Noémie Boucher
Fiction
Parallel Monologues was named a third-place Finalist in the 2025 Leopold Bloom Prize for Innovative Narration, judged by Michael Nath.
“We don’t find meaning. We make meaning. We individually and collectively interpret the universe we live in. In that way, we accommodate ourselves to and survive in the universe… Though we may share a common tongue, we all speak a different language. Our own particular or vague definitions of the words we use. I think it’s a mistake to assume the efficacy of ‘know what I mean?’ without accurate and agreed definitions. If we think we have dialogue, we’re fooling ourselves. We have instead noise and chaos of parallel monologues.”
“Disturbing Definitions” Labi Siffre
I leave class tonight in the rain, class which ends at an hour when all the world turns navy blue and I fall into a sleepy trance, driving through that navy blue, dark and soft as velvet, punctuated with spots of red and green and yellow and everything that has happened is happening again, and tonight was the last class and I can’t help but think about the first one, how keen I had been, Narrative Fiction with Christopher Bronson (Christopher Bronson!) Christopher Bronson, author of The Lemon Tree, Christopher Bronson, winner of the Washington Literary Recognition Award, Christopher Bronson, the man who’d figured it out, the thing about writing that everyone so desperately hungered to know, he knew.
I enter class and he is at the head and the others are keen too I can feel it, Bronson’s wearing a sweater and collared shirt, just like my grandfather, and he introduces himself, listing his work, starting with the small and relatively unknown ones, until he gets to The Lemon Tree, mentioning the literary award what seemed then nonchalantly, unleashing a great gust of wowthat’ssocoolwheredidtheideahow’dyouwritewhatwasitlikewheredidyouhowdidyouwhenhowand all that settles like dust revealing not The Man Who Knew but Christopher Bronson. He asks us our names and tells us that he probably won’t remember them, but he’ll try, and a small stone drops into my stomach because there are only eight of us and how could he not learn our names, he who meant so much to us, but then I think I’m overthinking things and the little stone has no reason for being there, and I do this a lot, creating little stones, but then he tells us that he’s read our stories, he tells us they weren’t great, he tells us that it takes a long time to develop our voices, he tells us that some people never do. The stone returns, bigger now, and I grip it, steadfast, it has a reason for being there. He mentions the literary award once more, and I think that perhaps the first time wasn’t so nonchalant, and by the end of class he’s mentioned it thrice, and made a chain of rude old-man-not-with-the-times jokes, and laughs in one long breath, his eyes desperately looking to connect and then it’s quiet, and he tells us that we should incorporate his feedback to make our stories better and that he knows better than we do because he won that award, and as we leave class someone says, What a jerk, and I agree, what a jerk. And I’m angry. Angry that he wouldn’t remember our names, angry that he picked on that one guy, angry that he thinks he knows everything because at the end of the day, isn’t this all just luck? One opinion not better than another, and I think about that new book I read by the Nobel prize-winning author, total crap. And in my mind, I become a mountain, and he becomes small as a beetle being crushed. And I think this for many nights as I drive home, I think about the things I wanted to say and what if I could say exactly what I meant, and
The tulips are on the counter.
My breath catches.
I can’t think about that now.
