The warning, “let sleeping dogs lie”, should really be about a body in the street. Ignore it and you risk seeing it twitching in your dreams forever.
We had no right. No right holding hands as we walked down the dark city street, no right to stop and kiss deeply, no right to get drunk on the smell of each other’s skin as we embraced. We had no right to be here at all, together.
The thrill of transgression added to our passion.
The night had only begun for two illicit lovers. First we wanted to savor the deserted streets, the cool wind that caressed our faces, the magnificent lights of the Brooklyn Bridge that cast a glow on the dark, oily waters of the East River, and, most of all, to savor our momentary illusion of freedom.
Tomorrow this night would never have happened. It would be tucked away safely in a secret compartment in our minds, like a jewel in a strongbox, to be taken out and treasured in the privacy of our own thoughts.
Or so I thought.
“Come,” she said, shaking her head playfully, pointing down another street.
“I don’t know,” I answered. It seemed darker than the one we were on.
“Are you afraid my husband is waiting for us in one of those alleys, with a gun?” she asked, laughter in her voice.
Amalia’s laughter was something wondrous, like the sounds of angels beholding the glorious handiwork of God.
“He does have a gun, you know,” she continued. “And he would kill us if he found us together. He hates you.” She laughed deliciously, pulled me to her, and kissed me.
“We’ll find an alley,” she said, “and you’ll take me standing up.”
We turned the corner onto an unknown street.
That was when we saw him.
A man lay still on the ground, a few feet from the gutter.
Was he dead? In a drunken stupor? Injured?
I walked closer. Amalia followed me reluctantly, her body, once weightless, now a drag on my movement.
The man was not dead. Occasionally, his body jerked slightly. A faint moan came from his mouth.
It was too dark to see if there was any blood.
“We’d better get the police,” I said.
“Do you remember the 51st Street story?” she asked.
How could I forget? It had been all over the newspapers, shortly after we began our own affair. Another illicit couple, deciding to be good Samaritans, had stepped in to help. Their reward was to get their names, and their adultery, all over the city.
“If we call the cops we’ll have to give a statement,” Amalia said slowly, emphasizing each word, as if speaking to a child about a subject beyond his understanding. “And then,” she continued, in that same didactic tone, “our next statements will be to divorce lawyers.”
“We can’t just leave him,” I protested.
“We’re not leaving him because we were never here,” she said. “Someone else will see him and get help.” She tried to pull me away. I stared at the helpless body.
“It’s not right,” I muttered.
“Come on,” she said, tugging at me. “We’ll finish in a hotel.”
I allowed myself to be led away.
Amalia broke into a run. I, too, ran. We were almost out of breath when we reached a subway station. We started down the stairs.
A policeman was at the bottom, walking up. We passed him, silently.
There will be no hotel with Amalia, not tonight, not ever. And there will be no freedom from the image of that body in the street, burned in my mind, forever.
Harry Steven Lazerus was born in Brooklyn in the last century. He has lived in New York, Israel, Texas, and a work cubicle in California. He currently works as a software engineer in the space program but has also taught physics and astronomy at CCNY and picked apples in Kibbutz Tsuba. His stories have appeared in AlienSkin Magazine and Anotherealm. Another story is scheduled to appear in The Mythic Circle in 2010.
This story was sponsored by
Camilla d’Errico: A character designer and artist who dances on the tightrope between pop surrealist art and manga inspired graphics. Explore her paintings, characters and comics: Tanpopo, BURN and Helmetgirls.
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31 Responses to “WE HAD NO RIGHT • by Harry Steven Lazerus”
Comments
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October 6th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Harry, this is a terrific story, full of human failings and with a with a profound moral dilemma. An excellent piece of writing… except for the first and, to some extent last, sentences, IMO. Others will no doubt disagree, but I’d cut that first sentence and start straight in. The ‘will’ in the final sentence jarred for me, too. But for those (minor) edits a clear 5, but as is 4, for me. Loved it though, really. In fact, I think I dated Amalia’s sister, way back.
October 6th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Oh, I like it. Great flash. I think the will in the last sentence should be would.
October 6th, 2009 at 5:28 am
I like dit to, nice premise.
I agree that cutting the first sentence is a good idea, it’s good but slows the story up straight away. But as for the ‘will’ in the final sentence, i don’t know, but it worked fine for me.
October 6th, 2009 at 5:46 am
The story really begins with “The night had only begun . . . ” The first three paragraphs seem just to be extended throat-clearing before launching into the tale. And, yeah, the last paragraph’s a little rough with the tense confusion and all. Could probably lose the final word, too.
Still and all, not a bad little story.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:00 am
Nice story, but to me it seems somehow unfinished. The last paragraph leaves things running and an expectation of more to come. Cut it and let it end on “A policeman was at the bottom, walking up. We passed him, silently.” This would be a much stronger ending.
Also, the first paragraph doesn’t flow smoothly to the second … cut it, or at least put a scene break.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:10 am
Decent piece of flash. As suggested above, a bit more “self-editing” would have brought it from an A- to an A+.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:21 am
With the exception of the ‘problems’ already mentioned by others’ I loved this piece of flash. 4 stars!
October 6th, 2009 at 6:43 am
Good start toward a great story of guilt and transgression. Tighten it some more, and then see where it can be filled out. This doesn’t need to be restrained to 1,000 words or less.
October 6th, 2009 at 6:56 am
Harry,
The other comments relative to the first and last sentences are interesting points of view – the tense confusion is valid. I get the tie-in between to first and last paragraphs. I liked the piece – 4 stars!
