Vincent Guillemin

“Oasis” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #53

The AC clatters painfully to a stop, splutters a last breath of cold air and gives up the ghost. Under the hood, the engine revs up, holds a fearful rumble , groans some more and puffs out an unwelcome white and thick smoke that engulfs both sides of the car. The traffic must be moving ahead and honks are urging me on. It’s no use. I carefully step out and shrugs at the angry driver fuming behind. He forces his way on the next lane , hurls a last insult through the open window and stops a few yards ahead. He is looking in his rearview mir...

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“The weekend” by Vincent Guillemin

I meet James on Monday night as usual. Mondays are the worst, the day unfolds tediously , teaching first years ,wondering how they’ve managed to make it so far. The pub is slowly filling in and there I am at a corner booth on the low,padded bench watching the perfect white creamy froth topping the coffee-like brew . James is late again but today , it doesn’t matter. I clench my fist under the table as I make out his figure making his way through the throng of patrons patiently waiting to get the favors of one of the bartenders. He is...

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“Rough patches” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #52

Rough patches you and I. Yet, it started up as it should have. That summer when I used to walk back, barefoot, to my uncle’s in the bluish hues of dawn, fingers hooked around the straps of my high heels, the soft breeze swaying my light strapless dress. A few yards beyond the wall of pines, the sea was lapping at the strand in a soft crashing sound. My long hair, cigarette-scented, straight as straight could be , cascading over honey-brown shoulders. A wistful smile on my lips , my green-brown eyes lost in the bliss of reminiscence. ...

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“Tasting paradise” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #52

Him. This face. Sparsely-bearded, a perennial smile across his face. A big bear of a man who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Not a handsome face. Crow’s feet at the corner of his hazel eyes and deep wrinkles furrowing his forehead. Thinning and grizzling hair. On the fat side masterly tailored out of view with two-grand suits. He’s still the same slightly perspiring , jocund man. He’s the buddy you would share a beer with, on the porch, at the end of a summer day after gardening together. He is the uncle , pocketful of candies, doting on his nephew ...

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“Daydreaming” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #52

What wakes him up is the pelting of icy snowflakes on the closed hopper window rushing through the halo of a lamp outside. He is awake but cannot open his eyes just yet. His body feels heavy as if he was being sucked in. He needs to rely on his nose to pinpoint his whereabouts. The last thing he remembers is tearing through the plastic wrapping of a rice bag pallet with a box cutter. The familiar smell of cardboard wafts over his nostrils and this prompts his eyes open.        &nbs...

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“Retracing the steps” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #51

Hirsch Erlich was my neighbor. When I first saw him , he was unpacking newly-bought pieces of furniture from the back of a truck with the help of his pregnant wife. As he paused to wipe away the sweat from his brow, he noticed me on the other side of the birthing hedge that separated our two properties. He told me later that on that day, I had looked baffled, probably because they had been speaking a language I had never heard before. We shook hands over the hedge while he painstakingly tried to introduce himself in broken Engli...

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“As planned” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #50

Champagne would have given it away so I have decided on one of those cheap bottles of chardonnay we like to down on summer evenings just like this one. The sun lingers on at the crest of buildings bathing the park in a warm and damp orange hue. It glistens on the wavelets of the lake ,roiled with the oars of lovers rowing this way and that. A couple of swans gently drifts together , going with the flow. Hungry ducks are expectantly waiting for the checkered tablecloths to be spread around the damp and still warm grass. Families, youths , ...

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“For a lifetime” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #49

The car is snoring in a dull and monotonous throb while the sun patiently stretches every tree , one by one, in the longest shadows on the parched lawn. Toby has found shelter under one of them, lying out on the flank, panting, begging him to put the sprinklers on. The Davis’ are on and their regular clicks tick the time away of this endless summer day. The house looks drab from the driveway. They bought it twenty years ago , right from the contractor’s office. Now , the sun has washed the façade white, the paint is flaking, the roof is l...

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“Patient musings” by Vincent Guillemin

Submitted to Contest #49

I keep scratching at a nearby chair whose paint is flaking off. It has a soothing sensation. My nail works its way through the brittle envelope and the raw wood is gradually revealed. The noise is drowned into the hubbub of telephone rings, quiet conversations and that boisterous kid running around the low table on which stacks of dog-eared and creased magazines lay. The water fountain in the corner burps the time away with ascending bubbles. The electric light glaring above and the greenish walls compounds my sickly hue.An elderly...

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