Below is a short story I recently finished and shared with my Thursday evening Writers Group. Let's just say it met with mixed reviews. But then, I only thought it was finished. From the feedback I received, I did some much needed editing, focusing on tying up the original work's obvious loose ends. I would appreciate any feedback anyone wants to give on this now finished--right, who am I kidding--version.

With that in mind, I present...


Arcs in Transit

Possessing neither beginning nor end, the circle is deemed to be a perfect physical representation of eternity. Paradoxically, any circle can be divided into arcs, and every arc can be measured from its beginning to its end. And so it goes. All those calculations mounting up in the equation, arc after arc after arc…

#

Of average age and appearance, the man and the woman sit side-by-side on the sofa in her living room, their faces bathed in the flickering white light of a TV.
   
With his arm draped along the sofa’s back, his hand cupping her shoulder, the man turns to the woman and says, “Just think, this time next week we’ll be in Turkey, drink in hand, gazing out over the Aegean. Or as Homer wrote all those years ago, Over the wine-dark sea. Not a bad image, huh?”
   
“I can’t wait,” the woman answers without taking her eyes off the TV. She cradles the remote control in her right hand as if it were a baby bird.
   
“I checked. There’s a travel show about Turkey coming on in a few minutes. Let’s watch it.” He grasps the part of the remote that extends from the woman’s hand, and pulls.
   
She grips the device. Tugs in the opposite direction. When he continues to pull, she jerks the remote from his grasp, gaping at him as if he has just appeared beside her out of thin air. “That hurt!”
   
“What?” He leans away from her a little.
   
“You know I have carpal tunnel in that hand.” She rubs her wrist. “It hurt when you did that.”
   
“Sorry,” he says. “But all you had to do was let go.”
   
“You could’ve asked.” She frowns. “Get us another drink, okay?”
   
The man sighs. Picks up the two empty drink tumblers on the coffee table.
   
“Extra ice in mine,” the woman says as he heads for the kitchen. “Not crushed. Three cubes.”
   
He waves in acknowledgement. In a minute he’s back with their bourbons—-three cubes of ice in hers, none in his.
   
Still holding the remote, she eyes the ice cubes in her glass, looks at his glass and says, “I still don’t understand how you can drink it like that?”
   
“Ice waters it down when it melts.” He sits and drapes his arm back around her. Swirls his drink. Sips. “I want it full strength all the way to the bottom. Now, how ‘bout that travel show? Channel 23, I think.”
   
The woman thumbs the remote’s keypad. The scene on the TV changes from the news to Animal Planet. A white dog wearing a thin red collar, like a bloody gash around its neck, is negotiating an obstacle course. The man removes his arm from around the woman’s shoulder. Takes a sip.
   
Eyes on the TV, she pats his leg and says, “We travel together so well, don’t we?”
   
He swirls his glass and sips again.
   
The man and the woman sit side-by-side on the sofa, their faces pale, washed out in the flickering light of the TV.

#
   
Approaching TSA security at JFK, the man and the woman pull along matching pieces of wheeled carry-on luggage, the woman walking in front. Several lines are available for the pass-through metal detectors. She goes to the one on the left and begins removing her shoes. He hesitates, then goes right, to a row of seats by the wall, and sits. The woman rolls her eyes and wheels her luggage over to him, shoes dangling in the other hand.
   
“What are you doing?” she says.
   
He looks up from untying his shoe laces. “Taking off my shoes to go through security.”
   
“I told you to wear slip-ons.” She holds her shoes out for emphasis.
   
“You know I don’t have any slip-ons … except for my boots. And they’re harder to get off and on than these.” He pulls off one shoe. Works at the other.
   
She pats one stockinged foot. “We need to be at the gate when they call for our row to be seated.”
   
“There’s plenty of time,” he says. “Don’t worry, they won’t take off without us.”
   
She sighs. “I suppose. And it’s not like we haven’t done this before. But I still get nervous every time.”
   
“In a way, every time is like a first time,” he says. “Maybe that’s what bothers you.”
   
She frowns. “Well, that’s just silly.”
   
With both shoes off and in hand, he rises, removes his belt, and grips the extended handle of his carryon. “Okay, let’s go.”
   
The man and the woman approach the lefthand airport security station pulling matching wheeled luggage, the man leading the way.

