joannathewriter

[joannathewriter]

Squeaky Shoes

The coffee shop’s bell rings for the umpteenth time this morning, sounding an order for another customer slapped in by the wind’s icy backhand.

Laughter, epiphanies, connections and conversations fill the bright air, each sweetened with the undertone of expectation for the tomorrow’s winter storm.

Snow is coming. To a town that hasn’t tasted its shimmer in five years. And with snow always comes a sense of promise. Of hope. Of tension.

A boy’s hand wipes his damp unease against a pair of sweatpants, legs bouncing nervously under a booth’s table. Opposite of them, a pair of leggings cross while hands fiddle with rings and fingers. The booth has been occupied for the past hour, and bell after bell has rung through the cafe, announcing the come and go of customers and confections, coffee and colloquy, but the table stays occupied; unchanged. Frozen: in that enveloping sense of promise and hope. Of tension.

Beneath the bistro string lights, a restless child draws snowmen on his homework. A few businessmen consult their teams online, their headphones keeping their focus locked in and away from the mellow cafe tunes bouncing round the ceiling. A woman watches snow levels on TV, texting her son across the state. A table of four fuss about their neighbors, while nearby, two college students occupy the only booth, their coffees growing cold. Their bagels yielding stale.

While the girls’ cream cheese delight sits on her plate, the boy holds his in his hand, sesame seeds flaking off the prop that’s patiently waited minutes for its next bite. The bagel — it’s not nearly as interesting as she is, as her eyes are, as her mouth is, telling the story of her recent, longest road trip. Her voice raises and lowers with plot, her green winter coat inching off of her shoulder with every passing gesture.

He sets the bagel down to sip his coffee as she laughs about her story, a sound much like the cafe’s bells. She goes on about her mother, about their college sports team, about her struggle with mathematics, raising her arms to rub her face in apprehension and tug her silken hair behind her ears. He mimics her gesture, stretching above his head and gracing back messy locks that’d strayed across his face. The boy picks up his bagel again, holding it near his half-smile as he tries not to beam at the dimples that fold on her cheeks between words.

When he speaks, which isn’t often, his voice doesn’t match his sharp features. He alters it with a rasp, an attempt at cool contemplation. She bites her nail during his turn, he hides his hands beneath his thighs; they’re both disquieted, but not by one another, but by their own selves and their brewing flavors of flirtation.

Another hour passes, and noon’s cafe bell brings with it a pause that lingers a heartbeat too long in the space between them and their lukewarm brunch. He twitches his feet, sneakers chirping concrete songs. Her brow furrows, accompanying a smirk, which he plays off of by dancing his feet in musical squeaks. Her smile makes his lips tingle every time, and it just so happens that, whenever she hears that squawk beneath the table, a grin blooms beneath her eyes.

To his relief, they laugh and flow into an easier state of conversation, all thanks to his squealing shoes.

Although they’re brand new, he thinks, he’ll have to buy another pair. He’ll buy five more if it means he’ll see her smile.

[joannathewriter]

The Ostrich

The 2025 new year sprang up, and so did Kita’s first gray hair. As she brushed her mane back into a pony, the mirror sparkled with a sheen of leftover tinsel from the holidays, weaved in with the undyed roots of her hair. A gleam. A fairy hair she didn’t purchase and would be momentarily itching to return it to whoever outfitted her with it, without her permission.

Kita’s natural, dark blonde hair had always been laced with strands of glistening blondes, but this one was different. Colorless. It didn’t glow golden, or red, or strawberry; the vanity’s buzzing lights bounced a starry silver back into her widened eyes.

“Oh, my god.”

Kita parted her hair in a rush. It’s just the light, bouncing off a natural, blonde highlight. Just the light.

“Oh, my god. Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod!”

A panicked pause. She spreads her hairs in alternate directions.

“NO! No-no-no-no-no. No. No! No!”

“What? What?” Her husband comes running.

He laughs when he discovers Kita is shaken by her first gray hairs and gives her a loving embrace, comforting her, assuring her it’s just from the past year’s stress. Her crushing existential crisis eases with his words, but once he leaves, a wave of blood rushes to her head, and she’s back in her 12-year-old body. The memory consumes her, the feelings all too familiar.

She’d found her first pubic hair — Kita was becoming an adult. Being from a tight-knit Eastern European family, shame was nonexistent as she went crying to her mother, who began laughing and celebrating with her. Kita was growing up; she’d gotten her first period, her first adult hair. These were things to celebrate, milestones in life. The unexpected reaction from her mom bloomed into a core memory she now relived when everything was suddenly coming full circle.

This was the first time Kita experienced the same feeling she had at 12-years-old. Like a cresting wave about to make its final moves before disappearing into time forever. Aging was real, death was imminent, and no matter how she lived, or what she did, she would join everyone who was anyone in the end.

Kita parted her hair again, finding a second sparkling stripe toward the back of her crown. It fluxed down to blend from her blonde roots to her dyed onyx hair — fluxed down, but not like the wave that she’d felt pulling her under. It spilled over like a silver shooting star into the night, like the stardust she knew she once came from.

Perhaps she was beginning to return to it — to the stars and the sky.

“Mrrr-oww,” her cat Lila purred in hopes of attention, climbing her leg and reaching for Kita’s arms. Kita scooped the little puff up, fluffing out her winter fur. Singular gray hairs peaked out on Lila’s tummy and back, claiming some of her sable.

Lila blinked slowly into Kita’s eyes, murmuring a melody of love. She gave her owner’s hand soft licks before hurling herself off of Kita like a springboard and into a full zoom.

“Fine!” Kita laughed, catching her reflection in the mirror again. Her stars may be beginning to descend upon her world, and she can look up at the sky in wonder, or she can ostrich and hide her head, missing the show.

[joannathewriter]

The Canary

For someone who’s lived as a canary in a cage since her surgery, Mel never dares to use the term aloud. It would be an admittance — it would make it real — though she’s acutely aware that it’s become more than just a metaphor. Her small apartment, Mel’s dull routine, the walls that seem to inch closer together with every passing day. The voices in her head tell her that it’s looking bleak, that she’ll never amount to anything more than this — small, uninspired, weak.

Mel had to learn to walk again. “And you thought you’d learn to fly,” the voices taunt. “You were never meant to fly.”

She tried to leave, once. Packed a bag, stood at the door. But the world outside felt too rushed, too daunting. Only when she lost her grip on the duffle, slick with sweat and strain, did she realize she’d been facing off with her reflection in the doorknob for hours. So, she stayed.

Mel sits by the window on this day, as she does on many days, staring at the neighborhood park three floors below, the children’s screams and the leaves’ whispers bouncing off of her reflection. But today, a flicker of yellow catches her eye. A freed canary, circling in the air above, wings beating with a kind of humming freedom she hasn’t felt in months.

The canary pauses, hovering, as if it has seen her, and for a moment, Mel thinks it might fly in, might land on the brick sill outside and flutter ancient words of encouragement. But it doesn’t; not exactly. It flies toward her, bumping into the glass, landing dazed just inches from her seat.

Before Mel can slide open the pane to assist the frail creature, it springs up, ruffling out its feathers, hop-hopping in her direction to chirp a song of question and tilt its head in intrigue. Just enough to pause, but not enough to stay. It flits into the birches below, the brightest yellow winking when it weaves through the sun’s rays. An unyielding liberty, gliding on gales to the unknown.

Mel shoves off her stool, palms rubbing against jeans. The weight of her neglected wings descends onto her back, heavy with the things unsaid, the things left undone. The taunting voices she bickers with — they briefly still, as stunned as the creature had been. But the bird has flown.

And, maybe. Just maybe…