PASSING NOTES

by

James Nelli


Even after forty-seven years, the moment she walked through the door, Adam knew it was Susan. Her translucent blue eyes, soft rounded chin and cascading red hair set her apart from everyone else in the restaurant. The lingering smells of aromatic woods, dashi, soy sauce, and cucumber permeated every corner of their favorite Japanese restaurant in Manhattan Beach southwest of downtown Los Angeles. The ownership of the restaurant had changed many times in the last five decades, but the memories remained the same. It was comfortable.
Susan looked apprehensive as her eyes darted around the room looking for Adam; but when he stood up and their eyes met, her apprehension was instantly replaced by a sigh of relief and a burst of excitement. They approached each other cautiously, both trying not to look too eager. But as their arms met and they drew each other close, past feelings flooded their space and immediately became the present situation. The familiar touch of their bodies initiated a rush of memories that only Adam and Susan could fully appreciate.
The last few years had been difficult for both of them. Happiness had been hard, if not impossible, for them to find. Susan had lost her husband after a long battle with cancer, while Adam’s wife passed away when dementia slowly stole her mind and then finally, mercilessly,
claimed her body. They found each other on social media, and today was their first in-person meeting.
Adam held Susan’s hand tight, not wanting to break the new bond they had just created. He led her back to the booth overlooking the beach where they had spent so much of their high school time enjoying all that the California lifestyle offered. The view wasn’t new. Just more meaningful today.
Susan’s once vibrant red hair had streaks of silver, and the lines etched on her face spoke of a life filled with disproportionate amounts of joy and sadness. Adam, with his salt-and-pepper beard and thinning gray hair reflected the weight of the passage of time. They sat there, not uttering a word, staring at each other admiring the uniqueness of the moment. The silence was uncomfortable but satisfying.
Finally, Susan broke the silence, her voice trembling with emotion. "Adam, I can’t believe it’s really you?" Her eyes glistened with tears she was desperately trying to hold back. She was having only limited success.
Adam nodded, a bittersweet smile playing on his lips. "Yes, Susan, it's me. It's been so long."
Susan reached out and touched Adam's tanned weathered face. "Oh, how I've missed you," she whispered, her voice barely audible.
Their fingers intertwined as they began to catch up on the years that had passed. Most of their comments started with the phrase “Remember when”. One thing they both remembered were the times they passed notes to each other in the hallway in between classes at school. The notes were always tightly folded on yellow paper, and just small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. The notes contained anything from a simple hello to a loving message or even an “I’m sorry”.
“That was our way of keeping in contact before all the electronic gadgets of today,” said Susan. “And it worked!” proclaimed Adam with a satisfied smile.
As they shared tales of triumphs and failures, of laughter and tears, they began to realize that they had both changed in profound ways.
Susan, once free-spirited, had become thoughtful and introspective over the last several years. She gave up the big city corporate marketing life and found solace in the Hudson Valley of New York. “I spend most days tending to my garden, riding horses, and raising money for a variety of nonprofits. My heart has grown bigger, because it’s constantly being filled with compassion and empathy for all living things. It keeps my own life in perspective,” she said squeezing Adam’s hand a little tighter.
Adam, once an ambitious go-getter in the communication industry, had learned the value of simplicity. He traded the hustle and bustle of city life for a quiet existence in the Colorado countryside. “In Colorado, my heart softened. It was my last years with my wife, and I realized the importance of connection and love. When she began drifting away due to her dementia, I had to spend more time caring for her at home. That was when I surrounded myself with books and began writing. I discovered that writing about the joy of introspection and self-discovery helped me deal with the loss,” he said as his eyes welled up with a mixture of compassion and reflection.
As they listened to each other's stories, they marveled at the transformations they had undergone. They realized that their paths had led them to these changes, shaping them into the individuals they had become. While their love had withstood the test of time, they understood that they could never recapture the carefree days of their youth. Their feelings for each other had not lessened, just matured, like a fine wine aging gracefully and deepening with each passing year.
The sun was setting over the ocean when they ended their visit. As they both stood facing each other and admiring the sunset they had shared so many times before, Adam reached out and lifted Susan’s hand. He then placed a tightly folded yellow piece of paper in the palm of her hand. Susan’s eyes shifted to the note. She shook her head in a gesture of disbelief, reached into her purse and took out a similar tightly folded piece of yellow paper and placed it into Adam’s hand.
Closing his hand around the note, Adam asked, “See you tomorrow?”
“Of course,” said Susan. “I’m already looking forward to it.”
​
###

A Stitch in Time
by Joshua C. Frank


I was the classic “boy genius” stereotyped in comic books and movies, until one of my inventions ended it all thirty years ago. And today.

I shielded my children’s eyes and closed my own, knowing what was about to happen. A brilliant flash of light hurt my eyes even while closed, and a triple sonic boom echoed off the surrounding hills, still so far from town after all these years. The only thing that made that light or sound was the time machine I invented when I was eleven. I opened my eyes, and took my hands off theirs. There stood the time machine, in all its false glory. (I won’t describe it because I don’t want anyone else inventing one.) My younger self stepped out. Wow, Mary and Isaac really look like me! I thought. He immediately fixed his eyes on my children.

“Welcome to the future,” I said.

“Are those your children?” he asked, not taking his eyes off them or even blinking.

“Yes,” I said, beaming. “I have more, but they’re with their mother.” They look more like her, too; no need to give my younger self any hint of whom he would marry.

“I love them,” he said, his gaze not straying from them. “I didn’t know I could love anyone this much.” Before I actually saw them, when I thought about it, I’d assumed I’d grow to love them over time, like with a dog. My younger self was quickly learning how wrong he was; it was more like what my mother described of seeing me for the first time. I remember what it had been like to be him and meet them: they left room for nothing else in my heart or mind. All I could think, over and over, was, “I love them.” The feeling just took over, so overwhelmingly as to put falling in love with a woman to shame. Even to say I loved them more than my own life didn’t do it justice. Yet my love for them has only grown in the thirty years since that moment.

My younger self finally composed himself somewhat and asked, “How do temporal paradoxes work? What would happen if I accidentally prevented my parents from meeting?”

“Before I tell you,” I said, “I want you to meet my children. Billy, this is Mary, age eleven, and Isaac, age five. Mary, Isaac, meet Billy.”

My younger self smiled. “Of course! After Marie Curie and Isaac Newton!” They weren’t named after scientists; their names come from the Bible. Science hasn’t been my religion since I was him. “If nothing else,” he said, “At least now I know what to name them.”

I had told both Mary and Isaac what to do beforehand. Mary hugged Billy, and Isaac jumped into his arms. I wanted my younger self to bond with them as much as possible so he would love them all the more. Within seconds, he beamed as he held one of them tightly in each arm and turned his head back and forth between them to take them both in. They looked back at him, making sure to meet his eyes. I remembered my aversion to eye contact in childhood, yet I noticed that he had no trouble looking into their eyes. He inhaled deeply––to take in their scent, I remembered.

After a while, my younger self finally asked, “So now will you answer my question?” I didn’t have to be his future self to know this was the furthest thing from his mind.

I motioned for Mary and Isaac to go play. They ran up and down a nearby hill, laughing, my younger self unable to look away.

“Look at me,” I said sternly.

He just kept looking at them as if I hadn’t spoken.

I grabbed his shoulders and turned him around. “I said look at me.” He turned his head back toward Mary and Isaac. As stubborn as he was--as stubborn as I remember being--I couldn’t let him win. I raised my voice: “If you love those children at all, you will look at me.” He quickly turned toward me. Now that I had his attention, I gave the speech I remembered my older self giving when I was here the first time around. “You want my advice on time travel? Don’t do it. Go home, destroy the time machine, and don’t let anyone else figure out how to build a time machine out of common household items. Otherwise, you’ll be gambling your children’s very existence if you or anyone else ever time-travel again. You don’t know what consequences your actions will have.” He opened his mouth to object, but I continued. “Besides, time travel is addictive, and you can only erase your children from existence, whether you spend too much time in other times and grow too old for your future wife, or make too much money from your knowledge of the future to be a good fit for her anymore, or something else. How it happens isn’t as important as that it happens. When I got back to your time, I didn’t want to risk it with this or any more inventions, so I gave up science. You’ll have to do the same, or these children’s mother won’t marry you.”

“I didn’t come here to be controlled by my love for my kids!” he shouted. “But that’s exactly what’s happening.”

“Do you see why I never looked back after abandoning science? In science, you risk discovering things you shouldn’t know. You may be a genius, but you’re still a child; you’re not ready for adult feelings like the intense love you already feel for your own future children. Go home, destroy the time machine, and never build another.”

He bawled. “I can’t leave them for all those years!”

“That’s enough!” I shouted back. I yanked him into the time machine, input the exact time he left, made sure both Mary and Isaac were looking away, and pressed the button to time-travel, all amid his nonstop screaming and crying.

The scene, with the hills, the trees, and the creek, looked the same, but the trees were maybe half as tall, my children were nowhere to be seen or heard, and my old bike and helmet lay nearby; that and the time display told me I was thirty years in the past. I pushed him out of the time machine and pressed the button to return to the moment I left while he screamed and swore at me.

I knew I was back in my own time when his screaming instantly gave way to the sounds of Mary and Isaac laughing in the distance. I made a loud whistle. My children came running to me, blissfully unaware of what a massive sacrifice I made for them at Mary’s age. After the meeting that just ended, my younger self would think about what I said on his way home and then burn all his blueprints out of love for those two children, just so they could exist. “Billy just went home,” I said.

Once I dismantled the time machine, I threw the parts into the nearest garbage can. Since they were all common household items (again, I won’t say what), no one would guess what they had been. After thirty years, shutters slammed on my window into the future, and there they would stay; once again, I knew how the rest of the world felt. It felt unbelievably disorienting not even to know for sure that Mary, Isaac, and I would still be alive the next minute.

Once we were all buckled in, I started the van, blind to the future, for the very first time.

Dryad 

By Rye Jaffe
​ 
Aster Greene started her day in the mid-afternoon. Almost three months had passed since she had been put on indefinite sick leave, and without her income on the line, she could not imagine any justification for waking up before noon. As a result, she could not remember the last time she needed coffee to make it through the day, and she supposed that this was probably healthy.  
 
She supposed, in an absentminded way, that she needed her health now, perhaps more than ever. Red-speckled leaves spilled out of her sheets as she stood up from her bed. There seemed to be more of them every day, and she paused to pluck a small sprout from her forearm, wincing as she drew out the burrowed stem. No matter how far she dug her nails, she could never reach the roots.  
 
She went to the bathroom next, brushing her teeth and spitting a sticky froth of toothpaste into her sink. Small patches of bark were starting to emerge all across her neckline. They peeled off like band-aids, smearing a viscous mix of sap and blood. A few twigs were starting to grow out from her eyelashes, and the stems of tiny leaves were scattered all across her skin, as though they had been affixed with glue.  
 
Aster knew, she would be in her bathroom all day if she tried to remove it all. The plants literally sprouted faster than she could pull them out, and she had all but given up on removing any stray flora that could be covered by her clothes. These days, she wore as much clothing as she could. Long pants, button-up shirts and a thick, wool scarf. As long as she did this, she could still act as though nothing had changed. When she smoked, she could hardly even taste the pollen that now consistently lingered on the edge of her lips.  
 
The condition had started at the beginning of spring. Her body had erupted with bumpy patches like acne, and she didn’t think much of it at the time. But then the tips of the bumps began to stain with the colors of swamp water, and one by one, they sprouted shoots, vines and leaves. Aster met with countless specialists during the first few weeks of this. However, after taking their samples and running their tests, they were no closer to understanding the condition than when they had started. 
 
“We’re not entirely sure this is even a disease, per say.” One of the specialists remarked, “But whether it’s a mutation, a virus, or anything else, at least it doesn’t seem to be hurting you.”  
 
This had been reassuring to Aster, because it meant that she did not need to think of her condition as a sickness. Instead, it was the leaves that she had to sweep away from her bed each night. It was the new clothes that she wore, and a minor annoyance that had been suddenly and irrevocably tacked onto her morning routine. She chose her red scarf today--its color would mask the small cuts the bark had left behind on her neck.  
 
Once she felt presentable, she lit a cigarette and headed out to the public library, locking the door neatly behind her. The city outside was a concrete labyrinth of buildings that were lined up like an intricate set of dominoes. The streets were drawn from graph paper, and human tides of pedestrians and vehicles rose and fell by the direction of the traffic lights that dangled over every intersection.  
 
And in the space between it all, the air hung heavy with smog. It clung to Aster’s body from the moment she opened the door. It dragged at her feet like thick mud, and trailed its warm, moist tendrils down her throat every time she took a breath. She had never really noticed how bad it was before her condition appeared. Her cigarette smoke hardly tasted any better, but she preferred to smoke, because at least then, the taste was her choice.  
 
She had finished almost a third of her pack when she finally arrived at the library. It seemed to blend with the grey architecture from the surrounding buildings. The barred windows would have been better suited for a prison, but there was also a painted mural on a wall across the parking lot. Every year, artists from around the city worked together to depict a popular fictional character, and this year, they had chosen the little mermaid. However, they had collaborated with a team of biologists, reimagining the mermaid as though it were a species from the deepest parts of the ocean. The basic shape of the resulting creature was still the same, but long tendrils dripped from its head instead of hair. Its arms were flared fins, and a pattern of stripes and hypnotic swirls had been painted across its pale skin like a set of tattoos. Curiously, the artists had depicted mermaid from behind, leaving its face to the viewer’s imagination.  
  
Aster smiled at this as she ashed her cigarette by the door. There was a powerful mystery here, which felt much more meaningful to her than the usual Disney fluff of marrying some random prince after a three day fling.  
 
But stories were not the only reason why Aster came to the library. There, lounging at the reference desk, was Constantine. Constantine, with his black tie and that self assured how-do-you-do? sort of grin that he wore like a favorite suit. He waved as Aster walked inside.  
 
“Hey there, Aster.” He spoke with a voice that perpetually sounded as though he were reading from a book. “Did you see the weather this morning? There was a flurry of snow just around opening time—it came right out of the blue.” 
 
“Can’t say I saw it. I’ve uh, I’ve been inside for most of the day. I guess it’s been pretty cold though.” 
 
“Yeah, between global warming and god knows what else we’re doing to the environment, it looks like summer is taking its time to arrive this year.” 
 
“I say the environment can take care of itself.” Aster shrugged and took a seat in front of Constantine’s desk. “Everything changes, right? The big things like seasons take longer, but it happens all the same.”  
 
“I guess that’s one way of looking at it.” Constantine leaned forward in his chair. “Are you still on leave with your office? The HR department, right?”  
 
“How else do you think I have time to ask for so many reading recommendations?”  
 
“I just figured that office jobs are as boring as they sound.”  
 
“Oh, you jerk.” She laughed, “As if being a librarian is any more exciting.” 
 
“I’ll have you know that libraries get all sorts of excitement! Just last night, one of the local artists came to speak about the mural outside.” Constantine crossed his arms in mock-indignity. “See if you can find a riveting adventure like that in your cubicle.”  
 
“Hey, I never said you were wrong about office jobs. The whole reason I’m here is because I finished all the books that you recommended last week.” 
 
“Already?” Constantine looked surprised.  
 
“I don’t suppose you have any more?”  
 
“Oh, always.”   
 
Constantine rose up from his chair, and then suddenly, he paused, pointing at Aster’s scarf. For a brief, terrible moment, she wondered if any bark or leaves were poking out from her neck. After all, Constantine did not know about her condition yet, and over the past few months, Aster had often wondered what would happen if he found out. Once, she had even considered telling him. However, her condition was something alien and bizarre, beyond what even her doctor and all his specialists could explain. When her office had found out, they had placed her on mandatory sick leave. Her coworkers now spoke to her with the underlying “I’m so sorry’s” melted between their words, or they did not speak at all. But Constantine did not know these things, and at least with him, she could still be normal.  
 
“I like the new scarf.” Constantine gestured for Aster to follow him. “Come with me--I’ve got just the thing you’re looking for. Read a book like this, and it’ll keep you rooted in your seat.”  
 
Aster nodded and laughed nervously, suddenly finding herself unable to think of anything to say. As Constantine began to walk, she shuffled behind in tight-chested silence.   
 
*** 
 
Aster had been in the middle of her sick leave when she first met Constantine. Her doctor had recommended that she visit the library to do research on her condition. Understanding a condition always helps with the healing process, he said. Aster had higher hopes at the beginning. However, the only material that seemed to relate were macabre stories of swamp monsters and dryads that she found in the fiction section, and she gave up on finding a forgotten cure before too long. She kept visiting the library anyway. After all, reading for pleasure was something that she never used to have time for, and there were more books to catch up on than she would ever be able to finish. 
 
There was one in particular that still stuck in her mind—a pulpy sci-fi novel in which a scientist accidentally transformed himself into some kind of plant-human hybrid. The hapless scientist lumbered through his hometown in an unintentional reign of terror, trying in vain to be recognized by his former friends until a climactic battle resulted in his all-too predictable destruction.  
 
