PIECES
Word Count: 365
There was the single hair she’d brushed off her shoulder in the hotel room in Delhi and hadn’t given it a second’s thought until now. Arielle stared at the broken finger nail, played with it, putting it back in place on her finger. Then she mentally said goodbye and dropped it on the ground. She got up and put some money on the table for the bill. The finger with the missing nail felt obvious, stunted, buzzing with its loss and clumsy with the handling of the money. She got up and left the outdoor cafe, wondering if this piece of her she’d leave behind in Paris was enough.
On the plane back home she slept. Skin cells snowing a trail behind her. She wondered as she waited for her luggage if she could follow herself back through the buildings, out the parking lot and straight to her car.
All of her time spent in travel, and even her routine daily life over the years produced places and the people crowded inside her mind. But time would fade the memories. Arielle started leaving bits of herself in places instead of places in bits and pieces of her mind. If some part of herself was always there, she would always be wherever she’d been. Never completely leaving her favorite places.
Mostly hair, nail clippings, DNA left on cup rims and doorknobs, Arielle consciously shed herself over places she loved. By the time she was twenty-eight she had settled in Amsterdam, Venice, Paris and most of the Middle East and India. She was forever in several provinces of China, and along most of the coast of Japan. By thirty she’d covered forty-nine U.S. states but took care not to leave a single cell of her own in Arizona.
Arielle was relaxed and confident with her progress of becoming a citizen of the world. Her hair grew back in enough to keep up with her obsession. Her nails were fashionably long. One day she realized she was lonely. With that came the realization she may be places where she’d never traveled. There was Alan, Matthew, and Charles and more and she wondered where she had been.
What a fantastic concept and expertly rendered. Very cool.
Thanks, Steve. The thought occurred to me years ago when traveling and Kendra’s poem brought the idea back along with Marcus’ monkey king parts.
i know people like this, living in and leaving their pieces all over the place, young people, some are my friends even and i enjoy their company but ultimately they’re strangers to me. thanks for the mention!
Marcus, your Monkey parts was crucial to this story forming.