Apophenia: A Love Story - Christopher Linforth

Virgo

The birthday cake sports a large red 4 and at each corner sits a lit candle. Your parents hover over your shoulder, urging you to blow them out. You suck in a deep breath and exhale as hard as you can. The flames flicker erratically; two almost extinguish, but flash back to life. You step closer and blow again. Three blink out in puffs of black smoke. But then the yellow flames reignite, and laughter surrounds your small body. You run to your bedroom, crying, and you pile up plush toys and your giant box of LEGO bricks against the door. You lie in bed and hide under the covers. You wanted that wish: to always be lucky. A little later, you hear your mother’s soft voice. She is saying your name over and over. Then she stops. When you think it is safe, you peek out from under the covers. You can only see the glow-in-the-dark stars tacked to the ceiling.

Invisibility

There is a line of children in the school library. You wait impatiently behind them, fidgeting with the key in your pocket. You think of carving your name into the wall plaster. Before you can, a curly- haired, bespectacled woman in a floral print dress beckons you over. As you sit next to her, you realize there is going to be a test. You panic. You ask to read one of the chapter books on the shelves. She smiles and asks you to concentrate. On the desk lies an array of strangely colored plates. The first one she points to displays a circle of green dots with a red number 12 in the middle. You nod. You see it! The woman notes the result down and moves onto the next one. You see all of the numbers. The last plate has a 6. You pretend you don’t see the number.

“Are you sure?” she says.

“Yes,” you reply, glancing away, “there’s nothing there.”

Man in the Moon

Late in the evening, your mother says to your father she is going to bed. You slip out of your bedroom to see your father carrying his telescope out to the back porch. The house lights are off, but your father is bathed in milky light. He is dressed in a suit, a cigarette hangs on his lip. Gray smoke spirals into the air. You think he resembles an actor in one of those old black-and-white movies. You picture: Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart, Jimmy Stewart. With practiced ease he screws the telescope into the mount, then flicks away his cigarette. He hunches down, puts his eye to the eyepiece, and turns the focusing ring. The telescope is directed at a bright gibbous moon. Cold air whips through his gray hair. He holds the mount, refusing to give in to the wind. You press your nose into the windowpane, looking up to the dark patches on the moon’s surface. You want to see what he sees. You spend all night trying to work it out.

Virgin Mary

It is a Sunday and you are sitting in an airplane, waiting to take off. Feathery ice glints on the window and you paw at the glass, wondering if you can scrape it off. Your fingertip leaves a smudge in the shape of a blurred face, and you try to work out who it reminds you of. Then your cellphone buzzes, and you thumb open a text from your girlfriend who you thought was at Mass:

—I thought you were going to propose. I thought we were going to get married.

—I’m sorry. I’m going through a lot right now.

—Then why are you leaving?

—You know why. She has issues.

—Tell me something. Anything.

—I will. I promise. Give me some time.

—I’m not going to wait around.

—I didn’t ask you to.

—I saved myself for you.

Casino Night

The roulette wheel is a whirl of red-and-black. You barely notice the green 0 and 00—until you lose twice in a row. Your best friend grabs your shoulder and tells you to walk away. You hold up a one- hundred dollar chip. “I have one more chance to make it all right.”

He shakes his head. “Then what? What’s next?”

“Blackjack,” you say. “Maybe poker.”

“Why are you being so self-destructive?”

You don’t have the words to answer him. Instead, you turn your back and hold the chip over the board.

Red or black?

Odds or evens?

A single number?

You wish you were religious. You wish you knew how to pray. You wish you hadn’t treated your friend so poorly.

Rorschach Test

The air in the café burns with the acidic odor of roasting coffee beans. You are late for a meeting. Your ex-girlfriend sits in the corner, her cappuccino half-drunk. She doesn’t look happy to see you. You sit opposite her, admiring her polka-dot blouse. The two of you small-talk for a while, then you tell her about your therapy session and that you are learning to communicate your feelings. She says she is glad that you finally talked to someone about your mother’s death. You thank her somewhat insincerely. She notices, and you feel bad, unsure of what to do. The conversation devolves back to small-talk and she finishes her cappuccino. She stands up, and you do the same, and you both fall into an awkward hug.

“All the things you’ve ever told me,” she whispers into your ear, “I can’t put them together. I can’t work out what they mean.”

“That’s for the best,” you say.

She unhooks her arms and studies you for a moment. Tears well in her eyes. As she heads to the door, she doesn’t look back.

Lucky Numbers

In the grocery store, you sneak away from your new girlfriend and dash down the cereal aisle to the tobacco counter. You buy two lottery tickets using 01 plus your parents’ birthdates as your numbers. The jackpot is some ungodly amount, close to one-billion dollars. Before long your new girlfriend tracks you down, and asks what you are doing. You can’t explain to her satisfaction, so she demands that you give her one of the tickets. For a moment you resist, then you switch the tickets in your hands, so you don’t know which is which. You hold the tickets up and close your eyes. For an instant, you picture yourself as a child failing to blow out magic candles, failing to get your wish. But then you tell yourself you don’t believe in superstitions. Or karma. Or God. Or luck. Just unseen patterns.

“Pick one,” you say. “Don’t tell me if you win.”

Originally published by South Dakota Review

Christopher Linforth is the author of the award-winning story collection The Distortions.