Transits by Jaime Forsythe Page B
Authors: Jaime Forsythe
Tags: Fiction, Short Stories, Short Stories (Single Author), Anthologies (Multiple Authors), FIC019000, FIC048000, FIC003000
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consistent traditional symbolism; a set that will carefully consider the weather and the extras and the poignancy in order to deliver its grand message, however painful or painless.
And at The Grand Hotel Europe, a venue of transition if there ever were one, something shifts for, something changes in an accidental scene where the fiction and the fantasy become real.
is the kind of romantic heroine who places immense value in venues, and when her and enter The Grand Hotel Europe merely to exchange some currency in a kiosk on its sprawling first floor, she is struck by the endless filmic symbolism ofa place seething with other people's transitions. It speaks to changes, people running from and running to countless things, is littered with women on shopping binges and business men making angry phone calls. It is a place reserved for a feeling of âother,â a place housing belonging for those who cannot belong.
She fails to mention this realization to as she watches him line up patiently amongst the internationally recruited extras in the scene. She fails completely in conveying that she is suddenly consumed by the need to cry over a loss she had yet to conceive. She does cry, if only momentarily, the notion of a pending severing finally striking her in a place outside the realm of fiction.
The security guard eyes her sympathetically.
âMiss, are you alright?â he asks.
returns from the kiosk, freshly exchanged funds in hand.
âLet's get a room,â he suggests, hardly joking.
âLet's get a drink,â she replies.
As comfortable as if you'd never left home
.
At The Grand Europe Hotel, at the midpoint of her trip, the very idea of
home
seems a foreign concept. It has somehow been redefined. Home is the contents of her bag. Home is this hotel. Home is this currency kiosk. Home is this security guard who speaks English. Home is this hotel bar and this twelve-dollar cosmopolitan.
She left home. She is home. She is going home.
Between them they drink four drinks at the bar at The Grand Hotel Europe, St. Petersburg. They eat olives and peanuts and while they do they finally talk about things that are real. They talk about past lovers,past broken hearts, past failures. Their fantasy bleeds into their reality seamlessly, without stain, just a perfect blending of what is and what is imagined, until the transition leaves with an electric and tragic feeling of possibility. A feeling that he could be possible in this concept of home.
As comfortable as if you'd never left home.
As comfortable as home.
Home.
That he, suddenly, in a hotel bar, is home.
Her Part Two
The edited, abridged climax. A final scene between them in a St. Petersburg train station, described in 55 words, no more and no less.
The last thing he gave her: an American quarter in a Russian train station.
He explained that once flipped it wasn't the head or tail telling your fate, but that feeling of disappointment or elation you got after the telling.
Regardless, she pleaded
the coin was wrong
when he left on a train to Moscow.
Her Part Three
A small collection of short lists she composes after returning home to Toronto, each revealing the truth and misapprehension connected to the cliché of modern love.
Things that are true
1. will never move to Russia, despite the invitation.
2. did actually (if only for a moment) seriously consider staying in Russia when it was requested in a train station, but it was the anxieties of things left behind, boxes of belongings and a bullshit bar job, that overwhelmed her until her head hurt and her heart broke.
3. The moment in the restaurant where the waitress again never smiled, when she spilled red wine in her lap and on her skirt and valiantly blotted it out with his shot of vodka before it set into a stainâshe knew in that moment, however foolishly, that she
And at The Grand Hotel Europe, a venue of transition if there ever were one, something shifts for
She fails to mention this realization to
The security guard eyes her sympathetically.
âMiss, are you alright?â he asks.
âLet's get a room,â he suggests, hardly joking.
âLet's get a drink,â she replies.
As comfortable as if you'd never left home
.
At The Grand Europe Hotel, at the midpoint of her trip, the very idea of
home
seems a foreign concept. It has somehow been redefined. Home is the contents of her bag. Home is this hotel. Home is this currency kiosk. Home is this security guard who speaks English. Home is this hotel bar and this twelve-dollar cosmopolitan.
She left home. She is home. She is going home.
Between them they drink four drinks at the bar at The Grand Hotel Europe, St. Petersburg. They eat olives and peanuts and while they do they finally talk about things that are real. They talk about past lovers,past broken hearts, past failures. Their fantasy bleeds into their reality seamlessly, without stain, just a perfect blending of what is and what is imagined, until the transition leaves
As comfortable as if you'd never left home.
As comfortable as home.
Home.
That he, suddenly, in a hotel bar, is home.
Her Part Two
The edited, abridged climax. A final scene between them in a St. Petersburg train station, described in 55 words, no more and no less.
The last thing he gave her: an American quarter in a Russian train station.
He explained that once flipped it wasn't the head or tail telling your fate, but that feeling of disappointment or elation you got after the telling.
Regardless, she pleaded
the coin was wrong
when he left on a train to Moscow.
Her Part Three
A small collection of short lists she composes after returning home to Toronto, each revealing the truth and misapprehension connected to the cliché of modern love.
Things that are true
1.
2.
3. The moment in the restaurant where the waitress again never smiled, when she spilled red wine in her lap and on her skirt and
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