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Jason Newport
SHARPIE

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Rowena moves the side of the Sharpie gradually down the bridge of my nose, taking a turn over my nostrils and across my lips. I pucker. The Sharpie glides around the bulge. I try to see the mark on the wall. “Don’t,” she commands, pressing my chin back into place so the Sharpie can complete its journey around my jaw and along my Adam’s apple. When the line ends, she lets me step back with her to look. My amorous silhouette graces the ladies’ room wall in Harp’s Bar. We’ve already done Rowena’s outline in the men’s room, beside the paper towel dispenser. I grin at her, I think, or near her. Her hair is orange lava. She frowns at me, concentrating, raises the Sharpie, zeroing in across the myriad quantum reaches of space, time, and chance, and Sharpies a big black dot on the end of my nose.

Jason-NewportJason Newport’s writing has appeared in many fine journals, including Chautauqua, where he is a contributing editor. He is currently revising a novel about Hungarian Roma in the Holocaust and working on a collection of very short stories.

His story “The Law of Constant Angles” appeared in Cleaver Issue No. 2.

Read more from Cleaver Magazine’s Issue #8.

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