We Stutter Less When We Sing by Nora Nadjarian

It was raining and he was sad and tall. He was waiting for the Facebook woman to appear, it was all arranged. He ordered a coffee without cream, without sugar, and drank it slowly, hope ticking. Outside, crowds walked by as if escaping from the everyday or heading back to find it. He was a stutterer so he didn’t speak, not even when the waitress handed him the change. Keep it, two words he didn’t say. Keep it.

The woman appeared while he was examining the biopsy in the coffee dregs. She had short blue hair, piercing eyes, no curves. She said After dinner we’ll go to a concert and after the concert we’ll go to my place and after that we’ll see. She didn’t waste time and he liked that. He wondered whether her bedroom was disheveled and kind. He managed to say Yes. Relieved that he’d said one word without losing himself, he leaned back in his chair and smiled at her freckled face. She brushed crumbs off the table and said Life is hysterical. And short, right? There were unuttered syllables burning his mouth, and somewhere in his body the stuttering cells had started singing.

What was that? she asked. What was that? she repeated, without waiting for an answer. Once I dreamed that I swallowed a bird, she said. And that, for once, my words made sense. But I digress. Let’s go.

Let’s, he said.

Nora Nadjarian is a poet and writer from Cyprus. Her short fiction has appeared in various publications including Milk Candy Review, Ghost Parachute, Gone Lawn, Fractured Lit and was chosen for Wigleaf‘s Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2022 (selected by Kathy Fish).