Sondranos: The Narrative of Leon Bishop Read Online Free

– it was a dark grin, concealed and coloured
like the shadows of the fake grapes strung down the stairwell. She
dropped the mock announcer voice to a quiver that shook the
beginning of her next sentence. “Meaning they’re transmitting from
the part of the city that doesn’t exist anymore.”
    “ I guess
they’ll be in trouble.”
    “ I won’t be
listening to them anymore,” Melanie laughed. It started soft and
high-pitched. The laughter continued, awkwardly. She walked down
the last step, letting her voice muffle to a groan and sat down on
a nearby cask. Melanie cupped her face in her palms and began to
weep as silently as she could, which wasn’t very quiet.
    Instead of comforting her, I
searched the room.
    Two small bowls lay convex
against the wall. I swabbed the inside of both bowls with my sleeve
and made sure they were clean. After a second glance around, I
found the most recently pegged barrel sitting on its side atop a
triangle of more near the stairwell. That was when Melanie looked
up and caught what I was doing. Her weeping stifled.
    “ Who are you
here to visit?” she asked.
    “ Nobody.”
    I placed a bowl below the
spigot on the barrel and twisted, hoping something would come out.
The instantaneous scent of Blanc de Noirs filled my sinuses. I’d
once made a strawberry-rhubarb pie and, when the wine came pouring
out of the cask, my mouth watered as if expecting that same
dessert. The alcohol was barely there, an aftertaste for the
senses.
    “ Then why
Sondranos? Why come here?”
    “ I thought it
would be a good holiday,” I responded quickly.
    It was easier than the
truth.
    Trust me, I
wanted to tell Melanie how I took the A8 to the airport, booked a
flight to New York, picked up a few travel needs in Manhattan and
then clipped my way south to Miami, where International Aeronautics offered
hundreds of flights as part of the summer festival celebration
sale. I even got a discount for being a teacher for more than five
years. Of course, had I explained that, she would have wondered why
I’d gone through so much trouble. I didn’t look like the ‘sudden
adventure’ type of guy.
    Instead of that, it was easier
to follow with: “I just needed a change of scenery.”
     
    I believe you
can feel lies when they settle into your
brain; you can feel them wanting to be the truth. You have this
sort of ‘If someone else believes it, then it can be true
mentality.’ If you don’t feel this, then lying has become too
comfortable and you should re-consider speaking in
public.
    At that
moment, my lie nestled at the base of my skull next to thoughts of
how easy it was to convince myself I was fine and how hard it was
to remember I was no longer back on Earth. I knew that every time I
spoke to Melanie she would only think I was here for something
trivial – a holiday. I liked that.
    But next to these lies are
moments that always live in the present. No matter when they
happened or why, they’re the neighbours to our lies: present
moments keep us from accepting that deceit is an easy task. Asking
a friend about their Mother after attending the funeral two years
prior; waking up to go to work, forgetting that work was destroyed
a week ago.
    My time on Sondranos was filled
with Present Moment memories.
    The best way to describe them
is a sensory explosion that lasts less than a second, but feels
like a lifetime. Go back to the past, flash forward to whatever
your mind’s fixated on: you’re stuck in time and can’t do anything
about it. All you’ll have left is the sensory ghost, a scent, a
feeling, a headache, just a reminder that you’ve been hit and
couldn’t stop the memory.
    After lying to Melanie, this is
the first memory that played out in my head:
     
    On Earth, he
is Arthur Leontes Bishop, Ph.D. and
Professor and Director of Interstellar Literatures and Cultures. He
stands before his class and clasps his hands together. Leon longs
for the days when he can wear a jacket with leather patches