Two Fictions
Stacey Levine

1

As I have mentioned, the German simply despises any scintilla of delay; for to the German, a scintilla of delay is comparable to some kind of loss, especially when he is in full working mode, for the German, is, in fact, a landscape gardener at the top of his game; and it is of course incidental that the German, who was at one time -- not now -- my father, has always had, simply, a tremendously large face and a vast facial skin which is generally dirty-looking, as if the German were always partially covered by lichens; over time I have grown distant from the German so many intricate ways, a distance that is satisfying just as is climbing spiraling towers of stairways, then resting.

2

She was far too real. And I allowed this fact to soften my borders relentlessly. Her legs were crossed; her inhalations pulled as if weary soldiers; her expirations were scented of the flowers of tea. Outside the window: a gouge that ran deep through the grass. From her living room's ceiling, a theatre of lilting puppets hung; the room was high, tall, made conical as if by her machines, the grip of her tight musculature. Continuously in those days I sought the key to the house bicycle, the insectlike instrument which surely, at my command, would fly. Yet she knew where the key was kept, not I.

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