The story, though poorly written, had left Aster deeply disconcerted for the rest of the day. Beyond the overtly bleak implications for her condition, there was one part towards the end, right before the final confrontation, in which the scientist stared a former neighbor in the eye and asked, “What is human?” In the context of the story, this question was melodramatic at best, yet something bothered Aster about how normal it was made to sound. What is human? As though it could be answered like an algebra problem or the name of a location on a map. What is five times three? What is the capitol of Ohio? What is human? Aster soon found that she was asking this question without meaning to and she was not sure she liked what that suggested.   
 
The next morning, she had gone to the reference desk to find something better to read. That was Constantine’s first day working at the library, and ever since then, Aster had been coming back at least once a week for new recommendations. They always talked about other things as well. Aster told him about her job at the office, and she learned about his concerns for the environment. She never brought up her condition though. She liked to pretend that it wasn’t there, especially as it continued to progress without any cure in sight. Especially as she woke up each morning with leaves, fungi and bark covering her body just a little bit faster than she could peel it away.  
 
*** 
 
“So you’ve never read any photography books?” Constantine stared at Aster incredulously, as though he somehow expected her answer to change the second time he asked.  
 
“What, you mean a book with just pictures?” 
 
“Well, if a picture’s worth a thousand words…” Constantine smiled and then shook his head. “But it’s more than just that. Take a look at this for instance. Its one of my favorites.”  
 
He reached up to the top shelf as he spoke, and pulled out a hefty tome entitled “Dryad.” The cover was as long as his forearm, depicting a vast forest that rose up from the roots, entirely in black and white, except for a single green leaf that fell in the center of the shot. Aster accepted the book in both hands, flipping randomly through the pages.  
 
“So what’s the deal with this?” She asked, “Is it a collection of different forests around the world?”  
 
“Its scenes from Chernobyl, actually, a few decades after the disaster. All these forests”—he gestured to the open page—“all of them used to be a city. But then everyone evacuated, and nature came right back to reclaim the land, as if it had been waiting the whole time. You can hardly tell that anyone ever used to live there.”  
 
Constantine’s voice began to soften towards the end, and Aster nodded as a chuckle escaped her lips. There was a dull clap as she pressed the book shut. 
 
“It sounds like this bastard’s been reading my diaries.” 
 
“I didn’t know you were so interested in nature.”  
 
Aster touched a hand to her scarf and thought to herself; human is the language that god speaks. Human is a word that writes its own author. Human is making gestures and signs that don’t mean anything at all.  
 
In her mind, the word “human” distorted with each repetition, like fresh ink being smeared across a page. Human. Huuman. Euuman. When she finally spoke, she sounded as though she were talking to someone who wasn’t in the room.  
 
“I guess it’s just something that’s been on my mind lately. You know how these things can take root. It grows on you.” 
 
“Well, I’ll tell you what.” Constantine pulled out his phone. “If we trade numbers, would you want to set up a time to meet and talk about the book once you finish? I’m probably not supposed to do this, but you’re the only patron here who actually reads anything I recommend.”  
 
“Do you mean, like, meet outside the library?” 
 
“Only if you want to.”  
 
Caught off guard, it took Aster a moment to fully understand what Constantine was saying. She looked at him as though he was an alien entity, and phone in his hand was a strange instrument of metal and glass. She typed in her number with muscle memory guiding her fingers, only looking down at the screen after her contact was already saved.  
 
And yet at the same time, here was a boy—a friend—asking her to spend some time together, just as ordinary people often did. It was the first time that anyone had shown any interest in her since the appearance of her condition, and maybe, she thought, just maybe this could be exactly the sort of ordinary that she was looking for. 
 
She smiled as she handed the phone back to Constantine.  
 
“I’ll wear my scarf.” 
 
She stayed at the library for the rest of Constantine’s shift and they flipped through the first section Dryad together. They took turns reading the photographer’s notes out loud to each other, and as they huddled on the floor between bookshelves, she thought to herself that this, this must be what human feels like.   
 
*** 
 
Aster stopped by the convenience store to buy cigarettes on the way home. She had been running through a pack per day lately, and she needed to restock if she was going to make it through the week. There was a bitter irony in the fact that her condition prompted such unhealthy habits. She used to eat well and exercise every day, but there didn’t seem to be a point in making the effort if it couldn’t prevent issues like her condition from appearing in the first place.  
 
The worst part was that she hadn’t even liked smoking at first. She knew from an adolescence of anti-cigarette ads that it would probably give her lung cancer if she kept at it. However, she liked to think that it was also bad for the plants that were slowly terraforming her body. This was her way of fighting back, no matter how petty and ineffective it might be. A sort of crude chemotherapy to pollute the growing ecosystem under her skin. Setting down three packs on the store counter, she smiled at the teenaged cashier and imagined burning rainforests.  
 
“That’ll be $18.58” The cashier paused for a moment, as though she were about to sneeze, and then added, “You need a bag, ma’am? Or if you, uh, brought your own, you know, save the earth and all that.”  
 
The cashier was a bleach-blond puberty casualty, whose glazed-over eyes may well have been laminated. Her hair had been dyed enough times to make the strands as stiff as pipe cleaners, and she crinkled her nose before raising the cigarettes up to the scanner. Inexplicably, Aster suddenly felt a slight tinge of shame.  
 
“Um, paper is fine, thanks.”  
 
“Sure. Cash or credit?”  
 
Aster pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet, not even bothering to reply. However, as she reached across the counter, she suddenly noticed small, budding branches poking out from under the cuffs of her sleeve. Suppressing a cry, she dropped her money and drew back her hand as though she had just touched fire.  
 
“Hey ma’am, are you, uh, alright?” The cashier cautiously picked up the bill.  
 
“Oh. Yeah, yeah, it’s nothing. Actually just keep the change, ok? I don’t need a bag either.”  
 
Pulling down her sleeve to hide the branches, Aster quickly stuffed the cigarettes into her purse and rushed towards the door before the cashier could blurt out the obligatory “Have A Good Day” behind her.  
 
The branches must have sprouted while she was walking over from the library. Usually, it took hours for the condition to develop anything noticeable, and Aster silently cursed herself for not realizing how much faster it was getting. Soon, she knew, the plants would take over her body so fast, she would not be able to leave the apartment at all. Soon her entire body would be a mix of wood, moss and leaves, and soon, she would probably lose whatever traces of humanity she still clung to. However, as she stood panting in the streets just outside the convenience store, with her purse clutched tight in both hands, all she could think about was how badly she needed a smoke. With a long, weighted sigh, she lit a cigarette from one of the packs she had just bought, and started on the long walk home.  
 
*** 
 
As the stars budded out from behind the clouds, Aster lay reading in bed. Suddenly, she heard the sound of rustling leaves. Impossible, of course. Her windows were all closed and she had swept off her bed just a few hours before. Nevertheless, the sounds grew louder in her ears. As though she were falling through branches. As though she were standing in the middle of a rainforest during a hurricane.  
 
She stumbled out of bed, but when she looked down, the ground was uncut grass and roots as thick as her legs. All around her, trees stood like outstretched bodies. The knotholes were gouged eyes, horribly distorted mouths, and she realized then, that these were people, trapped in the wood and unable to move or scream or call for help… 
 
She gasped awake. She was back in her bed. In her room. There were the walls and the floor, and no trees at all. Of course. The stars were never visible through the city smog.  
 
The book that Constantine had given her--Dryad--was still in her hands. She must have fallen asleep while reading one of the photographer’s interviews. She marked her place, laying it down on her nightstand before shakily walking to the bathroom. The air smelled foul. She could taste smog cloaking the inside of her mouth like shrink wrap, and somehow, she knew that cigarettes would not help.   
 
Her condition had taken a turn for the worse during the night. A thin layer of fresh, green bark framed her face in the mirror, her irises were tinted strawberry red, and a mix of vines and grass were beginning to replace her hair. Aster drew in her breath, tasting sap as she bit her lip. 
 
There was something about this moment that reminded Aster of her first period. She had been eleven years old at the time—a full year before her mother had planned on telling her about mensuration—and she thought that she was dying. She didn’t tell anyone at first. She had been taught enough to know that anything related to her genitals was shameful, and she did not want to spend her last days alive being embarrassed. Over the days that followed, she tried to pretend that nothing had changed. However, once her mother finally noticed the blood in the toilet, she was given her first box of tampons and everything was alright.  
 
Now she was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, waiting for a person like her mother to tell her that all young ladies turn into plants at some point in their thirties. And then that person would give her a box of whatever product ordinary people use to deal with that transformation, and everything would be alright. The thought of this dragged a dull chuckle out from the bottom of Aster’s throat. Gradually, this chuckle flowered into a laugh, and then she was crying at the same time, clutching the sink and heaving deep sobs as though she were throwing up on an empty stomach.  
 
“God, oh god what is happening to me?”  
 
*** 
 
She visited her doctor the next day. She had checkups at least twice a month now, and she always hated these appointments, because they forced her to acknowledge her condition. Every time, the doctor took the same tests and asked the same barrage of questions, which always came down to the simple fact that she wasn’t getting any better. On some level, she had already accepted that she probably wouldn’t ever be getting any better. Still, there was nothing pleasant about being reminded that her condition was real, that it was happening, and most of all, it was happening to her.  
 
“Your most recent test results are absolutely fascinating.” Her doctor perpetually sounded as though he were talking to himself. He was a half-bald, middle aged man whose most distinguishing feature was the fact that none of his features were distinct.  
 
“According to the MRI, it looks like almost all of your internal organs—and the majority of your exterior—has been converted by your, hm, condition. Functionally though, it all acts as though everything was exactly the same.” He shook his head in awe. “Absolutely fascinating.”  
 
“Have there been any changes with the new medications you prescribed? Any improvements?” Aster asked, and he shook his head.  
 
“As far as I can tell, the process is accelerating at an irregular rate. However, I must say that it would be a lot easier to take these measurements if you stopped scraping off the bark and leaves as they appear on your skin.”  
 
“Doctor, I’m not going to leave my apartment looking like…like that.” 
 
“Nevertheless,” The doctor spread his hands wide. “I’m just trying to do my job. Take my advice as you will.”  
 
Aster frowned and her dull tug of annoyance swelled into a yank as he continued to speak.  
 
“You know, I still can’t figure out how you’re even able to move.” He adjusted his round spectacles to take a closer look at the files that were spread across his desk. “Based on the samples I’ve taken, the wood in your legs is completely ordinary. It shouldn’t be able to bend like a limb.”   
 
“A friend and I—we were talking and I realized that I don’t have a name for my condition.” Aster mused out loud partly just to get her doctor to shut up. “Isn’t it strange to be changed so much by something and not have anything to call it?” 
 
“A friend?” The doctor sounded surprised, and Aster held off the urge to glare.  
 
“I met him at the library a couple months ago. He gives me books to read sometimes.” She gestured aimlessly, as if attempting to physically snatch her train of thought of out thin air. “The point, the point, I think, is that giving something a name classifies it into a neat little box. A name gives us, I don’t know, some measure of power over that thing, because whatever it does, it has to follow the rules of its classification. Even for something terrible, like cancer or AIDS, at least we know what it’s going to do, and I don’t have that for my condition. We really don’t know anything about it at all, do we?”  
 
The doctor stared at Aster with a serene sort of blankness, looking very much like a dog caught in the act of urination.   
 
“I see. And how does that make you feel?”  
 
Aster slumped in her chair, suddenly feeling completely exhausted. Human is a warm weight in the bottom of your chest. It is an angry slash of paint, sprayed across a broken brick wall. Human is what comes out when you clench a fist around a barbed-wire fence.  
 
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” She said quietly, “I try not to feel anything at all. It’s always been easier to just ignore these things until I can’t.”  
 
“Ms. Greene,” The doctor shuffled the papers on his desk, “If we’re going to solve your condition, I think the first step we need to take is confronting your attitude problem.” 
 
*** 
 
“One of the main points of Dryad,” Constantine once told her, “Is the complete irrelevance of humanity in regards to nature as a whole. Nature was here before us, and it’ll remain long after we’re gone. In the grand scheme of things, humans are about as important to the world as a successful breed of insects.” 
 
“As if you need to write a book for that.” Aster chuckled and turned another page in Dryad. “It seems a little egotistical to say that the universe does care. The world is big enough without us.”  
 
Then, after a short pause, she added, “I guess I never really got over my high school nihilist phase.” 
 
They were sitting together between the bookshelves, and Aster was leaning her head on Constantine’s shoulder as she read.  
 
“You don’t believe anything matters?” Constantine sounded a little surprised but Aster just shrugged. 
 
“I didn’t say that. I mean, there are plenty of things that matter to me, but I don’t see how any of that makes a difference to the universe. Life just has its way with us, and all we can do is sort out the pieces as best we can.” 
  
“Huh.” Constantine nodded, “Well, I guess I can see how that might be kind of liberating.”  
 
“Yeah, nihilism’s underrated.” Aster placed her book down and gestured in his direction. “What about you? How do you think the universe works?” 
 
Constantine paused for a moment to think.  
 
“How about this?” He said at last, “I really believe that there is an ultimate meaning out there. I think humanity matters, but I don’t think we’ll ever be able to comprehend what that meaning is. There’s an order here, the way all the species in an ecosystem depend on each other. But we’re only a small part of the picture—we don’t get to see the whole story for ourselves. And I don’t think we need to understand the meaning of the universe to be a part of it.”  
 
“You know, I honestly can’t tell if your view is more optimistic than mine or less.”  
 
“Well, if the universe has you in it, the meaning can’t possibly be that bad, can it?”  
 
Aster shoved him playfully. “Oh, that was terrible. What garbage paperback did you steal that from?” 
 
“Nothing I could recommend in good conscience.” Constantine laughed, “But find me a single person who doesn’t enjoy an old-fashioned dime-store romance! People like that--they’re the real fiction.”  
 
*** 
 
At the end of the appointment, Aster’s doctor printed out a pamphlet from the suicide hotline’s website, handing it to her as though it were just another a prescription slip. He shook her hand, as he always did, and then walked her towards the door.  
 
“Let me know if you have any more questions.” He flashed his professional, everything’s-going-to-be-ok smile, and Aster fought the urge to smack him with one of the framed diplomas that hung on his wall. On the way home, she tossed the pamphlet into the trash.  
 
*** 
 
When Aster returned to her apartment, her answering machine was blinking with its insistent little light. She had not been expecting any calls, and she froze for a moment before playing the message on speakerphone.  
 
“Hello, Ms. Greene, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but the board of directors has been talking about downsizing our department, and, well, I’m afraid a vote was placed this afternoon to terminate your position in human resources.” 
 
She barely heard the rest of the message. There was something about gratitude for years devoted to the company. Something, something about best wishes for the future. The voice belonged to a person that she used to work closely with, but for the life of her, she could not place a name to who it was. After a three month absence, they had all become strangers. 
 
“You’ll receive your severance pay in the mail, along with any personal belongings you left at your desk.”—There was a brief pause--“I mean, normally you’d be able to pick them up in person, but with your, uh, condition, everyone thought that this arrangement might be for the best. Just in case it’s, you know, contagious. Feel free to call back if you have any questions.”    
 
Aster played the message again. She smoked a cigarette and paced around the room as she listened. Then she deleted it, and smoked another cigarette in silence.  
 
It really should not have come as a surprise. After all, how could she have expected to return to her job after a three-month sick leave? The question had always been when, not if, they would fire her, and she hated herself for not realizing this sooner.  
 
Just in case it’s, you know, contagious. 
 
She felt a brief flush of anger as these words rang through her head. There was no evidence that her condition had ever been contagious. Sure, nobody really knew anything about what was happening to her, but it was unfair that she had been forced to take an extended sick leave at all. It was unfair that she was being fired—over voicemail, no less—and it was unfair that she had developed her condition in the first place.  
 
Yet to her surprise, she found that these things did not particularly matter to her. Her problems seemed to hold themselves at a distance, as though she were reading them in a story, and concepts like paying rent and getting a new job were suddenly strange and alien notions. The realization dawned on her that if the condition was changing her internal organs, it was probably affecting her brain as well. However, this came to her with no particular urgency, and all she felt was an unexpected sense of relief.  
 
*** 
 
The stars were in full bloom the night that Aster finished reading Dryad. The air was weighted with the scent of spice, and she could hear the wind crashing through leaves like a fast-swinging axe.  
 
The forest was with her again tonight. The trees that were shaped like people, reaching up as though they could pluck the sun out of the sky. She had been so scared before, but she could see them more clearly now and she realized that they were speaking to her. Their ancient voices were wild and ripe with glory.  
 
“You,” Aster knelt down to lay her hand across the thick, overlapping roots, “You’re all the other ones. The ones like me.”  
 
The wind began to pick up like a hurricane, and she held up her arms in vain to shield herself. It was so strong she felt as though it would tear off her skin, shatter her bones, and leave nothing but the wood, the green, these burrowing roots… 
 
*** 
 
Morning came, and Aster woke up with the sun. Her bed with layered with tiny leaves and flowers like a funeral casket. They dripped from her body and spilled out onto the floor as she began to sit up, and she could feel a few late bloomers still sprouting out and shedding from her skin.  
 
