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    Postcoitus
    Postcoitus
    Postcoitus
    Ebook55 pages42 minutes

    Postcoitus

    By Jesse Greene

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    About this ebook

    Postcoitus, by Jesse Greene, is a collection of stories that address how we can or cannot replace fleeting happiness with something much stronger and long-lasting.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJesse Greene
    Release dateApr 14, 2014
    ISBN9781310018046
    Postcoitus
    Author

    Jesse Greene

    Jesse Greene is the pen name of Jason Rosenfeld. Jason lives in Brooklyn, NY, and considers himself very lucky. He has found time to create short stories and graphic novels, he has found love, and he has found a dog.

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      Book preview

      Postcoitus - Jesse Greene

      Postcoitus

      A Collection of Stories by

      Jesse Greene

      Copyright 2014 Jesse Greene

      Smashwords Edition

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Buddha Daughter

      I didn’t know I had a daughter until she was sixteen. But there she was on my doorstep. How she got there is another story for another time, but I noticed the family resemblance immediately around the eyes and nose. So I said, OK. Call me Dad. Then she walked in, and utterly destroyed my life.

      Wonderful kid—Esther. She struggled hard in school just to make C’s, so we bonded over homework. She had a braying laugh, startling and infectious. I would laugh at her laughing, and she would laugh at my laughing at her, and we just wound up laughing for no reason.

      It took a while for the mask to drop, but she had some type of nervous condition. First came the tapping of fingernails on plates, pencils on tables, and silverware on teeth. Then came the twitching. Little flicks of hands, the crinkling of her left eye. Then came the hyperventilating. Deep heaving at the slightest doubt or sense of difficulty, the fear in her eyes, the gasping bursting out of her like a hunted hare. It infected everything, even her sleep.

      One night I was so overwhelmed with concern that I went to her room, sat on her bed and shook her awake. Esther! Listen to my voice! Breathe with me! Follow my breathing! In through the nose for four! Out through the mouth for eight! In through the nose for four! Out through the mouth for eight! And we breathed together for five minutes. For fifteen minutes. For thirty minutes, until her anxiety disappeared and she drifted off into the deepest sleep she’d had in months. My coach had showed me that trick back when I’d played chess for my high school and it felt so good, I took to it like a fish to water. But Esther? Like a herd of dolphins to the blue blue Aegean Sea is the only way I can describe it.

      After that night, at any spare moment at any spot in the apartment, I’d see her just drop to a sitting position. Breathing. Just . . . breathing. She was that focused. And I saw no reason to stop her, it’s not as if she was shirking responsibilities.

      Almost overnight, her grades shot into the stratosphere, with little to no help from me or her teachers. She tossed all her clothing, except for a pair of chinos and a short-sleeve button-down collared shirt (I thought for a minute she’d converted to Mormonism). She kept the house polished as a mirror. And the cooking! Every night at six, when I walked through the door, a pot of rice and lentils was bubbling on the stove. The apartment was fragrant. And after dinner, after every dish was immediately scrubbed and stacked away, she would clear furniture in the living room and

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