I try to get back to… Bronson. I was thinking about Bronson… Bronson, head of the class… sweater collared shirt… like my grandfather sitting at the breakfast table, always fixing something, always in the same chair, the leg broken three times in the last few years, a bouquet of screws at the joint only slowing what in time will fail, and it’s always quiet when I visit and that’s what bothers me the most, the quiet, and I wonder how he can spend days like this, and I ask if it bothers him and his eyes poke up from his glasses as though it hadn’t occurred to him and he tells me that I can put music on if I’d like, and I think I should start a conversation instead, but I know he’d be perfectly content without it, not that he doesn’t like to talk, but that he doesn’t need it to be with someone, he could just sit and be, and besides, when I ask him anything too emotional, it always results in a monosyllabic Ping-Pong of howwasyourerlationshipwithyourdad/good, wereyouclose/no, andyourmom/more, but I want to connect, even if it’s like he’s made of stone, I want to connect, and I ask him about what he’s fixing, and he tells me it’s an alarm clock, a gift from my grandmother in the 70s, I ask why she gave it to him, he says that he was late to the interview but still got the job and he starts to smile and I wonder if he enters that moment again when he talks about it, if she’s there with him on the couch, wearing the lemon-print dress I’ve seen in pictures, and the alarm clock is vibrant and new, and he smiles like he is now and hugs her and he’s wearing a sweater and collared shirt because that’s what he’s worn every day since I’ve known him and what he wore in pictures before me, and every night he lays his clothes on the chair at the foot of the bed so that they’re ready for the next day, and it’s a point of pride for him, being ready like that, and I know I’m the only person he’ll see today, but it wasn’t always like that, and I imagine that time, he gets up and dressed and waves goodbye to the kids, still chewing on the last bite of toast as he backs out of the driveway, and the carousel of faces greeting him as he walks down the hall to his office, even the ones he doesn’t know well, and the groceries sit in the passenger’s seat when he gets back, and the front window glows against the ultramarine of dusk and he knows his family is waiting there for him, and time speeds away, and that’s what I think about now when it’s just he and I and quiet, and we sit at the breakfast table, and between us is a small round vase and light sifts through it projecting
a yellow seashell and The tulips are on the counter.
I can’t breathe.
I stop at a red light.
A hole-in-the-wall Chinese place sits at the corner of the intersection, I’ve been to it many times when it’s bright and bustling and yellow, and I’ve sat at the back or by the window and
Alex sits across from me
I can’t let it in.
Alex sits across from me
But it would be so nice, so easy,
Alex sits across from me
like falling back asleep during a nightmare,
and Alex sits across from me
and the place is full and we’re waiting at the door to be seated and he holds my hand and the novelty of it hasn’t worn off so that I am aware of every moment it’s there and there’s something deeply comforting about it and I run my finger along his thumb and we sit at the table by the window and there are Coke and milk tea boxes next to the register and all the pictures on the menu are pixelated and taken with flash and the place is unglamorous in a way that
makes you know it’s good, Alex says,
pointing to a gleaming image of pork and
noodles,
and I laugh because, “that’s what I always
say,”
and time starts speeding away like when you’re falling in love and on the table is a bouquet of yellow tulips
I blink hard.
And force tulips out.
Rain has started moving faster than my wipers, a web of sparkling red spreads between every stroke, and my music stopped too, how long has it been quiet for? I wonder if that’s how my grandfather did it, not that he sat in silence, but that he sat and was swept away, and I wonder where he went, I wonder if he went back to my grandmother because every memory I have of her, she’s at that breakfast table in the chair next to him, and she was knowable in a way that I understood, telling me exactly what I was looking for and so becoming exactly who I wanted her to be, and she was always telling stories, You just know with these things, she’d look over at him, The moment I met him, I was sure, and on their first date, he came with a bouquet of yellow gerbera daisies and danced with her all night and took her to a hole-in-the-wall diner when the sun came up and he gave her his shoes because her feet hurt from the kitten heels and, You should’ve seen us there, I was still in my gown and he was in his tux and socks, it was six in the morning and there were truckers at the counter and I was sure, and at the center of the breakfast table is small round vase full of gerbera daisies, He’s brought me flowers ever since, and he smiles, and I think about that later, when it’s just he and I and quiet, I wonder what they talked about that morning at the diner, what did they talk about when it was just the two of them? And time speeds away, and now when I think about the two of them, they’re sitting together at the breakfast table and she’s telling the story of how they met and he’s smiling and when I think about love, I think about them.
I think about them also after weeks of frustration, wondering how Bronson ever wrote The Lemon Tree because he’s so disconnected and aren’t writers supposed to understand people? Isn’t that what makes a good writer? And I enter class and open my computer and make Bronson small in the absence of my attention, but then he says something about his wife, My late wife. The correction is fast. So fast, I almost miss it. Suddenly, Bronson is alone at the breakfast table mending some old broken thing, and I look up and he’s alone at the head of the class, his eyes shift to me and I am the only one looking, and my gut wells with so much guilt and I feel like I’m drowning and I can barely look at him, I feel he can see it in my eyes, so I The tulips
and I laugh because, “that’s what I always
say,”
and the light of the setting sun pours over the table by the window and the petals shine bright and yellow as lemons.