Slipping out of bed, she walked over to her window, letting the sunlight seep into her skin. This was nourishment; it felt like a lover’s fingers on her curves; like rare wine on her lips; like coming home to your family after a long trip in some foreign land.  
 
Surely, there was something sacred about this time of day. The streets outside were so quiet. Aster felt very much as though the world had come to an end during the night, and she was now the last person alive. Closing her eyes, she pressed a hand against the window, and the tiny stems coming out of her fingertips began to curve and bud, reaching out towards the sun.  
 
When she opened her eyes again, there was a moment when she could see currents of pheromones and pollen as an aura that cloaked her surroundings. She could taste the colors as they wove in and out of her skin. There was a shade between red and rust that felt like antiquity. Another of saccharine white that wafted through the air. Outside, the trees that lined the sidewalk were blazing like tiny forest fires.  
 
She turned away from the window as the vision began to fade. Picking her phone up from her nightstand, she texted Constantine and walked to the bathroom.  
 
“I need to talk.” She typed, “Would you be free after work?” 
 
In the mirror, she could see that her condition had all but finished converting the rest of her body. Her eyes were bright, translucent fruits, her hair was entirely grass and leafy vines, and a few scarce patches of untouched skin was the only sign that she had ever looked human.  
 
Almost immediately, a reply appeared in her inbox: “Sure! Is this about Dryad?” 
 
Aster chuckled at this. Of course he would think it was about the book; how could he expect anything else? Their friendship had always been based in the library, and really, they had not even known each other for very long. That was exactly why she needed him. He was the only friend she had—the only one who still did not know about what she had become. But he would soon.  
 
“Lets meet at my apartment.” She texted her address as she began to dress herself. The clothing felt foreign against her skin, but it was still necessary for now. She wore dark, horn-rimmed glasses for her eyes. A pair of slender gloves to conceal her bark-covered hands. A black bandana to cover her head. Everything else, she coated with layers of makeup and baggy clothes, hoping for the best.  
 
Then, when she finally felt presentable, she cleaned up the stray flora that she had shed around her apartment, sat down on her bed, and waited for Constantine to arrive.    
 
*** 
 
The sun hung low in the sky when Constantine finally came knocking on the door. Standing out in the hallway, he smiled at her as he always smiled. Aster could see that he had taken the time to shave before coming over, and he was wearing his black tie over a plain, button down shirt. This was what she loved about Constantine; he was always exactly as she expected him to be.  
 
“Aster!” He spread his arms wide and poised as though he were beckoning to royalty.  
 
“Constantine.” She forced herself to smile. “Come on in. Its good to see you.”  
 
“So how have you been? I’m looking forward to hearing what you thought of the book.”  
 
Constantine took a few wandering steps through her apartment before turning his gaze back to her. For a brief moment, it looked as though he could sense that something was off. Aster was vaguely reminded of the animals that could detect storms and earthquakes right before they began.  
 
“Oh, we’ll get to that.”—she gestured to her bed—“First, why don’t you have a seat? There’s something I’d like to tell you.” 
 
“Is everything alright?” Constantine stepped closer and she nodded, letting out a small chuckle.  
 
“You know, I had a whole speech planned out of what I was going to say to you. It was a stupid idea, I think—I think it doesn’t really matter what I say. That’s how it is with these things. You just have to see it.”  
 
“What are you talking about? Did something happen to you?” 
 
“Yeah.” Aster nodded again, and for just a fraction of a moment, she sounded as though she were on the verge of tears. “Yeah, something did. And Constantine, I don’t know how you’ll react—I don’t know how I want you to react, but I will not hide this from you anymore. I want you to see me as I am.”  
 
“Aster, you’re starting to scare me a bit.”  
 
“No. Not yet I haven’t. But I will.”  
 
Then, taking a few steps back, Aster drew up one hand, and slowly pulled away the glove. Her fingers—like gnarled sticks—were sprouting tiny blue flowers all across the knuckles.  
 
“Oh. Oh god.” Constantine drew back at once. “What is that? What are you?”  
 
Moving as though she had all the time in the world, Aster peeled off her other glove and dropped it on the floor. Then, unbuttoning her shirt, she opened it up to reveal her tender, green curves, her breasts of layered leaves. At this point, her body only resembled a woman in the way that a shadow resembles its owner.  
 
“You gave me a book about nature’s reclamation, and that is what I am, Constantine. I’m still Aster--I’m still the person you know—but this is what I’m becoming. Do you understand?”  
 
Constantine stood as though his limbs were locked in place against his will. His eyes, wide enough to swallow, darted up and down Aster’s body as though he expected her to change back to normal each time after he looked away.  
 
“The way I see you now…” She raised a hand, lining up the tips of her fingers to his face. “Your body has the color of those glowing dots you see when you press too hard against your eyes. Shades of violet and gold, like low pitched notes. I can taste it, Constantine.”  
 
Then she pulled off her pants, revealing legs of moss and wood. A mass of many-colored flowers was spread between her thighs like a stain.  
 
And Constantine began to move closer. Reaching out with a quivering hand, he almost touched the bark and leaves of Aster’s face. He brushed the air up her arms, grasped at a handful of the tiny spores that had fluttered out from her side, and then slowly, he lowered his arm back down, letting it fall limply by his side.  
 
“Are you…human?” He asked.  
 
With a sigh, Aster took off her glasses, shook the vines free from her bandana, and used the cloth to wipe her makeup away from her face. Completely naked now, she stood before Constantine, feeling no more embarrassment or shame than if she were being watched by an animal in the woods.  
 
“Human is a starting point.” She began to walk towards Constantine as she spoke. “Human is the very smallest thing we can be, and human is what I will never be again.” 
 
With that, she gently stroked her fingers across Constantine’s cheek and kissed him on the lips. Eyes closed, she tasted his adrenaline, his fast-beating heart, his fear. He was trying so hard not to feel it. He cared about her, and he wanted to pretend he wasn’t afraid, but his feelings were chemicals and sweat. No matter what he did to deny them, he could not wish them away any more than he could wish away gravity.  
 
“I’m sorry, Constantine.” She turned away. “I think, I would have really liked to be friends. I thought a lot about what we could have had, you know, sitting together in this apartment and just talking about nature…”  
 
As her voice trailed off, Constantine kneeled over to one side and vomited straight onto the floor. She heard his panting. She heard the scrape of his footsteps and the slam of her door as he ran out of her apartment. But she did not look back.  
 
She knew, of course, that this was for the best. Nevertheless, she was surprised to find that she was smiling. It would have been hard not to. Because the sunset was beautiful in a way that only she could see. Because Constantine was as ordinary as she always hoped he would be. Because for the first time since her condition appeared, she finally knew what she had to do.  
 
That night, she would toss out her ashtray and cigarettes. She couldn’t even remember why she had begun smoking in the first place. Was that something she used to do before her condition appeared? It didn’t matter. She would stop going to her appointments with her doctor and his specialists. She would stop sweeping away the leaves that she shed in her bed each night. And when the last traces of her body turned ripe and green, she would leave the city behind and travel to the forest from her dreams, to dwell in wild glory forever. 
 

Download A Daydream


by K. A. Williams

​
The website at 'Download A Daydream' had some interesting selections including - meet underground inhabitants of Mars, practice the art of magic as Merlin in the court of Camelot, explore the lost continent of Atlantis, sail the high seas with Captain Blackbeard (I had that one last time), discover fire with prehistoric man, be a sheriff in the wild west, and travel through space with the crew of the Interloper. I selected my choice and stuck my index finger into the download portal.


It tingled and suddenly I was a pilot on the bridge of the starship Interloper with Captain Quick, Lieutenant Spot and Dr. Ahoy. 


"Seriously Captain, did you not ever foresee a future where mating with a pretty alien could have consequences for you?" Spot asked him.


"I'm facing the consequences now Mr. Spot, I'm covered with feathers," said the captain. And he was. Blue feathers to match his blue skin.


"If you start trying to lay an egg, let me know," quipped Doctor Ahoy.


"Ribs, just get this alien DNA out of me and return me to normal. My ship needs me."


"You were never normal to begin with, Chip. I'm going to need a sample of the lady's DNA to work with first."


"Take us back to Planet Lustily," Quick told me.


"Aye, aye, Captain." I automatically entered the correct coordinates.


When we reached the planet, the captain said, "Ensign, I'll need you to pilot the space shuttle for the doctor and me."


"Aye, aye, Captain." I got up and followed them both off the bridge as Lieutenant Spot sat down in the captain's chair.


The shuttle Phoenix was parked in the landing bay along with Pelican and Pigeon. We stepped inside the Phoenix and I sat in the pilot's seat. I knew which controls to operate and navigated us through the invisible gravity shield and out into space.


After a brief trip, the shuttle descended into the planet's atmosphere and I made a perfect landing on the capital city's visitor platform.


The blue birdlike ambassador was waiting for us and greeted the captain with a laugh. "I'm sorry. I'd forgotten that you were unaware of the side effects of our mating ritual for an alien species. Our doctors will fix you immediately."


She pressed a few buttons on her wrist device and several men appeared.


She motioned to the doctor and me. "Come this way and I'll entertain you while you wait for your captain. It shouldn't take that long."


"I'm going with them. As a doctor I wouldn't miss the opportunity to see this process reverse."


After Dr. Ahoy followed Captain Quick and the others, the ambassador looked at me and smiled. "It's just us then."


"Let's not do what you and the captain did. I'd rather not look like a bird and the others will be back soon."


"No, they won't. It'll be fun and the doctors can keep you from changing." She stepped closer to me.


Suddenly I was disconnected and once again in the real world. The boss stood in front of my desk. "Alpha Android. Your break is over. Get back to work."


As a new prototype, I could experience some emotions. I was feeling disappointment now. My breaks were never long enough for the daydreams to completely finish. 


I decided to protest. It wasn't like they were going to fire me. "I'd like a longer break."


The boss looked surprised, then smiled. "You're learning to be an individual. You shall have a longer break next time."


"Thank you," I said.


                                                                 The End




A different version of this story was previously published in 2021 in Altered Reality.

                                                      

