Yes Sir, I Can Boogie

“Melding Minds” by Molly Phalan

The last time she thought she could love a boy, she was seventeen and sitting close on the couch with her friend Barto, just the two of them, watching Children of Men in the middle of the afternoon. She knew Barto liked her, and he was always so polite, and she didn’t really want to be alone with him but she said yes anyway. They shared a bag of microwave popcorn, and then another one, passing it between them, their wrists greasy from the inside of the bag. She felt nauseous, which was maybe from all of the popcorn, but more likely from Barto’s proximity on the couch, with her knees drawn up to her chest, and his denim-covered thigh not inches from her bare toes. He sat stiffly, his arms at his sides, his feet on the floor, and she felt like she was seeing too much of him. She didn’t know why anyone watched movies in the daylight anyway. The picture grew too dark at times to make out what was going on, and so Barto whispered a narration, leaning in towards her ear to explain the scenes he had watched so many times before. Something buzzed inside her as he leaned close, some pressure in her gut, some dread or expectation. He straightened back up soon enough, but she couldn’t shake the feeling. She stared at Julianne Moore’s mouth, the upturn of her upper lip, and Clare-Hope Ashitey’s eyes, the perfect curve of her eyebrows, anything to distract her from the real-life presence of Barto beside her. She looked over at him finally, at the side of his face concentrating on the TV, and his grin as he realized she was looking. “You’re missing it,” he whispered, but as soon as his chin threatened to turn her way, she was staring back at the screen. He trailed a finger down the bare skin of her upper arm, tenderly, more a question than anything else, before turning back to the movie. He didn’t touch her again, but that three inch line below the sleeve of her t-shirt burned and burned. She couldn’t imagine actively pursuing sensations like these, but that seemed to be the aim of everyone around her—drinking light beer in someone’s basement and sitting on each other’s laps and asking for what they wanted. She had no idea what she wanted, aside from more popcorn and less touching. But how, and who, and in what world could she ask for that?

Sionnain Buckley is a writer and visual artist based in Boston. Her work has appeared in Winter Tangerine, Wigleaf, Strange Horizons, wildness, and others. Her flash work has been nominated for Best of the Net, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction, and won first place in Exposition Review's Flash 405 contest. She serves as a prose and art editor at 3Elements Review. More of her work can be found at sionnainbuckley.com.