your window and asks for change in an unruly manner with speckled teeth and and flecks of spit that hit the glass between you and the ocular monstrosity outside of your car.

But no, he was just standing there. Facing north. My car facing south. And there he was. Flute in hand. Beard down to his navel- if I could see his navel. The beard so long and grown over such a staggering amount of time the tips were still brown from youth but you could trace and even see the years of time as the gray slowly, but surely- so dominantly took over once you had reached his face.

I almost had mistaken him for an artist. The flute so shiny. Artists are bums aren't they? Living from one gig to the next? Scrounging for food? Dancing in the streets? Saying they'll climb that light pole for five bucks- please I'll do it for five bucks, as one of your friends beats him to the lamp, scurrying up, the bum screaming your friend is stealing his job.

But no- just standing. Long dirty trench coat. Something dripping from the pocket. A children's knapsack across his back. And bifocals hanging from his left ear. Just standing.

I turned to my girlfriend at the time, "Check this guy out," I made the mistake of pointing.

The man head swiveled after long motionlessness and a queer smile crinkled on his lips.

"What, what is it," Susan responded.

And as I looked at Susan, I saw the motionlessness come to her as she froze, eyes wide, off in the distance behind me.

When I turned around that was the first of the glass to smash in from the window. Bits and pieces, and shards sharp came cutting in- dashing across the dash board. The flute blunt played sweet harmonic whistle sounds of crashing notes at next blow it blew on the windshield.

Susan pawed at the locked door handle and forced herself into the corner, shifting herself as the man continued around our vehicle smashing what would be left of our windows. She had shifted at last to the middle of the vehicle and I was able to take down my arms that I had used to shield myself from the onslaught and wrap them around her.

We now sat silent. We could hear the screams of people watching from the sidelines but we coward inside the broken car.

Once I could hear the muffled rants of the bum and the aggression of maybe three guys upon him. I glanced up from Susan, first checking nothing had been done to her only to see the homeless man rip himself away from his own attackers and pick up his flute. The men advanced again but the bum used his flute now as a mock bat and swung neatly at each of the men, slowly backing up towards our vehicle. Susan glanced up for the first time and seeing the bums return winced, sobbing into my chest.

The old man had finally made it to our car, surrounded. He swung his flute back and forth, the air making the tiny whistles again through the air. The men braced themselves each time until the bum cautioned his hands forward as if asking for a moment of time. Everyone stopped again. The old man then took up his flute and started to play a song. The song was ancient and tired and Susan hearing it sobbed more. I know she must have felt it was his idea of a death march and the sickening idea it would be the last thing she ever heard.

But upon finishing he bowed, and the men launched forward, clawing for bits of clothing and string, that darted upward and over the hood, causing one of the men to bash his head, tripping into the cars door, rocking the car and Susan bracing me as I could hear her muffled cries through the leather of my jacket.

And he was gone, the men too, still chasing him probably.

Women came over to our vehicle, finally able to coax Susan from my chest with their lilting voices. They checked up for cuts and scrapes, but had discovered none. One opened her phone and dialed 9-1-1, and the others followed her casually looking back from time to time.

Susan just stared forward and I looked at the millions, or perhaps one-hundred thousands of glittering glass on the floor mats and cloth seats in the back. I was about to speak and say something about how much I estimated the damage was but then decided to stop. I looked across to Susan and her tousled hair flecks of glass peppered in the new formed knots.

I leaned over and began to pick them out, her first flinching from the touch and then relaxing in hands. She breathed, cheeks flushed, and there was something there in the car that hadn't been for sometime. I pocketed one of the pieces I picked from her only to find more that had shattered and shuffled into my pocket. This only made me smile more.

She looked over at me and smiled in a strange way that I could now precieve as, "what?".

"That was ironic," I was finally able to stutter out.

"Ironic? What are you talking about?"

"What just happened."

"That wasn't irony."

"Of course it was."

"How's that?"

"That guy. He looked like my grandfather."

"So?"

"My grandfather played the flute."

She stared at me unconvinced, so I stressed my point, "he said he'd beat me with it one day."

"Fuck."

She turned around annoyed and looked out the broken window hearing the sounds of sirens and the red and blue lights that soon danced on the glass on the ground, like a prism flashed flecks of light that dance on our car.

I took up her hand, the one she was about to bring to her face- or hair, or anything she was about to touch- or fix, and I just took it and brought it to my own face, and forced it to cup around my cheek.

We looked at each other and then Susan spoke again.