Boulder Sky

by Keith ‘Doc’ Raymond
 

If my younger self knew my only friend as an adult would be a twenty meter long worm, I probably would have rethought my life choices. But I always enjoyed digging, just like her. Be it mud, ore, or regolith, the chance to be out under the stars on a lonely planet made the creds appealing. Far more than working in a cubicle under air con on a central world.
So here I am, taking in the pastel rainbow sky of Targus. The components of the rainbow are layers of crystals of various sizes set at varying altitudes all the way up into orbit. They refract and reflect the binary light of the central stars of the system. This is where I work.
My target layer is 500 meters above the surface. Enormous boulders of yellow chalk suspended by their helium gas pockets. Our job is to collect the helium, and when the rocks settle to the surface, robot excavators breakdown and collect the chalk. The chalk is a blend of sulfur and calcite used by the Omerons, a silicon-based life form, for food.
“Where’s your head?” Strepnax asked. She speaks using her head segment, which runs through a rapid series of color changes that my translator completely misrepresented.
“Sorry, what were we talking about?” I answered a question with a question.
I wear a Mylar covered hat (yeah, I’d look crazy anywhere else). It serves as the translator, passing a series of colored ripples over the dome, to communicate with her and ask the question.
“What else? The next target for helium retrieval, human.”
“Oh, right… how about that big sucker over there?”
“Great, I’ll tell the lads. Let’s load up and get going, eh, buddy?”
The idea of six segmented worms, twenty meters long, coming at me would be the stuff of horror movies, if I didn’t know they were on my work crew. They headed toward spindles mounted on the mining platform. Placing their clitellum on the deck at the base of the spindles, and their tail segment on it, my first task of the day was to roll each of them up on the spindles like garden hoses, with their heads free, ready to deploy.
Once we were all packed and onboard, Strepnax sent me a silver glow, letting me know they were good to go. She was the forewoman. I hit the anti-grav thrusters, and we rose smoothly into the target layer. She stroked my cheek with the side of her head and pointed me toward our boulder de jour.
Once it was in range, I set the platform in hover mode. Then I went over and tucked in between two spindles. The two worms there squawked, heads flushing red, blue, red, blue, which didn’t need translation. They were ready to launch. This was the most precarious part of the operation.
Like a harpooner, I lined up and fired the worms at the boulder, paying out their bodies, one on each side. Their millipede-like legs pinioned the floating rock, securing it for extraction. In groups of two, I fired the next two sets, one of which included Strepnax.
One member of that buddy system was the probe, and the other, the siphon. The probe found the helium bubbles and screeched to the siphon. Then the siphon buried its head in the helium pocket and suctioned the gas through itself. The helium passed out of its anus (disgusting) into a storage tank onboard the mining platform. There, we cool the gas into a liquid to concentrate and store it.
As the helium decreased in the boulder, it descends toward the surface, leaving the layer it floated in. We follow it down until the chalk crystal settled on Targus’s regolith. It’s a pretty slick system, and if I came up with it I’d be bathing in creds, but I didn’t. Each work crew labored alone, and there were crews scattered all over the planet.
Once we cleaned out Targus’s layer, we’d moved on to another planet or a different ore, mining something else. I get shore leave twice a year, typically heading to an outpost station to burn through my bonus and then some. Some miners I worked with went back to duty cred free, having gambled away all they earned. The company liked when they did that, kept them coming back to work.
It was typical for miners, like myself, not to stay with the crowds on the station. Being used to the solitude, I’d cavort a little, then retreat to a luxury cabin to enjoy the peace and isolation. During those times, I missed Strepnax.
She’d actually tell me worm jokes on the job. It took me a while to enjoy their sense of humor. Watching them wiggle along with their rippling colors told me they were laughing. So I did the next best thing, squirm and shimmy. That only made them wiggle more, it being too funny for them to watch a human trying to laugh like a worm.
The big sucker we finished mining landed on the surface, as the Targus skies entered the gloaming with lavenders, celadons, and pinks. Worms stowed on the hover platform, we headed toward the shuttle. We were all feeling tired yet satisfied with our progress when we heard barking above us. The worms quaked on their spindles. I had to get them inside quick.
The creatures came out of the setting suns. Winged leopard seal-like monsters, called Narg. These predators from Paradosh, swept down and ripped two spindles from their moorings, right off the hover platform. The worms, locked in place, were helpless, as we saw them whisked away in the flippers of the beasts.
In terror, we watched our buddies stripped from the spindles, unwinding them, dangling from the maws of the flying monsters, being eaten. When the spindles fell away, the winged creatures slurped them up like single strands of spaghetti. Their cries cut off quickly, and the silence was worse than their squeals.
“Well, don’t just stand there!” Strepnax flashed at me, shouting rapid colors across her head.
I was too stunned to move. Narg appearing out of nowhere? They had to be airdropped by a warring faction. Corporate raiders or pirates trying to cash in on our quota.
Strepnax flashed again, tapping its chin frantically, “Anytime now, moron!”
Galvanized, I drove the mining platform into the shuttle, up the ramp, and crammed it into the bay, pulling the hatch shut like a turtle retreating into its shell until the danger passed. Cutting the anti-gravs, we settled on the deck, safe but not sound. We lost two.
I released the spindles so the worms could return to their makeshift burrows and raced to the comms unit to warn the other mining teams. They reported wo crews had gone down already and the winged leopard seals attacked others. I dispatched a distress call, but even if the marauders didn’t jam it, corporate security would take several days to arrive. A good day just turned rotten in my stomach.
***
I watched from the shuttle’s bridge as the Narg patrolled the skies above Targus. No pirates inserted from orbit yet. Either they just wanted to halt production, or it was a delaying tactic they used, having bigger plans. Maybe take out the security forces when they showed. Whoever they were, I would not lose cred over their interference.
I’d mined in war zones, and I’d mined during firefights. They didn't specifically target me then, but they weren't really targeting me now. Sure, those Narg might chew on me, but their preference was the worms. Given the chance, I planned on taking a piece of whoever dropped them on the claim.
In the meantime, I called a meeting. “So, what are we going to do? Sit on our tails and wait for the cavalry to arrive? Or are we going to keep mining?”
Strepnax glanced around, saw nods. I guess they worked out their own plan. My rousing speech hadn’t inspired them.
“We lost a third of our crew today. I say we hunker down. The creds aren’t good enough to risk our clitellum,” Strepnax said.
The others flashed agreement. Then they literally raised a fear stink (like bad olives) I knew only too well.
“Those monsters hunt by day. What if we switch to a night shift? Then we have the advantage, since they will have difficulty seeing us in the dark.” I suggested.
“And what if they scope us out? How can we defend ourselves? With harsh colors?” Strepnax flashed, the others wiggled and giggled.
She was getting on my nerves. “We may not have weapons, but we can evade them.”
This led to a discussion between the worms. Three thought it was a good idea, one was against it, that was Strepnax. She wasn’t going to lose a segment to those monsters. Little did I know what her real reason was until later.
“Come on, Streppy, it’s a good plan,” I argued.
“Whatever, Leslie-” Strepnax answered. If a worm could tinge my name with a derogatory flash, she just did. This made the vote unanimous.
“Look guys, I have an idea. Rest up while I’m busy, and we will go out shortly. We’ll work a double, then rest all day tomorrow.”
“Works for me, Leslie,” chimed in the three worms who wanted to work. Strepnax approximated a raspberry, but followed me down to the machine shop. The others tucked in to some meal worm (I know, gross, cannibalism).
I grabbed four spare headsets off the wall and went to work.
“What are you up to?” Strepnax asked after more cheek rubbing and spying on my busy hands. “Must be nice to have opposable thumbs and functional limbs.”
“You have hundreds more limbs than I do.”
“But you can manipulate things.”
“So can you… in a fashion.” It was nice...we were making up.
Funny how Strepnax could be both annoying and affectionate at the same time. I had to shift every so often to get around her bulk while I worked, although our intimacy was oddly comforting. It took a while to get the first headset designed, but the other three went faster.
“What are those supposed be?”
“They are for you lads. Headsets.”
“And what are they supposed to do for us?”
“These will give you control over your spindles.”
“Okay, but why?”
“I’ll brief you on the mining platform when we go out together.”
Night mining was more pleasant than expected. Thermals mixed with cool air layers brushed over us pleasantly. It cooled or warmed us at opportune moments during the operation. I wondered why we hadn’t agreed to do this before the Narg arrived.
There were far fewer of them patrolling at night. We all kept an eye out, though, and if one of us saw Narg, we’d freeze. The random motion of the yellow chalk boulders hid us well. The winged leopard seals often passed right by us without seeing us. They even poked around the mining platform, but they must have read it as abandoned.
That is, until one harpooner’s legs lost grip. The worm jerked, trying to regain his footing on the boulder we were mining, while the rest of us remained motionless. He started rippling and struggling against the rock in his panic. The frenzy attracted one of the Narg above us, and pulling in its wings, it dove straight toward the worm.
Franscomb, the panicked harpooner, was the Narg’s target. I had an idea and ran over, releasing his spindle from the deck of the platform. “Hold on to that, Franscomb,” I flashed. “Use it as a weapon. Remember those Yo-Yo tricks I showed you on the old vids?”
Franscomb got it, and the others flashed, grateful for my foresight. Activating his new headset, using two adjacent segments, he curled himself around the spindle, making himself a smaller target. I saw the tension build in his body. He used half his length to secure the spindle, while struggling to maintain purchase on the boulder. There wasn’t much time left as the Narg dive-bombed or ‘stooped’ on him, its eyes full of hunger.
At the perfect moment, Franscomb launched his counterattack, whipping the spindle at the Narg in a looping ‘round-the- world’ move. The spindle came at the stooping winged leopard seal sideways, catching it unaware and knocking the wind out of it, while throwing it against a chalk boulder.
The Narg screamed, one of its wings broken, spilling yellow ichor. The vengeance bristled in its flash of teeth, wanting the worm even more now. In a desperate move, Franscomb used the spindle to ‘walk the dog’ over the angered creature, crushing its hollow bones, before he lost his footing on the boulder. The torque tore the worm from his perch and he plummeted.
With Franscomb’s spindle detached from the mining platform, I spiraled it downward toward the regolith to catch him. The carcass of the Narg dropped past us on its way planet-ward. I caught Franscomb’s spindle and reattached it to the rig, then reeled him in, snatching him literally from the jaws of death.
The worm flashed his joy and victory, and the rest of the work crew whistled, sharing in Franscomb’s defeat of the Narg. We rose back up to collect the rest of the gas and finish the job, but the Narg’s alert was already out. Looking over at Strepnax, she flashed a multicolored light show of malice. “We’ve stirred up the pack. We better cut bait, and get back to the shuttle, before they attack in force.”
I wasn’t happy with the idea. I wanted to finish the boulder mining before we tucked in for the night, but the color displays of the other worms, particularly Franscomb, made further mining untenable. “Okay, let’s pack it up.”
They rolled ripples of cool blue over their carapaces, pleased to get back into the shuttle and safety. As we descended, I looked over at Franscomb. “What’s going on with you? You just beat the odds and gave that Narg what he deserved. I thought you’d be happy,” I sent him.
“I, ah… nothing.”
The Narg were as wary of us now as we were of them. Their poor vision and this newly devised defense kept them at a distance as we returned to the shuttle. When the hatch closed, the sense of relief in the worm crew was clear. The tightness in their segments eased.
Everyone was back in their holes when I eavesdropped on Strepnax’s outgoing transmission. It seemed my forewoman was talking to one of the Paradosh pirates in orbit. She was a traitor. Maybe she took a payoff, or she was just greedy, or she was in debt to them.
I eased past her burrow, down the corridor to my own quarters. Now I was in a quandary. What to do about it?
She betrayed us. Betrayed her own kind, even caused their death. Her actions reduced our numbers, compromising our chance of achieving our quota for the mission. We had worked together as a team for a long time. Strepnax and I were friends and the closest I could get to a lover. This sucked. I tried to sleep on it, but despite my exhaustion, sleep would not come.
I tossed and turned like Strepnax when she gave birth. Which reminded me, she made me her godfather. How could she do this to us? Making me her children's godfather in the event of her death was not in their nature. The worms always deposited their offspring at a creche before they went out to work. It showed me she was a sentimental old girl, trying to apply human feelings to her kind.
So what should I do? Turn her in to the corporation? Strand her on Targus, and say it was an accident. Keep my mouth shut and continue on like I didn’t know? Here I was trying to solve a worm problem with a human solution. The word ‘betrayal’ wasn’t even in their vocabulary.
***
I woke late the next day, surprised I ended up sleeping. No answers had come during my dreams. I found my arm thrown over Strepnax. She slipped into my bed for a cuddle. Maybe regret or grief over the loss of her friends brought her. Her presence filled me with disgust. How could she seek solace from me when she caused it? 
I pulled my arm away and thought about the pirates. I didn’t get the sense they were jumping the corporation’s claim. They used Narg to cripple the operation. There had to be another reason beyond feeding us to their predators. But that was the least of my concerns. Strepnax was the priority.
I got on the comm and contacted the other crews to present Franscomb’s technique on how to foil the Narg attacks, using the Yo-Yo trick. Many of the crews took losses, and it crippled production Targus wide. None reported the appearance of the pirates themselves, just the Narg. The Paradosh continued to stay in orbit. Maybe they were attempting to embargo Omerons’ food shipments? I had no clue.
None of us could get up there to intervene against them effectively, anyway. Our shuttles lacked armaments, and the corporation's mother ship was in another sector en route. She’d return in a solar month when our shuttles were full of ore and frozen helium cubes.
When we were alone in the machine shop, adjusting the settings on the headsets, I confronted Strepnax. “Why are you working with the pirates?”
A flood of emotional colors washed over her head. Finally, she answered with an accusation, “How come you eavesdropped on me?”
“I was just passing by, but that doesn’t matter. Your action does.”
“I did not attack you. I was just stopping the corporation. I was faithful to my people.”
“And your people died.”
Strepnax waved her head in the air, a distraught gesture. “Had I known… the Paradosh didn’t tell me about the Narg. If they had… Anyway, it’s because the Omerons continue to press on the system borders of the Paradosh and my people. By crippling their food chain, we wanted to halt their expansion.”
“So the Paradosh above us are partisans, not pirates. Why don’t you go to the Executive Board of our mining concern? File a complaint, plead your case?”
“Do you think they would listen to a worm, Leslie?”
I knew she was right. Why would they listen to a worm? They are all about the profit, not the politics. I felt compelled to inform them myself. Not just about Strepnax’s treachery, but also about the corporation conspiring to support an invasion. Her explanation only complicated my decision on how to proceed.
“Get out of my sight, Strepnax. I’m disgusted with you.”
She slinked away, possibly hurt, and maybe angry at my not supporting her stand. Perhaps she felt betrayed as well. It didn’t matter, we had a quota to meet, regardless. I was finishing up when I received a data packet from one of the other crews.
Up on the bridge I opened it. It was a narrow band message to all the miners. One of the other crews came up with a defensive strategy if and when the Paradosh entered atmo to attack. I studied it, and it made sense.
The Narg numbers dwindled as the other miners followed our lead. Though crippled, production continued. We just had to hold out until the security forces arrived. If we could hold on a few more weeks, or even a month our security ships would defeat the Paradosh. Then we’d have a chance to make quota.
For once, I missed the company of humans. There was no one I could bounce my thoughts off of and weigh options on how to proceed. Then there was no more time to ruminate, I watched the stars set below the horizon and the light show of a rainbow sky told me it was time to get back to work.
***
Down in the shuttle bay, everyone was gearing up, settling in before their spindles and sharing stories with me. All except Strepnax, who studiously chose to ignore me. Anything she mentioned had to do with the mining platform, which she tinted with a hint of animosity.
Up in the strata, we began work as usual. Until I spotted several stars growing brighter on approach. I signaled the other crews but they were already prepping for a firefight. We stopped mining, released the boulder and set up our defense. Double slings using the worms.
I collected a number of meteoroids using a grappling hook, placing one in each sling. We were going not just old school, but ancient school with a twist. With the Paradosh ships on approach, we catapulted the first volley and kept at it. The meteoroids, sent from the living slings struck other layers of the crystals, generating a billiard ball effect as they hit.
Hundreds more stones accelerated upward, acting like buckshot fired from a shotgun, striking the Paradosh ships and pummeling them. Their shields overwhelmed by the homemade mine field, the Paradosh were unable to avoid the sudden explosion of rocks coming at them. The effect devastated their ships. Some exploded, others vented air or plasma, while still others were simply crushed under the onslaught. It was a horrible sight.
The worms flashed in delight, even Strepnax cheered, and my ears rang with the translations of their shouted glee. We had won without firing a shot, not that we had a real weapon to fire. Other crews reported similar success. It was truly a brilliant plan.
And a just response to Paradosh treachery. While the worms were allies against the Omerons, it was an alliance of convenience, they hated each other. When the partisans deployed the Narg, they showed their true colors. Overjoyed, Strepnax wrapped herself around me on the floating platform. Normally welcome, this time it felt false and uncomfortable.
Maybe she sensed my repulsion and broke off, rejoicing with the other worms. I’d grown to hate her in this conflict. Strepnax sacrificed not only our bonus, but her own brother and sister, not to mention our quota. We might just break even or lose on this trip.
We were so focused on celebrating we nearly missed the combined Narg attack. They came at us in groups of three, normally lone hunters, striking in packs. I released spindles, and the beasts targeted everyone except Strepnax, which didn’t go unnoticed by the others.
They barked to herd the worms together, their bloody teeth, blurred black spots on white bellies, and the flap of gray wings stooping on the platforms. We steeled for the attack. Against the pastel sky, the Narg projected the terror of their desperation.
I glimpsed other battles in the distance. Mining platforms burning, fragmented, falling in pieces, in a shower of worm segments and body parts. The Narg were winning in the incandescent night.
They knew they were trapped on Targus. They took retribution on the destroyers. It was the end game, and Franscomb was the first to be torn apart. The Narg smelled their blood on him. They didn’t even feed, they were in a killing rage.
One chose me leaving the group. It’s smile intended to intimidate, and it did. I whipped my grapple anticipating its attack pattern, the tri-prong hurling upward toward it. The dumb creature didn’t even divert, thinking it could shrug it off.
The grapple struck it in the mouth, and several teeth flew free, like missiles they darted toward me, leaving trails of yellow ichor. I stared too long and it struck. My right arm went numb, then useless, another claw buried itself in a rib, my chest burned with agony, while another swipe missed.
The Narg growled, arcing away, only to make another approach coming in horizontally. I dropped the grapple too heavy for my left arm, and waited for death. I saw it smile, now with a black gap, but undeterred, it came on. A mere whisker from the platform I could smell its fishy breath the moment before it’s jaws…
Strepnax came down on top of it! Like a pile of rope, she landed on its wings, and the two of them disappeared below the platform. I looked around, shaking. Adrenaline still coursing. The other Narg vanquished, only one of our crew remained, caroming her spindle off a boulder and settling back onto the platform.
Panting heavily, I returned to the controls, flipped on a docking camera and looked down at the regolith. Strepnax crushed the Narg beneath it, but she wasn’t moving. The dust settled around them. My heart sank. My anger at her vanished,why did she sacrifice herself for me?
I sent a series of colors at the remaining worm, and pointed down with my left thumb. She sent concern about the blood flowing off my right arm. I shrugged it off, having other priorities, and we descended.
Landing the mining platform, I applied an auto-tourniquet above the still embedded claw in my right arm. The worm, I forgot her name in the trauma, went over to check on Strepnax. She still hadn’t moved. I followed, wanting to know, but afraid to know.
Strepnax was dead.
So was the Narg beneath her. It had buried its jaw in her neck in its death throes. Its own neck at an unnatural angle. Many of Strepnax’s segments were broken and flattened. I dug into my humanity trying to find my grief for her. But I couldn’t, too much had happened recently.
Her friend rippled colors and looked at the rainbow sky, head arched in a way I never saw before. My translator failed. It was hard to watch. Glancing around the killing field, I saw parts of Franscomb and other unidentified worms, plus dead Narg, wings, broken bodies ripped and crushed. Beyond were Paradosh ships, some burning, others sparking, a few of their marsupial-like survivors climbing from the wreckage, but I had no fight left.
The numbness in my arm spread over my body, not physical but survivor’s guilt. My mind froze in the tableaux. Time expanded and slowed. I no longer cared about mining, no longer wanted isolation, and the company of worms. I needed the proximity of humans. Humans astronomical units away.
The loneliness swamped me, as I stood there the sun rose, turning the sky magical. Only to highlight the security fleet entering the atmosphere. White vapor lingering behind their rockets, their forward fields pushing layers of stone before their front impellers. One slowed to a hover above us.
Slowly it descended, weapons sprouting form their sides, turrets swiveling, ready for a ground or air assault, but it was over. The last worm inched over to me. Terralax, that was her name.
She nuzzled me like Strepnax used to... disgusted, I pushed her away. Still she sent me her sympathy in waves of colors across her head. The words no longer held any meaning for me. I needed to get off Targus. Find a bar and find a new life. As the rescue ship cut thrust, blowing dust, I saw my escape.
First a squad of Marines came out, sweeping the landscape with their rifles. A few of them sprayed beams, others firing shock waves, with wumps concussing from sonic weapons, downing the Paradosh survivors.  Then medics emerged, surging toward us from the assault ship. One of them focused on my arm and ribs. I genuinely smiled at her, the first human I’d seen in a while. The woman nodded and winked, and I collapsed in her arms.
It felt delicious drifting off, her injections making me forget Strepnax.