#
   
Hand-in-hand, the man and the woman walk down a wide, bustling pedestrian boulevard in an upscale shopping district off Taksim Square, in the heart of Istanbul. The woman nestles in close. The man smiles. Steers them to the side onto a narrow, plebeian lane.

In the growing press of sights and scents, bodies and odors, the woman presses in even closer. The man squeezes her hand. Leads them into what looks like the Turkish version of a 7-Eleven store. Spots what he’d hoped to find.
   
“You said you were thirsty.” He sweeps his hand toward a glass-doored cooler on the right. “Behold! I give you water.”
   
Behind the counter, the middle-aged mustachioed clerk wearing a red fisherman’s cap grants them a smile.
   
The man returns the clerk’s smile then says to the woman, “The only question is, which size bottle?”
   
“The small one…” the woman says. “No, wait… The middle sized one. It’ll fit in my purse. Shouldn’t be too heavy. What do you think?”
   
“Middle sized it is.” He opens a cooler door. Pulls out a small water bottle and one the next size larger.
   
Nodding toward the clerk, the woman says to the man, “You take care of it, Okay?”
   
He shrugs. Places the bottles on the counter. Pulls a small Turkish/English phrasebook out of his back pocket. Telling the clerk, “Merhaba,” for ‘Hello’, the man plunges into a halting conversation that ends with him peeling off a couple bills of Turkish currency—-equaling about three dollars—-and handing them to the clerk.
   
Before the man can gather up the water bottles, the clerk reaches to a shelf behind him and picks up a small plastic bag of pale pink Turkish delight candy. “Bayan icin,” he says, nodding toward the woman. Smiling. “Hicbir Ucret.”
   
After checking his phrasebook, the man takes the candy and says, “Tesekkur,” for ‘Thank you’.
   
“Tesekkur ederim.” The clerk tips his red fisherman’s cap. “Hoscakal.”
   
With a ‘goodbye’ nod, the man takes the candy and the water bottles. Takes the woman’s hand, and they leave.
   
Outside in the busy lane, the woman says, “What did he say about me?”
   
The man unscrews the cap on the woman’s water bottle. Hands it to her along with the candy. “He said, For the lady. No charge.”
   
She takes a drink. Eats a piece of Turkish delight, then another. Takes another drink. “You’re so good at that … dealing with languages and all. Like you were in Spain. And Paris last year.”
   
“Just have to know your way around this.” He holds up the phrasebook. “It’s all here. You only have to know where to look.”
   
“I suppose everything is simple,” she says, “when you have a book for it.”
   
“Yeah. If only there was a book for everything.” He unscrews the cap of his water bottle and takes a drink.
   
“We should get back to the hotel. I want to take a nap before dinner.” The woman starts off to the right. The man takes her arm. Stops her.
   
“This way.” He nods in the opposite direction.
   
She smiles. “What would I do without you?”
   
Weaving their way through the bustling plebeian crowd, the man and the woman walk down the narrow lane toward the upscale shopping district. From there to Taksim Square and on to their hotel. Hand-in-hand.

#
   
The man and the woman sit at a candlelit table on the broad patio of a hotel in Kusadasi, perched above the shore of the Aegean Sea. The woman lifts a wine glass to her lips. The blood red pinot noir captures the pale flickering moonlight reflecting off the restless water. When she drinks, it’s as if she is swallowing a nebula full of newborn stars. The man watches her. Rapt.
   
“What?” The woman says when she catches him.
   
“Just enjoying the view.” He sips his chilled chardonnay. “Are you warm enough?”
   
“Mmm… Yes. The weather’s perfect. The wine’s perfect. This night is perfect. Everything’s perfect.” She smiles. Tips her wine glass to her lips again. “Perfect.”
   
“Let’s not get carried away,” the man says, grinning. “You might want to leave a little room for improvement.”
   
“Carried away…” she mulls the phrase. “You’d carry me away if I asked you to, wouldn’t you?”
   
He raises his wine glass. Sees her distorted through the translucent golden lens of its contents. “Yes, I would. If you asked.”
   