"What's ironic is that it took a-"

And the police were on us, slowly- respectfully, pulling us apart, and walking us to the ambulance. The one we sat together on the back of.

As the questioning slowly finished so did the sirens drain away. They closed the back of the doors. And off we went together, in the care car. Windows in tact.

-Matthew Koutzun

Spider in my Eye Line

Spider in my Eye Line

Driving home,
spider in my eye line.
It crawls the dash
and stops periodically out of reach.

I want to hit it-
smash it
take it-
flick it out the window I just rolled down
and trash it.

But it's there plucking about
darting into vent and out
spinning web
down from dash to floor
and has vanished.

The night has darkened everything
and I've lost him from sight
only the light from head lights flashing
front to back
front to back
give me any light to the situation.

And staring to the floor mat I look up
having crossed a lane,
but it's 1:37 in the morning
and the cars are sparse
and sparser still
now that they've sped away
to get away from my
swerving discretion.

But the spider gone
is where everything else is found
because he is on me
I can feel him on me
or perhaps he's waiting next to me.

I feel tingle
and touch
on me
and in me
and my eyes strain darkness
to find the spider.

I want him there
an exact there
rather than an everywhere,
please, not everywhere.

I look up and focus
but hairy legs consume me
and my eyes are back on the floor
the dash
the clothing he could be tucked into
next to me.

But why am I afraid-
what harm could he do-
they say there is a spider
always three feet away from us at all times-

...
fuck, why do I have to think.

-Matthew Koutzun

Things that Never Die

Things that Never Die

"Honey? Hun," waiting patiently for a response, "Honey?"

No response, just eyes on the road.

"Pull over," she demands

"I'm not pulling over," he says, finally breaking the silence.

"Just pull over."

"I am not pulling over."

"Pull over right now."

He looks out the window to his left, rolling his eyes, catching her reflection catching his. He pulls over- hazard lights blinking.

They sit in silence as she pulls down the clothed sun visor and flips up the mirror, light blinding her face. He watches her as she pulls out a tube of lipstick and carefully applies it to her lips.

"Parties over, put it away." He looks away again, how many times do you put on a face?

"I asked you a question back at the last turn and I expect a response," capping the lipstick and dropping it into her purse. The clasp clicking, he looks at the purse and then at her in non-response.

"I asked you a question," she repeats.

"I know you did."

"So?"

He looks out the window again.

"Stop looking out the fucking window, and answer the god damn question: what the hell do you see in her?"

"Jesus Christ," he murmured, "you're gonna wake Susan up." He checks the rear view mirror to see the kid's asleep.

"I don't care," speaking softer, " what do you see in her?"

Silence, so she starts again, "I don't know when I started to notice, but today it all started to click. The way you watch her."

He had watched her.

"The way you sometimes throw her name out in conversation."

He had mentioned her.

"So why can't you answer my question?"

"Because it's not a question you want answered."

"You pressured us all into going tonight, so the least I deserve is an answer. I look at you gawking at her just like everyone else and it makes me sick. I look around and see them all smiling forward at a little sweetheart and how do you think that makes me feel? You- looking at her like that?"

"Do you really want me to answer?"

She looks into the mirror and wipes the lipstick off her teeth.

"How long has that been there?"

"Do you really want me to answer?"

"I don't know, whatever... it's pointless now."

"Fuck, I can't take this. I'm sorry Edith I gave her my attention tonight, she's just the star of the show for fucks sake and a friend of mine, so I thought we'd show her a little bit of support. And Jesus, you always have to make these things about you."

"All I asked is do you think I could do that? Do you think if I had continued singing I could be up there? That I could be on that god damn stage."

"What do you want me to say Edith? That yes you could be a star? That yes if you'd have worked harder you could of made it? I'm not going to play these games."

Her reddening face looks out the window before she slowly, with care, pulls out each word, "I sit out there, and I see the lights- the colour, and the sound -the music, and I see the audience -when I look back, and I start to... -inside I wonder why I'm not up there, why I've wasted half my life, and where and what I've done. Where did it go Jerry?"

"I don't know Edith. Ask your daughter in the back seat."

She looks out the window again.

"Just drive me home."

He pulls the shift back into drive as he makes his way down the road again, high beams on. She leans back into the seat, resting her head against the glass , thinking to herself, an audience clapping in the background.

" I could have been. I just could have been."

-Matthew Koutzun


Wow, it's been some time since I've written a short story, so I hope you enjoy.