END

The Last Gulag

By Gerald Arthur Winter
 
            The Soaring Sixties had begun with a bright outlook for American youth.
The new president, John F. Kennedy, promised a hopeful future for the United
States. On the contrary, while JFK promised the moon, Soviet youth saw their
future as colorless, like an old black-and-white movie from the Thirties. Russian
leaders lined up like hogs at the trough every first of May, peering down at the
crowd of loyal comrades from the Kremlin’s balcony above a military parade to
demonstrate Soviet power.
At thirteen, I envied those in high positions, like Khrushchev and Malenkov,
because they had great power, enough to put my father in a gulag for twenty years
for printing flyers opposed to Stalin during World War Two. Papa wrote to me once
a month, but his script had been redacted to the point of sounding like drivel. I
imagined my letters of encouragement to Papa had been reduced to much the
same. The KGB could put my father into a gulag, but had no power to get him out.
That knowledge sparked an idea in my head that I concentrated on for the next
three years of my adolescence.
            At sixteen, I was chosen for a special youth program that opened new doors
for me with the chance to join an elite group of teenage boys and girls who were
trained in unique, long-term espionage tactics. Spying on America meant little to
me at the time, despite my daily indoctrination to worship the Communist State
of Mother Russia emboldened by her Soviet minions throughout Europe and her
Communist allies in China, North Korea,  Cuba, and Vietnam. My underlying goal
was merely to free my father from the last gulag, but without my dedication
to this elite comradery of spies, I saw no other hope to save him.
            Though I never mentioned my father to my KGB trainer, it was his business
to know every detail about his trainees’ lives from when we farted to when we
masturbated. Of course Ivan knew my father was in a work camp, a fancy name for
prison that suited the Soviet image of service to The State. So I used a tip from one
of my espionage lessons to bait Ivan into a personal conversation, a way to earn
his trust and put him off guard.  I let him catch me writing poetry. I was the spider.
Ivan was the fly.
             Ivan snatched the poem from my grasp and made me stand at attention
beside my bunk an example to the others.
            “Are you writing to your papa again, Otto?” Ivan asked. “That’s a pointless
effort on both your parts. You’ll never see him again.”
            “If that’s what serves The State, sir, I agree,” I said, perhaps too cocky for my
own good.
            “It’s not for you to agree or disagree. Only to obey!” Ivan snapped.
 Ivan had tried to come on to trainee, Olga, a blue-eyed blonde with pendulous
breasts. As the best skilled trainee in our class, she was having none of that. Ivan
needed to jerk off and move on before he had a heart attack from his lust for Olga. I
kept my feelings for Olga in abeyance.
My nonchalance about Olga had gotten me a quickie one night on a trainee
stakeout, but my greater lust was for my father’s freedom, even if life in Moscow
outside the gulag wasn’t really freedom, not in the American sense. I had to know
the enemy, which first was America and next was China, a difficult concept for
Western logic with their cowboy mentality. Americans assumed that China was
our ally because we were both vast Communist nations. America hadn’t realized
yet that China, by its population alone, would eventually take over the world, East
and West. All the Caucasian world could do was stall against the inevitable.  
            Our ultimate plan was to overpower America first, but then make
them our ally against China. That’s what we teenagers were being trained
for, to become moles in The United States and fully accepted as red-blooded
Americans by the Nineties, when we were middle-aged and trusted as upper-
middle-class capitalist. Our only hope against the Yellow Peril would be
to rule America from within without ever firing a shot. Only then could
Western culture survive against China with the key to success being Russia’s
cold determination and America’s wealth to finance our mutual destiny.
            The fluke of electing a movie actor for president in America created
a great opportunity. Many of my fellow cohorts, including Olga, had been
strategically placed in East Germany since 1961, where we watched the
great wall rise between East and West Germany. But by the Eighties, others
of our cohort were close enough to whisper subliminal ideas into President
Reagan’s ear—“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall.”
            That was our moment thirty years ago, when the Berlin Wall collapsed
and many of us flowed into The United States as East German refugees to become
implanted in American Society. Well trained, we Russians passed as Germans
filtered through the immigration system in America and were welcomed with
open arms.
By the end of the Millennium we were well-placed to do the bidding of  
our former KGB hero, Vlad, who’d cried crocodile tears over the Soviet Union’s
collapse as symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Putin would be the executor
of our final plan to control The United States at its highest level—the White House.
            What was believed to be the collapse of the Soviet Union, was merely a
feint—one step back, two steps forward. Thinking they were freeing Europe of
Soviet strongholds, the Americans let the worst of our worst infiltrate the entire
economic and political system, and made America our potential political
puppet. That’s how Security Prefect Beria had first explained Russia’s plan
to us as teenagers.
Now, thanks to Beria’s reforms, with my papa free to live out his old
age in peace, I had to fulfill my mission to prepare our target for what would
come after America elected their Black President for a second term in 2012.  
Obama was too Liberal, but still hawkish against Russia, especially with
Secretary of State Clinton as his strong arm against us. We’d have to make
them appear foolish to the American public. That would require a flag bearer,
our influential American target.
            We all laughed at a secret cell meeting in Louisville, Kentucky when we
watched President Putin asked on BBC, “Do you ever have a bad day?”
            In response, our hero, Vlad, asked the reporter, “Do I look like a woman?”
            He had used a more vulgar term equivalent to the American C-word for
Secretary Clinton, but his interpreter, stammered a moment before changing the
word to “woman.”
            We liked how Putin’s eyelids seemed to roll back like a crocodile’s before it
snaps. We’ve been so happy since Yeltsin died—couldn’t hold his vodka, such a
disgrace. But Putin, bare-chested and riding a stallion is what we stood for as our
plan neared fruition.
            My key talent was always subtlety, to get our target alone so we could speak
man-to-man, a Russian and an American the same age, with similar thirsts and billions
of dollars, he a real estate mogul, and me an oil and mineral oligarch. My mission was
to make the American see things our way, to make our plan his, not just personally,
but in a way that would make him feel like an American hero. Better than using force,
flattery can bring a conceited man more easily into the fold.
                                                                            * * *
            It was a cold November night, and I could see the venue with its domed roof
a quarter-kilometer ahead. The building’s sign usually said “Крокус-Сити-холл” on
the roof’s logo, but for this event it read: “Crocus City Hall” for the thousands of
international guests. The owner of the pageant was our codename Agent Orange.
His propaganda would poison American morale internally by tearing down the
fiber of their belief in American institutions and the Rule of Law, which were
road blocks in our journey to victory.
            My target didn’t drink, so I appealed to his greatest vice, lust for beautiful
women. It wasn’t enough just to have them, he needed to own them, so he could
control them. Another vice, one I didn’t share, was his love for fast food, so his
penthouse suite at the Five Star Radisson Blu Olympiyskiy Hotel was stacked with
Big Macs, buckets of KFC, and pizza.
He had a high class image, but with unsophisticated eating habits. It’s a
wonder his flashy ties never got stained, but if they had, he probably had them
shredded to destroy the evidence. I heard tell that he ate pizza with a knife and fork.
I felt that our highest risk was that he’d have a heart attack before he ever became
president. Lenin forbid he should choke on a French fry before ever taking office.
            When I entered his suite, he was alone with just his longtime bodyguard.  I
approached to shake his hand, but his bodyguard frisked me first. I envisioned him
with several bodyguards within the next few years, Secret Service, but of course
our own people to protect our asset, though none would guess. We’ve all been
here ingrained in American society for decades, the new Americans replacing
even the Italian Mafia with our own, as well as Congress year by year. We’re
like Trojans concealed within a gift horse, and with no one having the good
sense to look that horse in the mouth.
Our greatest enemies are Liberal Democrats because they propose a similar
message to the Communist ideology with a Socialist point of view that benefits the
mass population. Instead of the Left, we’d recruit Right-wing Christians, especially
in America’s soft underbelly in the South. Historically, “hate” has thrived there
against anyone unlike themselves. As Russians, we feel the same, but know how
to use these fools to attain our own ethnic symmetry. We’ll replace them all
eventually with our own people, “Nostrovia! Y’all!”  
            Though his grip was tight, his hand felt small in mine. His breath, though
Tic-tac tainted, concealed the stench of a deep cavity from which his foul breath
flowed like a reptile with sharp, infectious teeth after devouring some helpless
rodent.
            “I hope the accommodations suit you, sir, though I thought you might
have preferred Hotel Ukraina.” I said, testing his sensitivity.
            “Though our current administration seems to like all things Ukrainian, I
prefer Mother Russia for its long history and culture. I’m a city boy, so Moscow
suits me well. I picked this hotel for its high tower. You know how much I love
my towers.”
            “Perhaps we can arrange for one of your towers to bless the Moscow
skyline, sooner rather than later.”
            He grinned boyishly, perhaps something that appeals to many women
as much as his wealth. He was like a teenager told he could drive his dad’s
Maserati to the prom. I’d struck a well-tuned chord. We were on the same
wave-length, but to his credit, he knew it as well as I did. We’d soon begin
to make sweet music together, he for himself, me for Mother Russia for
releasing my father from the gulag years ago--quid pro quo.
            “A Moscow tower with my name on it . . . sounds great. It will look
great, too. What’s my side of the deal? What do I need to do for your side?”
            “Start implanting ideas in people’s heads,” I said, sipping my vodka.
“Many think you’re a Democrat, a woman’s right to choose, contributing to
 Bill Clinton’s campaign twice in the Nineties. You’ve made some positive
public statements about Hillary, too. That must change, but slowly, with
subtlety.”
            “I don’t do subtle very well.”
“Don’t just go along with extreme right-wing belief that Obama had
no right to run for president, that his presidency is illegitimate. Just be our
spokesman by demanding his birth certificate. He’s an elitist Black and
won’t humble himself by offering to show it to the public. Use that against
him. We can dance to that tune before the next election. Though he can’t
run again, we’ll make Americans believe you’ll be the legitimate American
presidential prototype to make America White again, and Obama will be
seen as just an aberration.”
            “More of an abomination. But me, as president? Hillary’s in line after
Obama. She’s got the pussy vote hands down.”
            “We’ll change that. We’ll expose things about her that will make her
unelectable.”
            “How?”
            “We have our ways.”
            “The Republicans will want another Bush . . . Jeb’s in line for that.”
            “Not a chance, not after you make mince-meat of him in debates.”
             “How will I do that?”
            “Be yourself—just like on your realty TV show. Just be “The Donald.”
            “That’s what my first wife called me, but now we’re divorced, so it’s
a tag I avoid with respect for my current wife and our son.”
            “Had you not divorced Ivana, you’d have been all in by now. She’s one
us. I trained with her myself during the 1968 Warsaw Pact to put down the
Czech rebellion. Now, your children by her are with us as well. They’re waiting
for you to lead them and all of America against the force that threatens your
country and ours—China.”
             He nodded with pursed lips.
            “I want you to meet someone now, who’ll confirm all I’ve promised.”
            “Sure, I’m all ears.”
            Flanked by two bodyguards, an older woman with a veiled hat entered.
My target showed his curiosity, but with displeasure because our prior communi-
cation had promised him a night of debauchery with a bevy of Russian high-end
prostitutes willing to comply with demands decent societies, even ours, would
not allow. The woman removed her hat and veil.
            “Jesus!” our target bellowed seeing it was Putin.
            Vlad spoke in slow, but well-practiced English. “It is folly for Russia and
American to be adversaries when we can both gain so much as allies.”
            Agent Orange nodded and exchanged a lingering handshake that was
more like an arm wrestling match that ended in a draw of mutual respect.
            “We must be friends, Donald. It’s the only way our people can survive in
our grandchildren’s lifetimes against the Yellow Peril. Even Czar Nicholas II had
the good sense to understand that threat from the Japanese when China was
still just a disarray of tribal provinces. But it was Communism that made the
Chinese strong like the Soviet Union. Back then, China just had the most people,
But soon, they could have the most money. If we join forces against China, we’ll
be hailed in the West forever by crushing this threat.”
             Agent Orange nodded with a grimace, then asked, “What’s in it for me?”
            “The American presidency of course,” Putin said with a grin, but not like
any former American leader, because you’ll have Russia’s full support.”
            “What exactly does that mean?”
            “We’ll make certain you’ll win in 2016.”
            “Against Hillary?”
            “She’s a thorn in my side, Donald. Better she’s disgraced with a loss to
you than assassinated. American politics has too many martyrs. That’s why we
worked with the politicians who agree with our point of view against China to
block Obama’s agenda rather than eliminate him, which would have been easy
—acute lung cancer undetected—a natural death for a smoker.”
            “I’ve dealt with the Mafia in my real estate business. Is this an offer I
can’t refuse?”
            “You can do whatever you wish, but it would be a shame to have your
beautiful daughter vanish to the benefit of the highest bidder in the dark realm
of Muslim brothels.”
            Agent Orange turned red and clenched his fists.
            “Don’t be upset,” Putin said with a glare. “I’m offering you the highest
power in the world. We’ll protect you and guide you through all of it for this
noble cause, the preservation of the White race against the Yellow.”
            “What about the Blacks?”
            “As said in my favorite American movie, The Godfather: They’re just animals.”
            “What about the women’s vote? Hillary will have them in her pocket.”
            “Hillary? Русский!”
             Agent Orange turned from Putin to me for interpretation. I said,“ She is
the bitchiest.”
            “But she has power and will get Obama’s endorsement.”
            “You’ll have something greater, my endorsement as your silent partner,
and all the power behind it. You could become as powerful in America as I am in
Russia, as Xi is in China. But together we’ll be more powerful than Xi. By 2020,
you’ll put an end to the two-term limit as president, and die in office at age one
hundred. You’ll rule the Western hemisphere and I Europe. Together, we’ll share
the East, two great Caucasian empires. By then, Africa will literally be our booty.”
            “And I thought I was a great deal maker. Where do I sign?”
            “We’ll shake hands, then there will be no trace beyond this meeting.” Putin
nodded to me. “Otto will be the only contact with your trusted people, so choose
your administration carefully. We can recommend some who are already with us,
but the choice, of course, is yours. You will be the power in America that saves our
race for future generations.”
            They shook hands. Putin replaced his veiled hat then left.
            Agent Orange turned to me and asked, “Was I just dreaming?”
                                                                           * * *  
            Like Clockwork, in this case, Clockwork Orange, all had come to pass as
promised, despite a variety of snags. Ultimate success would depend on the 2020
election, but the American institutions, despite their cracked foundations had kept
their structures erect through the turmoil. Our campaign of alternate truths had
been most effective, but weaknesses in Agent Orange had come to the fore. His
need for daily praise and loyalty, so lacking in his youth, stripped him of the tenacity
needed to succeed.
         Agent Orange was running off-script, behaving as Vlad described, “as a fool.”
         Putin instructed me to reinforce our position against Ukraine independence.
            “From his lips to my ears and my lips to yours,” I said to Agent Orange.
“Putin wants you to think of the Ukraine as Texas or California, rich states among
your fifty. How would you feel if Russia sent in troops to protect their sovereignty
against your federal government? Think of your response, verbally and militarily.
You’d attack with all your might to keep United States unity. Ukraine isn’t Poland,
Hungary, or Romania. It’s part of Mother Russia. We want it back. You must help
us get it back.”
            He agreed to work with us and recommitted to his obligation to us for
getting him elected. But when a new, unsuspected Independent candidate arose
from the 2020 chaos, I was given the signal to abort my long-term mission and
cover our trail in America. Forty years lost because of this idiot, Agent Orange.
            Believing he had our full support for re-election, Agent Orange imploded
with his self-importance undermining our goal more than the opposition itself.
He was supposed to meet privately with me in the men’s room at The Russian
Tea Room with just his, or I should say “our” Secret Service agents assigned to
him. Though I’d asked if we should use our usual subtle means of undetectable
elimination, Putin had said, “Nyet!”
            Instead, we’d let Agent Orange turn slowly in the wind from the gallows
of his conceit and would continue to work on the next generation, perhaps his
daughter would make a good president rather than an Arabian concubine.
 My life’s work done in my seventies, and as the sole source for this
pipeline between the Kremlin and the Oval Office, it was my duty to close
down my network and myself along with it. I had always know that truth.
            When Agent Orange straightened his tie and left the rest room at
The Russian Tea Room, I ran hot water in a sink until the steam from the
faucet clouded the mirror. With my index finger, I printed my name, which
I’d chosen myself sixty years ago at age thirteen when I’d entered the
program. It was a moniker that read the same from both perspectives,
from two opposite worlds, and both sides of a mirror where inner space
and outer space intersect as one, itself and its reflection always reading
the same.
As the poison took hold of me, life drained out of me, just like my
name. Each letter dripped down the mirror into obscurity until my only
identity, O T TO  V I H I H I V, was lost and forgotten forever . . .
 