October 6th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Great piece! 4 stars and I agree with the previous comments about omitting the first and last sentences.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:05 am
While the first two lines are really great ‘grabbers’ and are fun with their description, they aren’t really needed. The second paragraph does just as well and thrusts us into the story. I’d certainly understand the attachment to them. Great conflict throughout.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Nice story indeed. Kind of knew they were going to leave the body, but still interesting anyway.
October 6th, 2009 at 8:44 am
I enjoyed the way the tone of this story shifted, matching the main character’s shift in feelings and perspective.
October 6th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Great story; well written.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:45 am
Your first sentence warned the readers where the story was going so there was no surprise when we got there. It was like telling the punchline before telling the joke leading up to it.
It didn’t ’spoil’ it– its still a well written piece– it just sucked some of the power out of it.
Anyway, nicely done.
October 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Corrected the verb tense issue in the final paragraph by changing “that night” to “tonight” at the author’s request; thanks to all who noticed the error.
October 6th, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Harry,
I can count on two hands the number of “5’s” I’ve given out this year, and this will be one among that number. To me, this aims for and hits the mark of what a flash fiction story is supposed to be all about. I see the point the others made about the opening/closing, but they didn’t bother me as much. Thought it all flowed nicely. Very well done.
–John
October 7th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Folks:
It was really exciting to see my story appear today/yesterday and to get all this great feedback. I want to thank everyone who posted a comment, and indeed, everyone who read my story. This magazine is a wonderful place to get published.
The first and last comments were especially nice bookends. I saw the first when I got up at 5:00 AM and checked to see if my story had been published. Thank you, Oscar Windsor-Smith, for your kind words. And thank you for the “5″, J.C. Towler, I understand you are a tough critic.
Again, thanks to all of you, and also Camille Gooderham Campbell, whose suggestions made this a better story.
Harry
October 7th, 2009 at 4:09 am
Five stars from me
October 9th, 2009 at 7:39 am
Great story – agree with comments about opening sentences but overall, enjoyed it very much. I would read it again anytime.
October 11th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Great story!
October 11th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
I really enjoyed this short story for its snapshot of human nature – the tradegy of not doing the right thing, for fear of being caught doing the wrong thing.
I like Harry’s imaginery of the memory: “… tucked away safely in a secret compartment in our minds, like a jewel in a strongbox, to be taken out and treasured in the privacy of our own thoughts.”
Look forward to more from this author.
Five stars for me.
Susan
October 12th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Great story! Perhaps you might put the first sentence in italics to set it apart from the rest of the story.
October 12th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Glad I got to read this. Very thought-provoking. You certainly have a wonderful writing ability…engaging the reader from start to finish.
October 12th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
Harry, this story is terrific. I loved the emotional transitions of the narrator and the unwritten consequences.
Marie
October 15th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
I liked the story. I loved the conflict. Saw no problem with the extra paragraph in the beginning.
I wish all the readers who enjoyed Harry’s writing could read his other stories and novels. Harry indeed is a very gifted author and I am blessed to be his wife.
October 19th, 2009 at 9:42 am
4 stars from me. I kept a star because the possiblity of an anonymous tip to the police wasn’t examined (and rejected if the story is to stay the same).
October 21st, 2009 at 6:47 pm
Multilayered… Captivating and mysterious from the first sentence… Goosebumps-inducing at every new line… Very much sense-simulating.
‘Let sleeping dogs lie.’ Interesting… The man and the woman: two sleeping dogs passively lying to themselves and others. They are like dogs, following their animalistic instincts. Sleeping? Their adultery speaks to the low level of their self-awareness. They are sleepwalking the streets of New York following each other in a cloud of illusions like dogs ready to mate. The man on the street bursts their bubble; wakes them up back to reality; perhaps even to new reality – to realization of their true nature.
P.S. If they ever make it into a movie, the girl should speak with an accent.
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:57 pm
Very sultry almost Micky Splane like. The woman was Eve with the apple and the man was Adam suddenly being made aware of the level of his desent into his folley. He found his line and he drew it in the sand. Seeing others and oneself for who and where you are can be starke and soul shaking. He had his awakening, she had her ticket punched. Wisdom can never come too late. Very hot and thought provoking
October 22nd, 2009 at 8:58 pm
Don’t know how to do it, but I give it 5 stars.
January 12th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
Okay. Now that I’ve finally slept I can now make some intelligible comments regarding this story.
I vaguely remember reading something else by this author so I used EDF’s search engine and came across “We Had No Right.” I re-read the story and looked through the comments and quickly came to the conclusion that this author took the advice offered by readers and re-draughted this new story several times and had it critiqued by, as Stephen King says, a “trusted reader” given how much better it is than their previous story.
Regardless of whether I am right or wrong in terms of my conjecture and whether or not others share opinions similar to my own this story is to me what flash fiction should be: concise, well-written, engaging and memorable.
In addition, certain elements of the story are alluded to that, to me, make the story better rather than worse as some of the other comments suggest. An excellent example would be the hints dropped by the author that this story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world fraught with anarchy save for the crude judicial system of the remaining residents of this small town – a town so small that it lacks the ability to keep the protagonist, Socrates, in a “real jail” for behaviour that is only a crime within this community. From a metaphorical perspective this story could also be perceived as an indictment of a much larger but narrow-minded Christian society that is completely intolerant of any ethos outside of their own fundamentalist belief system. The possibility of redemption through a renunciation of his own belief system is offered by the executor to the protagonist but, staunch in his own dogma, he refuses the offer and resigns himself to the fate that has been bestowed upon him in his own pursuit of martyrdom. A classic allegorical case of what happens when an unstoppable force collides with an immovable object.
Anyhow, enough said. I could go on and on. I’m sure that anyone reading this is beginning to become bored with my long-winded critique.
Suffice it to say: I thought today’s story was excellent and it would have gotten more than a “5” from me if possible.
Chuck