“Thanks, by the way, for these. They’re
beautiful,”
Of course. I was at the store trying to
remember which ones you said you
liked,
“Tulips are my favorite,”
our food arrives
stop.
so I arrive early to the next class and ask about Bronson’s week and he tells me something about how he went to see a movie and they aren’t like they used to be, and it’s exactly the kind of oldmanery that I would’ve imagined him saying, and I come to class early for many weeks, each time imagining that he’ll say something surprising like he did before, but every week it’s a new oldmanery, except now it feels endearing, I feel somewhat protective of it and I start to wonder if maybe that’s all there is, but then I remember my grandfather and I think about how I was always wishing that he’d become the kind of person who when I asked him why he bought flowers for my grandmother wouldn’t reply with, Because she likes flowers, but say instead, Because I love her, always searching for the chip in the stone, and it’s only when I start to believe that that’s all there is, that I sit with him and he’s gluing a picture frame back together and it’s been a couple months since he’s lost his wife and the room is quiet and the vase sits like a cavity in the center of the table and he tells me, I really miss her, I know I don’t say it a lot, but I really miss her, and there it was. And I start to cry and he tells me not to be so dramatic but he’s smiling and so am I and I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand and hug him and think that maybe it didn’t really matter The tulips!
“Tulips are my favorite,”
our food arrives,
and the server places a bowl with two golden fortune cookies at the center of the table,
Do you ever wish we lived in a kids’ book?
I laugh, “What made you think of that?”
I have this book at home, it’s called Fortune
Cookies for Mr. Crocodile,
“Are you telling me you wish you were a
crocodile?”
Don’t you? Alex laughs, No, it’s just that
it’s so –you know what, I’ve got it at home.
and we get back to his apartment, and he turns on the lamp and it casts a cone of yellow light over the couch, he’s got the book on his lap,
I’ll read it to you,
I smile, the idea of being read to like a
kid seems absurd,
Or you can read it to me, if you prefer.
When he’s done, he looks at me as to say,
what’d you think?
“That was really cute,”
Yeah, he replies, something really
comforting about these books, and I’ve been
thinking about this a lot lately, trying to
figure out why, and I don’t think it’s just
because we’re read them as kids,
“Sometimes as adults,”
Right, he smiles, but they talk about real
problems, you know? And still it’s
comforting,
“Maybe it’s because it’s so simple,”
What do you mean?
“Well, you know the part where Ms. Mouse
brings the tin of fortune cookies for Mr.
Crocodile and she asks him to be her friend?
I mean, when’s the last time someone asked
you to be their friend like that?”
Grade two, maybe,
“Right, and I’m sure Mr. Crocodile isn’t thinking
‘what’s Ms. Mouse’s motive? Does she actually
want to be my friend or does she want the status
of hanging out with a large reptile?’”
He smiles.
Quiet
I want to fill this absence.
But more than anything
I want to know what he’s thinking.
I’m happy with you, he says,
“I’m happy with you too,” I say,
and I’m sure.
My nose prickles, and knowing that the light will remain red only a short moment longer, I give in and look at the hole-in-the-wall Chinese place, the hole-in-the-wall Chinese place where we went every week and through the bright yellow windows I watch iterations of myself playing out at every table, but now the restaurant has closed for the night, the windows dark and blue as a bruise
The light turns green.
I linger.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood everything,
maybe the first class with Bronson, maybe it wasn’t, It takes time to develop your voice and some people never do (arrogant, jerk) maybe it was, It takes time to develop your voice and some people never do (earnest, disconnected), maybe I never needed to hear, Because I love her, because he’d already said, Because she likes flowers (because I love her) and maybe it wasn’t
I’m happy with you, he says,
maybe it was just the feeling of being told those things.