Jedi Nevi
​

An allegorical tale
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


“Is it true that those of you who live by this code are the greatest lovers in the galaxy?”
she asked coyishly, but he found alarming, the flutter of her long eyelashes in counterpoint with
her impudence.
He responded in kind with, “Your façade of innocence in your seductive query has put
me in protective, meditative mode, sweet temptress.”
She giggled with the high-pitched chirps of a robin redbreast then touched his lips with
her index finger and asked, “Do you meditate on truth and justice or the ambiance of my pert
breasts and firm buttocks, both tingling in anticipation of your touch?”
“If you are to fulfill my greatest needs and satisfy my hunger, your eyes and lips are
merely my appetizer, your breasts will be the soft pillow of my slumber, and your firm gluteus
maximus will become the firmament upon which my soul, and the Force within it, stand erect.”
She blushed and fanned her cleavage, glistening with perspiration.
“Is it your light saber of which you speak, or the hot shaft you will guide with skill and
forbearance through my heart?” she said with a deep sigh which, on the last word, carried the
whispered waft of fresh strawberries to his flared nostrils.
Her mutely tempered, red lips, just as the sweet citric scent they carried, pursed to
join his. Her head turned at an angle, then she cupped the nape of his broad neck in one
hand, and clasped his huge, rough hand with her other.
“You arouse me, sweet falconet,” he confessed with a fidget that ruffled his ochre,
hooded robe, revealing his own ardent intentions.
“As I intended, assuming I’ve struck at the heart of the Jedi Knight called Nevi, known
less by his name than by his birthmark, a strawberry-hued tattoo, with which the Force has
granted him immunity against all temptations.”
“It was foretold that the Dark Side would send a winged harbinger of death to the
sacred 21 Maxims of the Jedi Code. This was revealed to me as a fledgling Jedi by the great
Jedi Knight, Yoda.”
“Pure myth,” she huffed. “Fear of impending danger that will keep you from your
fulfilled rapture.”
“Yoda told me when I was only four, ‘This winged creature possesses the only power
able to dismantle the Jedi Code from within. She will kill you with kindness and empathy by
using all the maxims we cherish to keep the galaxy’s peace, but she will manipulate our
cherished Code against us, against Truth.’”
“A foolish, deranged old swamp amphibian with the bug-eyed glare of a gutted
toad,” she said with dismissal as her soft hand with sharp talons plucked at his broad chest.
“Fair maiden, or predator, whichever you are,” he said. “You speak with a vengeful
tone. Against what, I’m unsure. But I know that vengeance leads to the Dark Side, a black
abyss which my strawberry birth stain has kept me from stumbling into.”
“You’ve sworn not to judge, but merely to mediate,” she reminded him of his Jedi
Oath. “I call upon you, Jedi Nevi, the strawberry-tainted one as foretold in the Galaxy
Archives, the man of destiny for all eternity, to mediate, now, between me and the Dark
Side. Let our mutual passion guide you to keep me safe from harm.”
“You’ve been sent to destroy me with passion, to convince me that it will be to my
personal eternal benefit to save you from the Dark Side by sacrificing myself in your stead.”
“Your Code tells you that mediation leads to balance, Jedi.”
“As intoxicatingly attractive as you are to me, you are no more than a figment of the
Dark Side’s imagination based on your AI research into my DNA, which reveals almost all
there is to know about me.”
“Almost all?” she challenged.
“My strawberry birthmark comes directly from the Force and does not contain my
DNA, but rather the infusive amalgamation of every dedicated Jedi Knight who ever lived.”
“Does my darling Nevi lie to protect himself from my charm? I think you are bluffing,
merely to stall for time enough to avoid the inevitable, your long-awaited plunge into the
bottomless pit of eternal darkness.”
He smiled at her persistence in assuring his demise.
“Delicious apparition, I am in harmony with the galaxy.,” he said with patience.
“I’m but a mere speck who apprehends his rightful place in the symbiosis nature of
existence. You have no awareness of your purpose, which has been programmed into
your conscience, and is spat in robotic, self-serving sound bites served to me like a
delicious dessert meant for a king.”
“Partake of it, Nevi. Take me, and you will be blessed by the nourishment that
gives you power to take anything you want, by unconquerable force if needed.”
“My strawberry stain wards off inherent temptations like you, who seek to create
conflict between Nature and my inner thoughts. Only your disturbing beauty draws me in,
tempting me to take an easier path. My desire for you drains my willpower.”
“Give in to it, Nevi. There’s no escape. Take me!”
He drew a dagger from its sheath and raised it in his clenched fist.
She shrieked in anticipation of its icy penetration through her heart.
Instead, Nevi thrust the dagger into his own bared shoulder and cut out the
strawberry birthmark. He held the ounce of flesh above his head with a grown of pain
as blood trickled down his shoulder and the forearm of his raised fist.
“What have you done Jedi?” she bellowed. “You’ve doomed us both! And for
what?”
He clutched her by her throat, making her gasp with her mouth wide open,
into which he thrust his bleeding ounce of severed flesh. He pinched her nose closing
her nostrils, forcing her to swallow his raw flesh.
She choaked and gasped for a moment until a glowing aura embraced her.
Then her black, predator’s wings flapped into brilliant white, and her golden-locked
head was hallowed by blinding light.
“Jedi Knight, you’ve saved me from the Dark Side at the cost of your own
Immunity to evil.”
“Those immunized from the Dark Side by the touch of the Force at birth,
are blessed to bestow that gift to anyone less fortunate. The Force expects a
Jedi Knight who has lost that protective guarantee to live by the Jedi Code merely
by habit, even if no longer protected from daily temptation.”
“Despite my former darkness, Nevi, the Force has awakened the dormant
goodness in me to stand by you against temptation to evil.”
“Since my introduction to the Force by Yoda, I spent the past three decades
unscathed by temptation. That old toad’s wisdom echoes in my head now, assuring
me that I will know the right path by habit and instinct as a Jedi, and the only
difference going forward, is that I must endure the pain of my own choices,” Nevi
said, clutching his self-inflicted shoulder wound.
She smiled with a flutter of her white wings and nodded with assurance
that it was time to take her, just as the Galactic prophets of the Force had always
known he would, but only beneath the protective shield of eternal Truth.


_____________




The Path of the Jedi Knight is more than just a system of techniques for controlling, sensing, and altering the Force. It is a deep spiritual ideology of existence, a deeply meaningful and moving panoramic journey and path of the soul and spirit to fully embrace the Light, in which the individual sees his true nature as a part of a larger whole, and claims his own rightful place in the symbiotic whole of the way of things. A Jedi seeks to live in harmony with the universe, focusing on the most serious and intent discipline and gained spherical awareness to reach his goal. There are inherent temptations that seem to create conflict between nature and the mind, which mistakenly urge the Jedi to fall onto easier paths. This the Jedi strives to avoid at all costs, no matter how dear or how tempting. A Jedi should focus his efforts on creating harmony between all beings. They detest violence of any sort; and reluctantly engage in resolving in combat as a last resort when other attempts at conflict resolution have failed.

The Prom King
By Chad C. Taylor


“Hey, Mom, is it time to go?”
“Almost Twenty-One, it’s a special day,” Connie said, packing a battery.
“Tell me the story again,” Twenty-One said.
The sun shined brightly into the home. With hope in her eyes, she began. “The prom king danced with the queen as the world changed around them. People from near and far watched as the stars danced around them. The air became full of life, and the prom king changed the world. The prom king was championed by the people and it was a special day that would be remembered forever.”
“Why was the prom king so special?” he said with his hands on his cheeks.
“Well, he could dance like no other. Do you remember our lessons?”
Twenty-One moved his arms with confidence and grace. “Yes.”
“Twenty-One, you’re truly one of a kind. I need you to grab your things. We have to go. The special day is upon us.”
“Will you join me mom on my journey to the prom?”
She put on her helmet. “I’ll watch your back, always.”
#########
They gathered their equipment and got into the rover—a large metallic dome like vehicle. The mountains around them are where the Sakuran people hid from intense heat of the sun.
“We’re here.”
“Yay, look at my outfit. My knee pads make sure I don’t hurt myself,” Twenty-One said with his legs beginning to grow longer, apart of the aging process the space colony manufactured before humans came to Sakura. He was now eighteen in human years and his voiced chanced to a more mature state as well.
“Remember don’t go towards the shade. The Sakurans are skeptical of humans.”
“But, aren’t I half Sakuran?” Twenty-One asked.
“You are, but they will ask many questions we don’t have time to answer,” she said waving away insects. “Look, we’re here.”
“See you when I get back,” he said waving goodbye in his grey containment suit.
“Let’s complete our mission and leave, son.” Connie added.
“I can see the structure of the great hall now.” He looked at the grandness of the tower. “Why is everyone sleeping?” he said looking at the lifeless bodies.
#########
There was a figure coming from the fog. It was a Sakuran holding a knife of some sort “Hey there, I’m Zo. Are you here to see the ancient one as well?” said the 5’8 purple skinned woman.
His eyes opened at his first encounter with a woman. “I’m Twenty-One, and I’m off to see the virtuous one as well.”
“How many years have you been practicing for this moment?” she inquired, putting her knife away and adjusting her helmet.
Twenty-One thought of his brief existence. “My mother has prepared me since I’ve been born. What style of dance do you do?”
“A north quadrant style look, “she said as her ears glowed and her hips moved side to side.
“Lovely, like an angel. Shall we?”
“The virtuous one is ready for us.”
They ran to the entrance then Twenty-One stopped. “What happened to them?”
“They couldn’t dance to the satisfaction of the virtuous one that decides the prom king.”
He thought of his own mortality for the first time in his life. “I never really thought of failure before, or death.”
“How many earth cycles have you been functional?”
“Seventeen Earth days.”
“You look like an adult. I’m 45 Sakuran years. That’s twenty-two Earth years. Your skin is a darker purple, it’s beautiful. Have you studied Earth and the history? We lost many records the people from Earth gave us in the great passage, when they first came to Sakura.”
“I know my mother tells me many stories and helps make a new record of events that happened on Earth. We have not much oxygen left.”
“Neither do we. We have lost many family members performing the great ritual to no avail.”
They both walked to the panels to command the engine. Twenty-One began to grow facial hair. He was now twenty-one in human years.
“Great virtuous one, we are here for the ancient tradition of the dance. What the people of Earth may call, the prom,” said Zo.
The virtuous one began to awaken, “This is effort forty three-thousand of the dance of the great code that will terraform Sakura. A great power that is only is given to one. You will proceed with the code, but be forewarned, if you’re unable to satisfy the engine you will cease to exist.”
Twenty-one danced with the grace of a cat. He twirled Zo and graced his hands against her arms with excitement. Zo kicked her legs in the sky with the sweat of her cheeks hitting the glowing panels on the ground, and turning into vapor. They held each other tight. “I have decided that the great tradition of the dance has been accurately completed. The power to change
the very environment shall be given to you, Twenty-One on this ten-millionth Sakuran cycle along with Zo, Sakuran.”
“We did it!” Twenty-One said before kissing her, something he had never done before.
########
The virtuous one began to send guardian machines to the sky to change the very atmosphere they could no longer breathe, since an asteroid hit the planet after the small colony from earth crash landed in this sector of the galaxy, centuries before. Twenty-One ran to his mother.
“Mom we won’t have to worry about these helmets and suits anymore.”
“I know son. We will not have to struggle like before. And what’s your name young lady?”
“My name is Zo. Come with me Twenty-One; let’s go tell my family in my quadrant. They will accept you.”
“One thing at a time my dear,” Connie said.
“What’s the matter?” Zo replied.
Connie grabbed her plasma gun. “We’re going to terraform this planet and help rebuild it with the clones and embryos from Earth. Twenty-One is made up of the best genes from Earth and your people. He will speak to your elders soon enough.”
“What are you doing? ” Zo asked, startled.
“I’m just saving reserve energy in my gun until the terraforming is done.”
“That’s a relief.” Twenty-One added, scratching the new hair on his face.
Connie wept as she realized her son would lose his first friend. “Son, you may want to say your goodbyes. Sakuran people don’t obtain their short term memory until they turn thirty.”
Zo looked Twenty-One in the eyes as her extra tear duct in her nose began to water. “It’s true Twenty-One. I won’t have my full memory until another fifteen Sakuran months, which is thirty months in Earth years. Make sure people know what happened this day,” Zo said, holding his hand. “Come look for me in thirty months my friend.”
Zo’s face went blank and she couldn’t recognize him. Twenty-One stood there disappointed.
“Let’s go son we have a world to change. Mommy knows what’s best for you. The prom king.”
END

The beginning of Charles Dickens novel

A TALE OF TWO CITIES:
​

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Life, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way-in short, the period was so far the like present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The beginning of the Bhagavad Gita: 

CHAPTER IDhritirashtra:
Ranged thus for battle on the sacred plain--
On Kurukshetra--say, Sanjaya! say
What wrought my people, and the Pandavas?
Sanjaya:
When he beheld the host of Pandavas,
Raja Duryodhana to Drona drew,
And spake these words: "Ah, Guru! see this line,
How vast it is of Pandu fighting-men,
Embattled by the son of Drupada,
Thy scholar in the war! Therein stand ranked
Chiefs like Arjuna, like to Bhima chiefs,
Benders of bows; Virata, Yuyudhan,
Drupada, eminent upon his car,
Dhrishtaket, Chekitan, Kasi's stout lord,
Purujit, Kuntibhoj, and Saivya,
With Yudhamanyu, and Uttamauj
Subhadra's child; and Drupadi's;-all famed!
All mounted on their shining chariots!
On our side, too,--thou best of Brahmans! see
Excellent chiefs, commanders of my line,
Whose names I joy to count: thyself the first,
Then Bhishma, Karna, Kripa fierce in fight,
Vikarna, Aswatthaman; next to these
Strong Saumadatti, with full many more
Valiant and tried, ready this day to die
For me their king, each with his weapon grasped,
Each skilful in the field. Weakest-meseems-
Our battle shows where Bhishma holds command,
And Bhima, fronting him, something too strong!
Have care our captains nigh to Bhishma's ranks
Prepare what help they may! Now, blow my shell!"

The Beginning of the Christian Bible
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.

The beginning of 1001 Nights: 

The Arabian Nights

The Story of the Porter and the Three Ladies
​
I heard, O happy king, that there once lived in the city of Baghdad a bachelor who worked as a porter. One day he was standing in the market, leaning on his basket, when a woman approached him. She wore a Mosul cloak, a silk veil, a fine kerchief embroidered with gold, and a pair of leggings tied with fluttering laces. When she lifted her veil, she revealed a pair of beautiful dark eyes graced with long lashes and a tender expression, like those celebrated by the poets.

The beginning of Homer's Odyssey: 

Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven far journeys, after he had sacked Troy’s secret citadel. Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of, many the pains he suffered on his spirit on the wide sea, struggling for his own life and the homecoming of his companions. Even so he could not save his companions, hard though he strove to; they were destroyed by their own wild recklessness, fools, who devoured the oxen of Helios, the Sun God, and he took away the day of their homecoming. From some point here, goddess, daughter of Zeus, speak, and begin our story.

THE FIR TREE

By Hans Christian Andersen

FAR down in the forest, where the warm sun and the fresh air made a sweet resting-place, grew a pretty little fir-tree; and yet it was not happy, it wished so much to be tall like its companions— the pines and firs which grew around it. The sun shone, and the soft air fluttered its leaves, and the little peasant children passed by, prattling merrily, but the fir-tree heeded them not. Sometimes the children would bring a large basket of raspberries or strawberries, wreathed on a straw, and seat themselves near the fir-tree, and say, “Is it not a pretty little tree?” which made it feel more unhappy than before. And yet all this while the tree grew a notch or joint taller every year; for by the number of joints in the stem of a fir-tree we can discover its age. Still, as it grew, it complained, “Oh! how I wish I were as tall as the other trees, then I would spread out my branches on every side, and my top would over-look the wide world. I should have the birds building their nests on my boughs, and when the wind blew, I should bow with stately dignity like my tall companions.” The tree was so discontented, that it took no pleasure in the warm sunshine, the birds, or the rosy clouds that floated over it morning and evening. Sometimes, in winter, when the snow lay white and glittering on the ground, a hare would come springing along, and jump right over the little tree; and then how mortified it would feel! Two winters passed, and when the third arrived, the tree had grown so tall that the hare was obliged to run round it. Yet it remained unsatisfied, and would exclaim, “Oh, if I could but keep on growing tall and old! There is nothing else worth caring for in the world!” In the autumn, as usual, the wood-cutters came and cut down several of the tallest trees, and the young fir-tree, which was now grown to its full height, shuddered as the noble trees fell to the earth with a crash. After the branches were lopped off, the trunks looked so slender and bare, that they could scarcely be recognized. Then they were placed upon wagons, and drawn by horses out of the forest. “Where were they going? What would become of them?” The young fir-tree wished very much to know; so in the spring, when the swallows and the storks came, it asked, “Do you know where those trees were taken? Did you meet them?”

The swallows knew nothing, but the stork, after a little reflection, nodded his head, and said, “Yes, I think I do. I met several new ships when I flew from Egypt, and they had fine masts that smelt like fir. I think these must have been the trees; I assure you they were stately, very stately.”

“Oh, how I wish I were tall enough to go on the sea,” said the fir-tree. “What is the sea, and what does it look like?”

“It would take too much time to explain,” said the stork, flying quickly away.

“Rejoice in thy youth,” said the sunbeam; “rejoice in thy fresh growth, and the young life that is in thee.”

And the wind kissed the tree, and the dew watered it with tears; but the fir-tree regarded them not.

Christmas-time drew near, and many young trees were cut down, some even smaller and younger than the fir-tree who enjoyed neither rest nor peace with longing to leave its forest home. These young trees, which were chosen for their beauty, kept their branches, and were also laid on wagons and drawn by horses out of the forest.

“Where are they going?” asked the fir-tree. “They are not taller than I am: indeed, one is much less; and why are the branches not cut off? Where are they going?”

“We know, we know,” sang the sparrows; “we have looked in at the windows of the houses in the town, and we know what is done with them. They are dressed up in the most splendid manner. We have seen them standing in the middle of a warm room, and adorned with all sorts of beautiful things,—honey cakes, gilded apples, playthings, and many hundreds of wax tapers.”

“And then,” asked the fir-tree, trembling through all its branches, “and then what happens?”

“We did not see any more,” said the sparrows; “but this was enough for us.”

“I wonder whether anything so brilliant will ever happen to me,” thought the fir-tree. “It would be much better than crossing the sea. I long for it almost with pain. Oh! when will Christmas be here? I am now as tall and well grown as those which were taken away last year. Oh! that I were now laid on the wagon, or standing in the warm room, with all that brightness and splendor around me! Something better and more beautiful is to come after, or the trees would not be so decked out. Yes, what follows will be grander and more splendid. What can it be? I am weary with longing. I scarcely know how I feel.”

“Rejoice with us,” said the air and the sunlight. “Enjoy thine own bright life in the fresh air.”

But the tree would not rejoice, though it grew taller every day; and, winter and summer, its dark-green foliage might be seen in the forest, while passers by would say, “What a beautiful tree!”

A short time before Christmas, the discontented fir-tree was the first to fall. As the axe cut through the stem, and divided the pith, the tree fell with a groan to the earth, conscious of pain and faintness, and forgetting all its anticipations of happiness, in sorrow at leaving its home in the forest. It knew that it should never again see its dear old companions, the trees, nor the little bushes and many-colored flowers that had grown by its side; perhaps not even the birds. Neither was the journey at all pleasant. The tree first recovered itself while being unpacked in the courtyard of a house, with several other trees; and it heard a man say, “We only want one, and this is the prettiest.”