“Ahem…” a woman clears her throat behind them. Wearing a faded and somewhat frayed fashion plate ensemble that was likely all the rage a decade ago, an elderly lady walks out of the night to stand beside their table. Wrinkles evident despite the heavy application of face powder. Dark red lipstick. Expression, uncertain. “I apologize for interrupting,” she says. “But I’m rather at loose ends tonight. May I join you?”
   
The man reads a silent plea in the elderly lady’s eyes. Gives his companion a glance. An almost imperceptible shrug. He rises and pulls out a chair.
   
With a whispered, “Thank you,” the elderly lady sits. Fidgets with an elegant necklace of small, square-cut rubies strung along the length of a delicate gold chain. Introductions are made.
   
“Is this your first time here?” the elderly lady asks them. “Have you come for the ruins?”
   
“Yes, first time.” the man says. “We visited Ephesus earlier today. Magnificent … and kinda sad at the same time. All that culture, that life, all those possibilities… Gone. I wonder, did the average person living there during those last days even realize what was happening? For how long had it been dying, and they just never saw the signs?”
   
“Really?” the woman says. “So morbid.” She turns to the elderly lady. “I take it you’ve been here be—-”
   
“You should do it,” the elderly lady says, addressing the man.
   
“Pardon me?” he answers.
   
“I couldn’t help but overhear, and I believe you should carry her away. Don’t wait. Do it now.” A wan smile bows the elderly lady’s red lips into a thin arc. “I didn’t wait. The instant he said, Come with me, I went.”
   
“He?” the woman says.
   
“My husband. He carried me away, and we never looked back.” Her back to the moonlit Aegean, the elderly lady peers into the dark to the right of the doorway that leads into the hotel. Gazes longingly, as if someone were hidden there waiting for her. “Carried me here to this very hotel many times. Bought me these,” She strokes her ruby necklace, “in a little jewelry shop near the ruins. He’s dead now, you know?”
   
“I’m so sorry,” the woman says.
   
“Yes, I’m quite alone.” The elderly lady pronounces the last word as if trying it out on the tongue for the first time. “And we traveled so well together. Went everywhere. But now he’s gone on without me. Or is it merely ahead of me?” She Frowns. “Whichever… I travel alone now, back to all the places we visited. This was one of our favorites.”
   
The repeated shush of a steady succession of waves lapping the shore below them is the only sound to break the ensuing silence. After a long moment the man says, “Can I get you something? Water? A glass of wine?”
   
The elderly lady blinks as if awakening from a trance. Glances at the woman’s glass. “Yes, thank you. Perhaps a bit of that lovely red your wife is drinking.”
   
“I’m not hi—-” the woman begins.
   
“Coming right up,” the man says. He excuses himself and steps into the hotel.
   
In two minutes he’s back, seated, sliding a glass of noir across the table. The woman and the elderly lady don’t notice, beyond the lady accepting the proffered wine. They’re too involved in conversation, as if they were old acquaintances well met after a long separation. The man has seen it before, the way the woman can interact with a stranger as she would with a friend after only a few minutes in that person’s company.
   
He holds up his wineglass, and through its chardonnay lens peers aside at the woman and the elderly lady as they negotiate their animated conversational path. The two of them have traveled on together. The woman leading the way. Dominating. Leaving him behind. Something he’s also seen before, many times.

Attentive to what the woman is saying, the elderly lady fiddles with her ruby necklace. Taps at it where it lays against her flesh, just below her pale, wrinkled throat.

Noting the nervous gesture, the man recalls a thin red collar that circled the neck of a white dog he once watched negotiate an obstacle course—-a collar that at first glance seemed so like a bloody gash around the poor creature’s neck. It was an image on the TV at the woman’s home. A scene he was forced to view virtually by himself, it seemed, even though she was seated right next to him. Remote. Untouchable.
   
He speaks a word.
   
Neither the woman nor the elderly lady acknowledge that he has made a sound. He studies the woman, not distorted through a glass this time, but clearly. And only for a moment before turning to gaze out over the wine-dark sea.
   
The man sits at the candlelit table on the hotel’s broad patio, perched at the very marge of the Aegean. Mesmerized by the moonlight flickering like pale fire on the surface of the restless waters, simultaneously terrified and thrilled by the nearly endless possibilities—-some of them ruinous—-inscribed upon the rounded syllables of such a simple word, he whispers the word again, “Alone…” as if trying it out on his tongue for the first time.