Julia's Last Scorn (Fiction) by Dean Lawson

Julia’s Last Scorn
by Dean Lawson

The image of her he’ll remember most was of a black and white photo. In it and on her lap was a half written cardigan, a Ten Dances knit Mag and a pair of #4's.

Her present whereabouts now danced along the patio deck in patterns too complex for his eye to decode. Moving effortlessly back and forth, coaxed so it seemed by an imaginary fan, held by an ambivalent god, pelting the railing ledge, down and then up those cedar steps to where he last kissed her alive.

The rain fell only to disappear along the clothes line. Drops seventy times their original heavenly weight gathered then submitted to the damp rich earth below. Swallowed up and given sentence, cast to where all things with freewill from heaven go, past the bedrock promise from her to him, swiftly to the furnace to where last he saw the color of her natural fair skin.

God’s bow held its promise and stopped the rain of terror. The gutter and garden house’s ivory apparel were now draped with her much heralded line and curve. Slugs and worms that quickly littered the garden path were now wearing the trinkets of her chalky wet carbon ash.

He moved his hand along the cool wet blades of grass, lifted and rubbed the remains of Julia’s last scorn across his face.

Author bio:

Dean Lawson has a short work of fiction that has been previously published online, his poem 'Whispers in Light Verse.' is in print as of May/2008. He grew up in Canada and now lives with his wife in Tokyo, Japan, where he teaches children by day, and dreams, as big kids are prone to do, of one day changing the world with his writings.