Dear Mom - Flash Fiction by Antonia Alexandra Klimenco

Dear Mom,

 

So sorry it has taken me this long to mail you a letter! Oops, well,  I haven't mailed it yet, but I will. I promise! Living on the 9th floor with no elevator...it does take me a while to make it down the 153 stairs, especially now, in my condition. And, the nearest post office practically borders another country. By the way, Paris is not a province in Hell... none of my neighbours are terrorists and no one has tried to kidnap me. Yet. That's both the good and the bad news, haha.  The bad news...Well, you don't believe in Covid...sigh.. so I won't be telling you that I'm lying here trying to catch my breath in a God damn storage room with no heat, no shower, no hot water...going from bed to worse. Please just forget I said that. Mind over mattress.

 

Oh did I tell you??  I finally met your friend's friend's friend's friend. I am only sorry we didn't hit it off. Not a bad looking man. I didn't really mind so much that his eyes were crossed but just to give you an idea ...he s forming a jazz band for atheists and has an imaginary dog he kept woof woofing to under the table. Still, a step up from the last guy you suggested who kept spinning in circles while reciting the scriptures and rolling on the floor. Of course, it makes me miss Antoine all the more!  I think I told you... he took a job at the distillery..almost drowned in a vat of whisky. Took some doing to pull him out...which is why, I guess, he joined AU (Alcoholics Unanimous) and hasn't been heard from since. Anyway, I was trying to make my escape from Leopold  Ottovordemgentschenfelde that was his name when-- you remember those skyscrapers you gave me just before I left... you know the shoes that have heels modelled after the Empire State building ? Well, the heel broke when I stepped into a pothole, so I had to wear my old pair of walking shoes which exploded--I'm not kidding you--and now I have a sprained ankle and am wearing one tennis shoe and one sandal and I look like a God damn tourist! Anyway, I was just about to mail my letter to you when the heel broke and it flew out of my hand and I got run over by a rickshaw on the corner of Saint Germain and that street that has a homeless chorus alternating between David Bowie karaoke and Leonard Cohen's You Want it Darker. Then, a windstorm came out of nowhere and your letter went sailing away. I don't expect you' ll get it because it didn't have a stamp on it yet... but you never know.

 

Soooo... is the cast off? are you still on crutches? I sure hope you're feeling better, now! Gee, walking pneumonia, scurvy, , a mysterious rash on your... and not to mention that awful fall in the pigpen!! What a year you're having ! which reminds me. I still cannot believe you voted for Trump. I know you're not fond of Over the Hill.. and maybe we're just Biden our time but good grief!!!  It's s a good thing I love you ...All he ever wanted to do was to erect a statue of himself on the White House lawn. Dare I say more than a few of us were damned tired of hearing about his erections.. not to mention his short-comings 

 

On a cheerier note.. it's almost my birthday and I just received the best present of all.. news that I don t have to move ! True my room is so small I have to go outside to finish this sentence, but it's mine... at least for now.. my home away from home. Of course,  the one I carry with me in my unfurnished heart stays with me always. Love you, Mom!  P.S. please get piggy to show you how to use a computer. If he's smart enough to bring you the mail and change the channels on the TV, he's sure to have other talents, as well.  P.S.S. Please forgive me.. I would have sent money, but I've already sealed the envelope. More soon, Love and kisses xxx your darling daughter.

 

Antonia Alexandra Klimenko was first introduced on the BBC and to the literary world by the legendary James Meary Tambimuttu of Poetry London–-publisher of T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, Henry Miller and Bob Dylan, to name a few.  his death, it was his friend, the late great Kathleen Raine, who took an interest in her writing and encouraged her to publish.  A nominee for the Pushcart Prize and a former San Francisco Poetry Slam Champion, she is widely published. Her work has appeared in (among others) XXI Century World Literature (which she represents France) and Maintenant : Journal of Contemporary Dada Writing and Art archived at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. She is the recipient of two grants: one from Poets in Need, of which Michael (100 Thousand Poets for Change) Rothenberg is a co-founder; the second—the 2018 Generosity Award bestowed on her by Kathleen Spivack and Joseph Murray for her outstanding service to international writers through SpokenWord Paris where she is Writer/ Poet in Residence.  Her collected poems On the Way to Invisible is forthcoming in 2022.