Then came two servants in grand livery, and carried the fir-tree into a large and beautiful apartment. On the walls hung pictures, and near the great stove stood great china vases, with lions on the lids. There were rocking chairs, silken sofas, large tables, covered with pictures, books, and playthings, worth a great deal of money,—at least, the children said so. Then the fir-tree was placed in a large tub, full of sand; but green baize hung all around it, so that no one could see it was a tub, and it stood on a very handsome carpet. How the fir-tree trembled! “What was going to happen to him now?” Some young ladies came, and the servants helped them to adorn the tree. On one branch they hung little bags cut out of colored paper, and each bag was filled with sweetmeats; from other branches hung gilded apples and walnuts, as if they had grown there; and above, and all round, were hundreds of red, blue, and white tapers, which were fastened on the branches. Dolls, exactly like real babies, were placed under the green leaves,—the tree had never seen such things before,—and at the very top was fastened a glittering star, made of tinsel. Oh, it was very beautiful!

“This evening,” they all exclaimed, “how bright it will be!” “Oh, that the evening were come,” thought the tree, “and the tapers lighted! then I shall know what else is going to happen. Will the trees of the forest come to see me? I wonder if the sparrows will peep in at the windows as they fly? shall I grow faster here, and keep on all these ornaments summer and winter?” But guessing was of very little use; it made his bark ache, and this pain is as bad for a slender fir-tree, as headache is for us. At last the tapers were lighted, and then what a glistening blaze of light the tree presented! It trembled so with joy in all its branches, that one of the candles fell among the green leaves and burnt some of them. “Help! help!” exclaimed the young ladies, but there was no danger, for they quickly extinguished the fire. After this, the tree tried not to tremble at all, though the fire frightened him; he was so anxious not to hurt any of the beautiful ornaments, even while their brilliancy dazzled him. And now the folding doors were thrown open, and a troop of children rushed in as if they intended to upset the tree; they were followed more silently by their elders. For a moment the little ones stood silent with astonishment, and then they shouted for joy, till the room rang, and they danced merrily round the tree, while one present after another was taken from it.

“What are they doing? What will happen next?” thought the fir. At last the candles burnt down to the branches and were put out. Then the children received permission to plunder the tree.

Oh, how they rushed upon it, till the branches cracked, and had it not been fastened with the glistening star to the ceiling, it must have been thrown down. The children then danced about with their pretty toys, and no one noticed the tree, except the children’s maid who came and peeped among the branches to see if an apple or a fig had been forgotten.

“A story, a story,” cried the children, pulling a little fat man towards the tree.

“Now we shall be in the green shade,” said the man, as he seated himself under it, “and the tree will have the pleasure of hearing also, but I shall only relate one story; what shall it be? Ivede-Avede, or Humpty Dumpty, who fell down stairs, but soon got up again, and at last married a princess.”

“Ivede-Avede,” cried some. “Humpty Dumpty,” cried others, and there was a fine shouting and crying out. But the fir-tree remained quite still, and thought to himself, “Shall I have anything to do with all this?” but he had already amused them as much as they wished. Then the old man told them the story of Humpty Dumpty, how he fell down stairs, and was raised up again, and married a princess. And the children clapped their hands and cried, “Tell another, tell another,” for they wanted to hear the story of “Ivede-Avede;” but they only had “Humpty Dumpty.” After this the fir-tree became quite silent and thoughtful; never had the birds in the forest told such tales as “Humpty Dumpty,” who fell down stairs, and yet married a princess.

“Ah! yes, so it happens in the world,” thought the fir-tree; he believed it all, because it was related by such a nice man. “Ah! well,” he thought, “who knows? perhaps I may fall down too, and marry a princess;” and he looked forward joyfully to the next evening, expecting to be again decked out with lights and playthings, gold and fruit. “To-morrow I will not tremble,” thought he; “I will enjoy all my splendor, and I shall hear the story of Humpty Dumpty again, and perhaps Ivede-Avede.” And the tree remained quiet and thoughtful all night. In the morning the servants and the housemaid came in. “Now,” thought the fir, “all my splendor is going to begin again.” But they dragged him out of the room and up stairs to the garret, and threw him on the floor, in a dark corner, where no daylight shone, and there they left him. “What does this mean?” thought the tree, “what am I to do here? I can hear nothing in a place like this,” and he had time enough to think, for days and nights passed and no one came near him, and when at last somebody did come, it was only to put away large boxes in a corner. So the tree was completely hidden from sight as if it had never existed. “It is winter now,” thought the tree, “the ground is hard and covered with snow, so that people cannot plant me. I shall be sheltered here, I dare say, until spring comes. How thoughtful and kind everybody is to me! Still I wish this place were not so dark, as well as lonely, with not even a little hare to look at. How pleasant it was out in the forest while the snow lay on the ground, when the hare would run by, yes, and jump over me too, although I did not like it then. Oh! it is terrible lonely here.”

“Squeak, squeak,” said a little mouse, creeping cautiously towards the tree; then came another; and they both sniffed at the fir-tree and crept between the branches.

“Oh, it is very cold,” said the little mouse, “or else we should be so comfortable here, shouldn’t we, you old fir-tree?”

“I am not old,” said the fir-tree, “there are many who are older than I am.”

“Where do you come from? and what do you know?” asked the mice, who were full of curiosity. “Have you seen the most beautiful places in the world, and can you tell us all about them? and have you been in the storeroom, where cheeses lie on the shelf, and hams hang from the ceiling? One can run about on tallow candles there, and go in thin and come out fat.”

“I know nothing of that place,” said the fir-tree, “but I know the wood where the sun shines and the birds sing.” And then the tree told the little mice all about its youth. They had never heard such an account in their lives; and after they had listened to it attentively, they said, “What a number of things you have seen? you must have been very happy.”

“Happy!” exclaimed the fir-tree, and then as he reflected upon what he had been telling them, he said, “Ah, yes! after all those were happy days.” But when he went on and related all about Christmas-eve, and how he had been dressed up with cakes and lights, the mice said, “How happy you must have been, you old fir-tree.”

“I am not old at all,” replied the tree, “I only came from the forest this winter, I am now checked in my growth.”

“What splendid stories you can relate,” said the little mice. And the next night four other mice came with them to hear what the tree had to tell. The more he talked the more he remembered, and then he thought to himself, “Those were happy days, but they may come again. Humpty Dumpty fell down stairs, and yet he married the princess; perhaps I may marry a princess too.” And the fir-tree thought of the pretty little birch-tree that grew in the forest, which was to him a real beautiful princess.

“Who is Humpty Dumpty?” asked the little mice. And then the tree related the whole story; he could remember every single word, and the little mice were so delighted with it, that they were ready to jump to the top of the tree. The next night a great many more mice made their appearance, and on Sunday two rats came with them; but they said, it was not a pretty story at all, and the little mice were very sorry, for it made them also think less of it.

“Do you know only one story?” asked the rats.

“Only one,” replied the fir-tree; “I heard it on the happiest evening of my life; but I did not know I was so happy at the time.”

“We think it is a very miserable story,” said the rats. “Don’t you know any story about bacon, or tallow in the storeroom?”

“No,” replied the tree.

“Many thanks to you then,” replied the rats, and they marched off.

The little mice also kept away after this, and the tree sighed, and said, “It was very pleasant when the merry little mice sat round me and listened while I talked. Now that is all passed too. However, I shall consider myself happy when some one comes to take me out of this place.” But would this ever happen? Yes; one morning people came to clear out the garret, the boxes were packed away, and the tree was pulled out of the corner, and thrown roughly on the garret floor; then the servant dragged it out upon the staircase where the daylight shone. “Now life is beginning again,” said the tree, rejoicing in the sunshine and fresh air. Then it was carried down stairs and taken into the courtyard so quickly, that it forgot to think of itself, and could only look about, there was so much to be seen. The court was close to a garden, where everything looked blooming. Fresh and fragrant roses hung over the little palings. The linden-trees were in blossom; while the swallows flew here and there, crying, “Twit, twit, twit, my mate is coming,”—but it was not the fir-tree they meant. “Now I shall live,” cried the tree, joyfully spreading out its branches; but alas! they were all withered and yellow, and it lay in a corner amongst weeds and nettles. The star of gold paper still stuck in the top of the tree and glittered in the sunshine. In the same courtyard two of the merry children were playing who had danced round the tree at Christmas, and had been so happy. The youngest saw the gilded star, and ran and pulled it off the tree. “Look what is sticking to the ugly old fir-tree,” said the child, treading on the branches till they crackled under his boots. And the tree saw all the fresh bright flowers in the garden, and then looked at itself, and wished it had remained in the dark corner of the garret. It thought of its fresh youth in the forest, of the merry Christmas evening, and of the little mice who had listened to the story of “Humpty Dumpty.” “Past! past!” said the old tree; “Oh, had I but enjoyed myself while I could have done so! but now it is too late.” Then a lad came and chopped the tree into small pieces, till a large bundle lay in a heap on the ground. The pieces were placed in a fire under the copper, and they quickly blazed up brightly, while the tree sighed so deeply that each sigh was like a pistol-shot. Then the children, who were at play, came and seated themselves in front of the fire, and looked at it and cried, “Pop, pop.” But at each “pop,” which was a deep sigh, the tree was thinking of a summer day in the forest; and of Christmas evening, and of “Humpty Dumpty,” the only story it had ever heard or knew how to relate, till at last it was consumed. The boys still played in the garden, and the youngest wore the golden star on his breast, with which the tree had been adorned during the happiest evening of its existence. Now all was past; the tree’s life was past, and the story also,—for all stories must come to an end at last.

Hudson River Blues
 
A Short Story by Charles E.J. Moulton
 
 
 
 
What the hell do you do when you meet the right person at the wrong moment?
Henry had felt so damn bad after that quarrel with that college professor, Henry scooted to one of the practice-rooms and sat there until three in the morning, playing a melancholy song filled with longing. Longing. Yes, damn it, it had been longing, hadn’t it? Longing for something new, a change.
Olivia had been out and about, partying until two and was on her way to the dorm at her campus. And then she stood there, standing there in the doorway of the rehearsal room, smiling, asking him what he was playing.
Written in the key of E-minor, a few pentatonic scales thrown in here and there, a blue note thrown in for good measure, suspended and augmented chords, sixth notes, jazzy majors with seventh intervals.
Olivia listened as he played, asked him where he’d been all these years.
On a campus with so many students, they had spent three years in the same college without even meeting. Then, that moment of short love, a moment of short sex on the surface for the outside viewer, a moment of deep love on the inside – his life turned upside down.
And they kissed.
Olivia quenched his thirst, the illusive music becoming an illusive act, an angel bending over the piano. Soon, Henry and Olivia ended up in bed, at it like a couple of lovehungry rabbits. He had never laughed so much with anyone during unprotected sex as with that mysterious woman.
Olivia had made all her plans to leave, that was the sad part.
If he’d only held on to her, maybe he would not be sitting in this stupid wanna-be-bar in Greenwich Village, crying.
Hell, it hadn’t even been an affair.
It had been a very intense night.
How fleeting could it be when meeting your own destiny?
He remembered all the musical moves of that song, because when he finished playing it, this chick was still there in his mind.
Another Monday quarrel had crashed another relationship. He didn’t even know what he had done to mess that one up. Was it leaving the wrong washcloth in the sink or was it simply getting drunk at her latest birthday party? Or maybe talking to another try-out-chick about Olivia? He just couldn’t help it. That woman had become so perfect in his mind. No one could reach her joie de vivre, her grace, her charm, her sexuality.
And so, yet again, Henry was alone. So very alone.
Whatever it had been, Henry was back playing piano at Rit’s Bar. Funny, not even the bar at the Ritz. No, Rit’s Bar.
How fucking cheap was that?
Okay, the waiters dressed all fancy and stuff. But playing piano for six hours on for divorced fifty-somethings? That seemed like a drag for someone with a college-degree. But hot darn, Henry rolled with the punches, man. Some college graduates in Manhattan ended up homeless, so Henry guessed that made him a lucky buggar. He just kept playing versions of “Olivia’s Tune” until the girls in the corner joined the rich old farts slurping their sixth whiskeys, before finally strolling down by the Hudson River into an alleyway past the Queensborough Bridge.
 
Zed with his smooth looking hairdo still useless, the chick on the other side of the room still fingering her ring, hoping that some dude would arrive take her home and make passionate love to her. Henry plunked the keys and hoped that the piano would answer his questions. But it played the same tune over and over again ... and Henry looked out the large window onto the dainty waves of the Hudson, wondering where his dead body would end up. By the statue of liberty or perhaps even further, downstream toward Hoboken?
Manhattan still gave Henry that eerie feeling of modern nostalgia, like the weird memories of lost loves. Here he was, a guy in his thirties, between gigs, another finished contract behind him, between girlfriends, even the latest one too confusing to be the real thing.
 
Lonely.
No one in here left but him and the flies shitting on the crackers.
 
“See ya tomorrow, Zed,” Henry called out, trying to catch the guy while he arranged the crumb-jammed chairs and cleaned the wine-bedripped tables.
 
Zed looked up, shrugged, waited and then lit up inside by that proverbial light-bulb.
“Oh, yeah,” he smiled. “Tomorrow ... Henry, right?”
 
Henry grinned, not very convincingly, wondering how anyone could be so blasé. It took someone absolutely neutral to the world to forget a colleague’s name that had been working there for ... how long had it been? Three months? Shit. Either that, or Henry was just a boring old schmuck. Maybe it was depression. Maybe depression made Henry dull.
So much for part-time bartenders.
 
Henry slammed the grand piano shut, waltzed into the back room and fetched himself a Bud. When he lit up his Marlboro outside, the Hudson River looked like a silvery abyss, welcoming and dark, an answer to a painful question. Looking toward his home in Greenwich Village, opposite Hoboken, far, far away from the dream of writing songs Frank Sinatra would’ve loved to sing. In dull quarters of tedious dererioration, Henry wondered if life was better in the abyss.
“You believe in the after-life, kiddo?” an evil gremlin cackled inside his head. “The water is deep enough for ya to tryyyyyyy ...”
Henry shook his head in fear over what had just popped into his head, trying to remind himself of the good stuff. The pizza the other day, the hooker last Tuesday ...
Henry looked down into the water again, his eyes lifting towards heaven ... or what used to be heaven to the mob. As those smoke rings fluttered up toward the moon, Henry Jiggins wondered how Frank Sinatra had felt growing in up in Hoboken, hoping to become famous. Should Henry try sending his stuff to that big band over there? The Old Blue Eyes?
Revival shows?
Holy shit, here comes suckin’ up to the Catskills ...
 
“Come on, boy,” Henry spat to himself. “You’re no Harry James.”
With a name like Henry Jiggins, you would think you would get a job as a composer. All that Henry got was some silly remarks about not being quite the language professor that Henry Higgins had been in “My Fair Lady” and that he should take a shot at checking if the rain in Spain stayed mainly in the plain. How gave a shit? Henry did, but he got by, teaching twelve-year-olds little pieces by Czerny, playing “Olivia’s Tune” in Rit’s Bar and working part time as a waiter, not a musician, Off-Broadway. The Catskills seemed too damn close and Broadway too far away, the life of a day-to-day, gig-to-gig-musician too ... restless? No chick there to hold his hand, not even a guy. The hooker last Tuesday? Forget her! Okay. Henry had never tried the other side. He had never wanted to.
The Marlboro still fumed, his beer still tasted like shit and the memory of the girl he had made love to years ago haunted him, just like the pain in his heart stung his soul. Hell, no more frigging slamming doors anymore. No more frigging angry women. No more two-bit-sleazy-bars with bartenders that didn’t even remember his name after three months.
 
Henry walked toward the pier, watching and loving the Hudson River, hoping to hear someone from Monroe Street yell “No! Don’t jump in!”, when clouds darkened the moon. Henry looked up, seeing how the sky turned into a dramatic conglomerate of raindrops. First one, them two, then a million. One of those raindrops extinguished his cigarette, leaving Henry with nothing but a broken heart and the memories of a sad boner in his drawers and somebody else’s bud dropping toward the sad ground.
 
When the lightning struck and the Manhattan sky exploded into a time-bomb-like Tesla-canvas, Henry ran, at first to Rit’s Bar, grabbing the door-handle in the hope of finding it open. It had just been closed, probably a second before.
He saw Zed – whose nephew was he? – walking out toward his own car, not like the dumb duds like himself who tickled the ivories. Nepotistic whores like Zed had keys to the place. Guys who only remembered the names of important people. Customers, bosses, executives, hot chicks with nice asses, not some bad pianist with broken dreams.
 
Henry knocked on the door of the place, hoping to have missed some angry divorced guy in the office still surfing the web, Henry almost breaking his fingers and the glass door in the process. He turned to Zed, moaned for help, turned back to the door. Not even a fucking fly bumped against the window with left-over crumbs on his wings.
Henry found himself remembering his old voice-teacher telling him he should look at how real singers work with their technique. Real singers. Frigging tenor of a teacher always reminded him he just was a second-rate musician and a two-bit composer.
 
Regardless, Henry stood there, the rain now turning far-off Greenwich Village into God’s revenge-floods sent down to punish humanity for its sins. Henry ran back and forth a few times, trying to figure out what other nooks and crannies this sordid sleazy dive had. Somewhere to remain relatively dry.
 
 “Why did I have to work in the only piano-bar by the docks?”
One sneer. Maybe a bum. Or worse, a killer bum that wanted his money.
“Zed?”
 