I try to make it go away
and remember the way Bronson looked so small when I leave class tonight and the class is quiet for a long moment and he asks, Am I doing this right?And the class remains quiet except everyone is looking now, I mean, he says, Do you feel like I’m helping –there it was– and before I know it I start to nod and the others nod and nod and we all Yesofcoursetotally and Bronson sighs in relief, Good, and all I can think about is how small he looked when I left, how alone. I drive away
and some part of me becomes stuck on the memory of cleaning my grandfather’s house and I’m packing things into boxes and I climb the stairs to his room and the sweater and collared shirt are there at the foot of the bed waiting for him and all I want to do is cry and I wish I could apologize for ever having wished him to be any other thing than the thing that he was simply because I misunderstood it, now I want to leave this moment too
and return to
the breakfast table and kiss him and fill the quiet with IloveyouIloveyouIloveyou I’m sorry, and he’d tell me not to be so dramatic and smile –this is where I know I must leave
and return to
“I’m happy with you,” I say
and I am so sure.
and when I get in that night, I cut the tulip stems and fill a vase with cool water and slip them inside and there’s a time every day when the sun hits them in just the right way and it sets them aglow and the petals are full and bright and yellow and I have never felt like this before and I think I should tell him I love him and we go to the hole-in-the-wall Chinese place and we sit at the back or by the window and time speeds away and You just know with these things and I can’t believe my luck because nothing has ever felt this way before but then things shift and I can’t quite tell what it is but I can feel it and it’s quiet when we eat I feel the weight of something new and every second it’s quiet feels like an eternity and a stone starts to form in my stomach and I think it has no reason for being there because You just know with these things right? But Alex sits across from me and it’s
quiet
“Is everything okay?”
Yeah.
the stone becomes heavy and I push it away but he keeps looking at his food and not at me and the tulips have been on the counter far too long and the water has dried out and the petals have become thin and blue
“Are you sure?”
he glances up, Yeah.
and I’ve imagined a million reasons for this quiet but no matter how many I imagine, the stone grows in my stomach, heavy as absence
“Okay.”
I want to know what he’s thinking
Alex looks at his plate, eating
I need to know,
I need him to know, at least
“I love you,”
he looks at me. stops.
and takes a breath,
and all the pain rushes back and
I’m sorry.
rain stopped wipers squealing on dry glass I can barely breathe how was I so wrong about everything I can’t breathe don’t you just know I was so wrong tulips have been on the counter for weeks I can’t throw them out because I’ll notice their absence I can’t throw them out even if now they’re thin and blue and painful I can’t throw them out because at least they’re there —breathe—I turn onto my street
and stand in the light above my kitchen sink.
I linger.
The tulips are so empty they barely make a sound as they slip into the trash.
I brush the dry green film at the bottom of the vase until I can see clearly and turn it upside down to dry.
I thought we were going to sit at the breakfast table together.
I shut the light time passes.
and look at where the tulips used to be. There is so much I wish I could tell you.
Noémie Boucher is a Pushcart Prize-nominated writer from Vancouver, British Columbia. Her work has appeared in Yolk Literary, the Vancouver Poetry House, and the Hoxie Gorge Review. She is an MFA candidate in Screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.
Photo Credit: Alex Stolis lives in Minneapolis; his photos have previously appeared or are forthcoming in Ink in Thirds, San Pedro Review, Unleashed Lit, and Anti-Heroin Chic. His full-length book Pop.1280, is a poetry and photo collection, available from Amazon. His chapbook, Postcards from the Knife-Thrower’s Wife, was released by Louisiana Literature Press in 2024, RIP Winston Smith from Alien Buddha Press 2024, and The Hum of Geometry; The Music of Spheres, 2024 by Bottlecap Press. He can also be found at https://alexstolis.myportfolio.com/
L'Esprit Literary Review 
One response to “Parallel Monologues”
This is a brilliant stream of conscious story. As a psychologist, I appreciate how you weave connection and disconnection with the tulips and other literary devices. Switching through so many intricate images and tying them together took my breath away.
Neil Weiner
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