Pablo Michaels Week 97: Howie’s Requiem

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Pablo Michael’s Picture Choice:

Title: Howie’s Requiem

Trixie loved coming to the field of wild onions after the lavender flowers had faded to white frilly clusters of seeds. She danced in her black tutu petticoat and red, silk blouse hanging flimsily on her slight, gaunt frame. She’d pick a stem of the sprays one at a time until her hand held a full bouquet. Touching each opened capsule tenderly, like a lover she wanted but never had in her former life, she inhaled a deep breath and blew, watching the fluffy clusters scatter in a cloud of fairies with the gentle breeze. Trixie looked at the tiny clusters of seeds on the stems, comparing them to dandelions, like Howie used to blow and watch fly away in a cloud of magic dust. Howie’s father scolded him. “Howie, don’t play with those dandelions, like a sissie. You’re supposed to pick them so the seeds don’t start new weeds. Go play with the other boys.” Howie’s father prized his lawn more than his idle son. Howie’s sarcasm was born the same day Trixie appeared for the first time.

Howie wanted to be like Trixie, dreaming of her constantly. They talked to each other constantly, speaking the sarcastic dialect they understood was born in their souls.

A few years later, when Howie bought the T-shirt, best describing his personality he voiced to the entire world, sarcasm became the repo ire fluently spoken to everyone they knew. That’s when Howie had the idea to make his best friend, Trixie, the happiest woman, not a Tomboy anymore. He bought her the black tutu, the red blouse and an airline ticket to Thailand, informing her when she became the ultimate woman of her dreams to lay out his t-shirt, his pair of jean cut-offs, the pair of black high-top tennis shoes and the Lifeline Health Monitor, he salvaged from his understanding grandmother’s funeral, on a sheet in the wild onion meadow and celebrate.

Years later, Trixie spread the sheet in the wild onion meadow placing the clothes and monitor on it. She then took the clusters of seed pods in her hands and blew them over the memory of Howie’s life. Howie was dead. Trixie thanked him for sacrificing his life so she could be the woman she always dreamed. Without him Trixie never would have survived for her last operation in Thailand. She graciously bowed to Howie’s remains and rejoiced for their mutual happiness sarcastically. ”Stop playing with those dandelions, Howie. I told you to pull those damn weeds, you, sissie.”

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Pablo Michaels writes LGBT fiction and has published with Naughty Nights Press, http://naughtynightspress.blogspot.com You can follow him at @bell2mike

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