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Your mother called me after you went missing, asking if I knew anything they should know. There aren’t a lot of places to hide in Victorsville, and she was worried because no one had seen you since the night before. It was four in the afternoon by then and growing dark outside. Layers of pink and orange sky were melting into the snow. I was seated in front of the telephone, and rubbed circles over the numerical faces of the phone’s dial. No one told me that you had gone missing.
They found you in a neighbor’s field four days later. That’s when I wished I’d told your mother I knew everything she should have known, but nothing that would have helped.
Behind the snow bank, your body was surrounded by ice; you were wearing a dress I hadn’t seen before — fuchsia and shorn above the middle of your thighs. Everyone says people who freeze to death look peaceful, just like they’re sleeping. You looked like a sleeping dancer wearing a bright pink tutu, and your arms softly curved above your golden head. Your skin matched the color of your eyes.
The elders’ eyes got big when they saw you — what you were wearing — and they told us to turn away and start praying that God would offer you posthumous forgiveness. Maybe I should have prayed for forgiveness from you. Then we just stood there, facing away from you, until someone took you away on a gurney.
The doctor examined you the next day and his wife threw away the dress I hadn’t seen before. Who can we blame for Elisabeth’s death? He must have asked himself as his gloves snapped into place and his hand reached for the scalpel. What do the liver, kidneys, and brain have to say? Who will the heart blame?
Then he ran the scalpel over your chilled, blue skin and split the two sides like Moses parting the sea. Inside was your baby, curled up in the fluids as though crystallized in amber.
I didn’t see your parents cry until they found out about your pregnancy. The elders wouldn’t attend your burial, so a minister from a neighboring town delivered the sermon. I threw dirt onto your coffin after your family. Snow had already fallen over the soil when I peered over the edge of the grave.
Under the knife, your body confessed its hypothermia and dehydration, but your baby kept its secret. Who can we blame? The doctor and his litany of tests couldn’t say. Your mother asked me if I could tell her his name. Surely, after a friendship dating back to diapers, I should have learned it, but I still only knew everything about you that wouldn’t help. I told her what I had always believed: That we knew the boys of Victorsville too well to think of them that way.
In the days following your death, I often woke in the middle of the night and was disappointed that I hadn’t dreamed of you. I hoped my subconscious would run its fingers through my memories, flipping the pictures back and forth until they’d run together as if they’d sprung to life again.
Instead, I thought I felt your baby pressing his nose against mine. I thought I saw him coiled above me, slender blood vessels visible across his bulging forehead. His legs were not much longer than his arms; his eyes were sealed shut. Even in my slumberous daze, I searched his face for yours — deeply set eyes with sunken spaces between the brows and lids, or twin dimples beneath the cheekbones. Then I rolled over and away from him, hid my face in my pillow, and still I didn’t dream of you.
Virgie Townsend is one of those wayward 20-somethings the New York Times warned you about. She grew up in Central New York, the daughter of a fundamental Baptist and a sex researcher. After her graduation from law school, she moved to Colorado, where she lives 5,340 feet above sea level in an allegedly haunted apartment.
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32 Responses to “SEVENTEEN • by Virgie Townsend”
Comments
« DAKOR’S DILEMMA • by Patrick S. Tomlinson | Home | PRIOR ART • by Ramon Rozas III »
January 5th, 2011 at 12:11 am
Excellent!
5 stars
January 5th, 2011 at 12:35 am
Now that’s what I call a good morning read! Terrific!
January 5th, 2011 at 2:31 am
I concur with both the above! A pitch-perfect blend of “showing” and telling. Now when do we get the story about the haunted apartment?
January 5th, 2011 at 3:09 am
I too concur! 5 stars!
January 5th, 2011 at 4:10 am
What a story! Wow! Five of course!
January 5th, 2011 at 4:12 am
A thousand words that can make me cry and gasp are worth much more than five stars.
January 5th, 2011 at 4:15 am
This was wonderful!
January 5th, 2011 at 5:35 am
i really enjoyed this.
January 5th, 2011 at 5:47 am
Beautifully written, including and particularly in the details; one can almost overlook the fact that this is merely a vignette within a larger, implied story.
Four stars.
January 5th, 2011 at 6:18 am
Excellent.
January 5th, 2011 at 6:34 am
The imagery is breathtaking; a truly brilliant piece of flash.
January 5th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Another voice to the chorus…well done and well done. Five stars.
January 5th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Well, this really was incredible. The descriptions and the imagery here were beautifully done, and the story itself was powerful and tragic. The use of second person here was perfect, and there’s really nothing that drew me out of the story. This was, honestly, wonderful.
A definite five stars.
January 5th, 2011 at 8:26 am
WOW! 5!
January 5th, 2011 at 8:37 am
Incredible writing, to make such a tragedy sound so beautiful.
January 5th, 2011 at 8:48 am
And now, my mind is full of questions.
The protagonist….M or F ??
Lover or freind ??
Supporting Fishlovesca…….
The rest of the story…PLEASE
Unfortunately this piece only stops..
But does not end….conclusion.
Great as far as it goes!!!
4 stars
January 5th, 2011 at 9:08 am
Whole story in under 1000 words…true flash.
January 5th, 2011 at 9:14 am
I really liked this story. The image of Elizabeth frozen to death in the ice is an interesting one and it’ll probably stay in my for a long time.
I felt bad for the poor main character too, morning Elizabeth and his baby.
January 5th, 2011 at 9:56 am
I liked this, thought it was well written, but where were the police detectives? Did I miss something? Am I asking the wrong question?
January 5th, 2011 at 10:28 am
A truly fine piece of work, Virgie. Congratulations!
January 5th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Extremely well written, heart-tugging story. Good job!
January 5th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
This story is so perfect that one is
afraid to approach it for comment. That
would be like leaving your fingerprint
on the portrait of Mona Lisa.
January 5th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Blown away!
Five stars.
January 5th, 2011 at 5:15 pm
Hauntingly beautiful!
January 6th, 2011 at 10:09 am
I wish I could say more than wow, but I’m still stunned by the beauty in the harsh reality. Wonderful piece of writing here with narrative that just takes your breath.
January 6th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Outstanding. And everything noted above … breathtaking, beautiful imagery, haunting. *****
January 8th, 2011 at 10:36 am
Shit, man, this is heavy. Crippling imagery with frozen diction all enveloping into a well written and breath-taking story. Five stars. Well done.
January 9th, 2011 at 4:29 am
[...] currently at 4.5 stars with a total of 553 votes to date, and a newcomer to the top stories list, “Seventeen” by Virgie Townsend, is already at 4.3 stars and 78 votes less than a week after publication. By contrast, an average [...]
January 10th, 2011 at 6:42 am
Beautiful. Prolific. Haunting. Wonderful imagery.
I’ve read this story many times and it still has me enthralled.
Five stars.
January 27th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Many thanks (albeit 22 days late) to everyone who read “Seventeen,” commented, rated, or posted it! I was surprised and gratified that it was so well received. For anyone who’s interested, I just finished a blog entry on my website that discusses the process of writing the story and answers some of the questions raised in this comments section.
Thank you again!
March 28th, 2011 at 8:26 am
I’m a huge fan of Every Day Fiction. I use many of the stories as templates for new ideas, new language, new narrative styles etc.
This excellent ‘flash’ is testament to the excellent short shorts that can give a reader equal value and equal satisfaction to that of a novel.
Well done, Virgie – this is an emotive story told beautifully.
February 25th, 2012 at 10:10 pm
Beautiful and well crafted piece of fiction!