One face appeared by the back door, lit up by a flash from the sky.
The lightning bolt lit up the sky and revealed a man with a brown paper bag and torn clothes. Henry searched his pockets for anything, a knife, a lighter, his keys, anything.
Too much of a coward to die like a man.
 
The slamming of a car door woke Henry up and had him scooting toward the parking lot, only to see a red Chevy. That red vest and the white shirt.
“Zed ...”
 
Henry found himself shouting after the car, his shoes drenched in rain, his two steps making little swooshing noises.
“Hey, Zed,” Henry shouted, rain pouring into his gums, “can you gimme a lift?”
Another bolt of lightning, another flash of that face.
Now that face had a body, bad teeth.
 
“He gone, rich boy” the face sneered, crawling in behind a metallic container labelled Rit’s. There was a roof there, a rat, a few old newspapers, a brick wall and shadows on the wall from an emergency light. The homeless bum crawling out of the corner, making Henry actually feel guilty for being well-off.
As raindrops turned into starlight, Henry loafed onward, hoping to find booze.
And Henry waffled into oblivion.
Having arrived at Washington Square Park, his clothes soaked and his temper down the tubes, he thought about the bum. Henry looked out toward the darkness, picturing that old bum lighting up a smoke. It was strange, though. Rit’s Bar seemed a rather cool place to be close to. Why was that? Because of its grand piano that invited him in for a glass of lemon soda and a bad memory? The back alley bum had never gone back to the subway, the hookers had never left the docks, the cigarette butts had never been cleaned away, and Henry was trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
Even the bum was luckier.
 
As Henry stepped onto the stairway of his house, the marble tiles overflowing with rainwater, he remembered Olivia, for no reason at all than that he was lonely. The boner was back, the urge to pluck out those magazines from the sock drawer returned and soon every single stair overflowed with rainwater.
 
Henry, the loner with the useless college degree stripped naked, leaving his wet clothes hanging on hangers in his dirty bathroom. He flipped on his PC, clicking himelf into some YouTube chillout song that had received twenty million likes, written by someone no one had heard of, receiving attention merely for its chillout-factor, making Henry wonder if he couldn’t write something like that. But that wouldn’t get him cash, right? A guy could have the world praying at his feet and not earn a single buck or even get any fame at all for it. It reminded Henry of all of those Broadway actors, who gave the musicals they were in their fame, but who never became famous themselves, not if their names weren’t Madonna or
 
Antonio Banderas, God bless their souls.
 
The 2017 Rioja tasted like a cheap date, the flipping of channels felt like a boring lecture, the popular and unknown chillout song that had received twenty million likes on YouTube just increased the tension. The end of another bad relationship had triggered the need in him to feel love. Real love. It made Henry wonder why he never had told that special lady long ago she was his soulmate. Broadway? Was she still there?
The guilt devoured his soul, criss-crossing it, grabbing ahold of his heart.
 
Laying awake, the sweatdrops on his brow feeling like small ants biting his pores, Henry closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, convincing himself that everything had happened for a reason.
 
He fell asleep around two o’clock that night, residue drops of Rioja dripping onto the couch. Henry dreamt of the bum at the back of the Rit’s and a woman that laughed while he had sex with her. And when morning arrived, Henry’s eyelashes barely inserted light onto his optical nerves. He winced, his eyes blinking again and again. The all too bright sunrise broke through the see-through curtain in front of the balcony and tickled his face. A fleeting dream soared into the heavens, flying off like birds toward Africa.
 
The noise outside in the chilly reality of Manhattan made awoke Henry to a feeling that he was like a dog chasing his own tail. Life had passed in its ordinary routine and no day had actually differed from the other. In his mind, the noise from the city streets drilled holes into his heart. The beginning of another day walking in proverbial circles.
Citizens criss-crossing the pedestrian zone like insane ants and Henry alone again. A restlessness plagued his own heart, as abandoned as the bum behind Rit’s Bar. Henry had never believed in miracles.
As he stepped out onto the balcony, leaving the stains on the couch to themselves, Henry started shivering, almost wetting himself as he looked down the many feet down to the ground, picturing the article in the New York Times tomorrow and the chit-chat of the Puerto-Rican neighbors. “Such a shame. Amargado, constantly depressed, you know whatta mean, porche no? Pianist by the river, constantly drunk and unhappy. Such a shame. Anda pa’l sirete. Atorrante. Ah, pues bien !”
Henry stepped over with one leg, his life flashing before his inner eye, picturing what his sister would say, if she would hold a long speech or just sob like she had done at their mother’s funeral. He stepped onto the  railing,  gently,  sitting on  it  for a bit, waiting to jump, just breathing a few times before leaping. His hands were shaking, his heart on overdrive, the hangover above his kisser not finally killing  him, but the ground below him sending him home.  Home? Where was home? Did it matter?
“The booze will kill you, Son.”
No, Mom, he thought to himself, not the booze, but I will be seeing you again sooner than I thought. During  what his last  moments,  he  was  actually  joking  about  his  own upcoming death. The antlike people of New York City didn’t even care if he was going to jump. “Oh, God,” he sobbed, not noticing the sensual voice emanating from the television set, a voice with a charming and sensual quality too soon robbed from his life, a voice that had whispered sweet nothings into his ear during unprotected sex in a college dorm.
What Henry feared most was the way down, but as he leaned forward to jump it seemed almost a relief. No more competition, no more abuse, no more ...
 Olivia Peterson appeared as the guest of honor in the NBC morning show that day, her face flickering across a TV-screen that had been pumping out light since a lonely bar-pianist had arrived in from the rain sometime during the naked night.
 
Henry didn’t know that the woman that he had tried to forget for ten years now sat in a couch just miles away, talking to a happy host about her new pop-album.
 
The memory was ever so subtle. His own boner lingering inside Olivia’s body, thrusting in and out of her vagina, her breasts wobbling, her tender skin feeling like silk, her hair with the texture of soft satin. Then, the laughter. A sound sweet as apricot, soft as tender rose petals, as bouncey as a tennis ball, as sexy as an inviting wink on a warm summer night. The voice from the morning show reached his ears moments before he was about to step off the balcony. Henry looked toward his living room, his eyes opening wide, a memory of a woman handing him a note of a first name and a phone number.
 
“I’ll give you my last name when you call me, baby,” she had told him at the airport,
 
“and then we can have some hot sex again, okay?”
 
There had been no second time, because Henry had lost the note in a stressful moment between classes. The college cleaning lady in had thrown the damn note away. How loud and obnoxious had he been to that woman.
 
Henry laughed, stepping off the ledge, trying to flip his leg over the railing, but slipping in the process, hitting his chin on the metal, screaming, afraid he would be falling to his doom, holding on with one hand, seeing the deep plunge under his feet, thinking he would die, anyway. With one dumb hand, Henry held on, loosing grip, looking down toward the ground, fearing to become the ultimate loser.
“Actually, broki, y’know, dis guy didn’t wanna kill himself, but he slipped and fell to his death anyway. Que bruto! Whatta losah!”
Henry ended dragging himself up onto his own balcony, screaming and weeping like a baby. That was when he heard that laughter again. Olivia’s laughter.
 
Henry smiled again, crawling on his hands and knees to the TV-screen.
For a full hour, he sat there, the sunlight in his hair, laughing to himself, repeating her full name again and again. Hard to say how many mails to how many of her websites he sent that morning. He facebooked Olivia Peterson, twittered her, instagrammed her, LinkedIn her, sent her emails to all of her websites and even tried to convince NBC to tell him if was still in the studio.
The woman at the call centre was friendly enough, but told him that show star guests were respected enough for the company to ensure their privacy.
 
However, the woman added, he could leave his number and his address and she was sure that, if Miss Peterson really was that old acquiantance from his college days, she would certainly call him soon enough.
 
Henry spent the day cleaning up, occasionally waffling to the PC to check his mails, making some stupid phone calls just to pass the time, calling an agent or a employer just to pretend that he was successful. The professional gear he slipped into that evening seemed like a joke. He ended up looking a bad version of James Bond, a hairdo so sleazy it would make Engelbert Humperdinck look like Mother Theresa.
 
One last look in the mirror gave Henry the assurance that it had all been a dream. Olivia had never ever been on NBC, Henry had never ever given that call-center lady his phone number. What was worse, he would never ever get a response from the woman he remembered not only as the best fuck of his life, but a woman he would’ve loved to keep shagging for the rest of his life.
 
Funny, how things turn out.
 
That’s what Henry kept telling himself afterwards.
His home phone rang just as he closed the door, getting ready to leave this planet. Again. Now by throwing himself into the Hudson River as he wanted to in the first place. Maybe then his dead body would wash up to Hoboken and end up close to Sinatra’s birthplace. At least then he could touch stardom, if not in life, then in death.
The old man across the hallway even opened the door, wondering why that strange musician was standing ther, clutching his own doorhandle like one of those shy wankers.
 
Henry opened his apartment door again, getting ready to be late for his own appointment with death again, left the door open, lifting the receiver, ready for demise, having given up on love.
This time, the angels were patient with a sad musician hoping to die but lacking the guts to make the leap.
“Hello?”
There was a painful silence, long and wondrously strange.
 
“Hi,” the voice crooned. “This is Olivia Peterson. Who am I speaking to?”
A real feeling of warmth flooded over Henry, the connection with his old self back with happiness. “Henry Jiggins,” he answered.
There was a faint laugh.
“Ol- ... Olivia?”
“Gosh, it’s really you, isn’t it? Henry?”
That was when it hit him. It hadn’t been a damn dream. It had been the truth. They had been soulmates after all. “Yeah. Me. Just silly old me.”
 
“Henry, why did you never call me?”
The short pause, a snort, no more, made Henry realize he had hurt her.
 
Henry shook his head, looked out the balcony door toward the railing he had almost left in order to find out how hard the pavement felt when crashing down upon it. “I ... I lost your number.” He laughed. “Then , I figured you wouldn’t want me.”
 
God, he hoped he wouldn’t lose her again.
Olivia laughed.
“What do you mean? The sex we had was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
 
He smiled, remembering how heartily they had laughed. “It was good, wasn’t it?”
“You could have asked the office back at the college for my number, Henry.”
 
Henry shook his head, feeling how defensive he was getting. “I did, but no one seemed to have your number. I mean,” he added, “I only knew your name was Olivia.”
 
Olivia sniggered.
“You men are all the same. Why do women have to take all the initiative?”
 
Henry felt that stone of remorse being dropped into his soul.
 
“Man, Henry,” Olivia added after a long pause. “I’ve had so many broken relationships since I lost contact with you, but it seems I just kept thinking of you. I couldn’t even explain why. It just ... it ...”
 
One single second seemed like the passing of eternity and Henry found himself searching for words, wanting to say something, but not really knowing what to say at all.
The crazy laughter Henry had only heard himself bellow during his wildest days returned up from his soul’s deepest hope in triumph. Now, that laughter came reverberating back toward him from the other end of the line.
The return of a soulmate is a wonderful thing.
“You want to have sex with me again?” Henry dared.
Olivia’s laughter, the sound of sunshine, bounced into his ear like a rabbit jumping into a sunlit meadow. It sounded like what would’ve been the taste of strawberries, had they been able to sing. The worst thing that can happen to you is you yourself not looking for that chance to find a way back to your own heart.
“Just gimme your address, babe,” Olivia giggled. “Wouldn’t miss it for a thing.”
If the door is closed, find that open window.
And Henry cheered.

Roses and Forget-Me-Nots

By Louisa May Alcott


I-ROSES

It was a cold November storm, and everything looked forlorn. Even the pert sparrows were draggle-tailed and too much out of spirits to fight for crumbs with the fat pigeons who tripped through the mud with their little red boots as if in haste to get back to their cozy home in the dove-cot.

But the most forlorn creature out that day was a small errand girl, with a bonnet-box on each arm, and both hands struggling to hold a big broken umbrella. A pair of worn-out boots let in the wet upon her tired feet; a thin cotton dress and an old shawl poorly protected her from the storm; and a faded hood covered her head.

The face that looked out from this hood was too pale and anxious for one so young; and when a sudden gust turned the old umbrella inside out with a crash, despair fell upon poor Lizzie, and she was so miserable she could have sat down in the rain and cried.

But there was no time for tears; so, dragging the dilapidated umbrella along, she spread her shawl over the bonnet-boxes and hurried down the broad street, eager to hide her misfortunes from a pretty young girl who stood at a window laughing at her.

She could not find the number of the house where one of the fine hats was to be left; and after hunting all down one side of the street, she crossed over, and came at last to the very house where the pretty girl lived. She was no longer to be seen; and, with a sigh of relief, Lizzie rang the bell, and was told to wait in the hall while Miss Belle tried the hat on.

Glad to rest, she warmed her feet, righted her umbrella, and then sat looking about her with eyes quick to see the beauty and the comfort that made the place so homelike and delightful. A small waiting-room opened from the hall, and in it stood many blooming plants, whose fragrance attracted Lizzie as irresistibly as if she had been a butterfly or bee.

Slipping in, she stood enjoying the lovely colors, sweet odors, and delicate shapes of these household spirits; for Lizzie loved flowers passionately; and just then they possessed a peculiar charm for her.

One particularly captivating little rose won her heart, and made her long for it with a longing that became a temptation too strong to resist. It was so perfect; so like a rosy face smiling out from the green leaves, that Lizzie could NOT keep her hands off it, and having smelt, touched, and kissed it, she suddenly broke the stem and hid it in her pocket. Then, frightened at what she had done, she crept back to her place in the hall, and sat there, burdened with remorse.

A servant came just then to lead her upstairs; for Miss Belle wished the hat altered, and must give directions. With her heart in a flutter, and pinker roses in her cheeks than the one in her pocket, Lizzie followed to a handsome room, where a pretty girl stood before a long mirror with the hat in her hand.

"Tell Madame Tifany that I don`t like it at all, for she hasn`t put in the blue plume mamma ordered; and I won`t have rose-buds, they are so common," said the young lady, in a dissatisfied tone, as she twirled the hat about.

"Yes, miss," was all Lizzie could say; for SHE considered that hat the loveliest thing a girl could possibly own.

"You had better ask your mamma about it, Miss Belle, before you give any orders. She will be up in a few moments, and the girl can wait," put in a maid, who was sewing in the ante-room.

"I suppose I must; but I WON`T have roses," answered Belle, crossly. Then she glanced at Lizzie, and said more gently, "You look very cold; come and sit by the fire while you wait."

"I`m afraid I`ll wet the pretty rug, miss; my feet are sopping," said Lizzie, gratefully, but timidly.

"So they are! Why didn`t you wear rubber boots?"

"I haven`t got any."

"I`ll give you mine, then, for I hate them; and as I never go out in wet weather, they are of no earthly use to me. Marie, bring them here; I shall be glad to get rid of them, and I`m sure they`ll be useful to you."

"Oh, thank you, miss! I`d like `em ever so much, for I`m out in the rain half the time, and get bad colds because my boots are old," said Lizzie, smiling brightly at the thought of the welcome gift.

"I should think your mother would get you warmer things," began Belle, who found something rather interesting in the shabby girl, with shy bright eyes, and curly hair bursting out of the old hood.

"I haven`t got any mother," said Lizzie, with a pathetic glance at her poor clothes.

"I`m so sorry! Have you brothers and sisters?" asked Belle, hoping to find something pleasant to talk about; for she was a kind little soul.

"No, miss; I`ve got no folks at all."

"Oh, dear; how sad! Why, who takes care of you?" cried Belle, looking quite distressed.

"No one; I take care of myself. I work for Madame, and she pays me a dollar a week. I stay with Mrs. Brown, and chore round to pay for my keep. My dollar don`t get many clothes, so I can`t be as neat as I`d like." And the forlorn look came back to poor Lizzie`s face.

Belle said nothing, but sat among the sofa cushions, where she had thrown herself, looking soberly at this other girl, no older than she was, who took care of herself and was all alone in the world. It was a new idea to Belle, who was loved and petted as an only child is apt to be. She often saw beggars and pitied them, but knew very little about their wants and lives; so it was like turning a new page in her happy life to be brought so near to poverty as this chance meeting with the milliner`s girl.

"Aren`t you afraid and lonely and unhappy?" she said, slowly, trying to understand and put herself in Lizzie`s place.

"Yes; but it`s no use. I can`t help it, and may be things will get better by and by, and I`ll have my wish," answered Lizzie, more hopefully, because Belle`s pity warmed her heart and made her troubles seem lighter.

"What is your wish?" asked Belle, hoping mamma wouldn`t come just yet, for she was getting interested in the stranger.

"To have a nice little room, and make flowers, like a French girl I know. It`s such pretty work, and she gets lots of money, for every one likes her flowers. She shows me how, sometimes, and I can do leaves first-rate; but--"

There Lizzie stopped suddenly, and the color rushed up to her forehead; for she remembered the little rose in her pocket and it weighed upon her conscience like a stone.

Before Belle could ask what was the matter, Marie came in with a tray of cake and fruit, saying:

"Here`s your lunch, Miss Belle."

"Put it down, please; I`m not ready for it yet."

And Belle shook her head as she glanced at Lizzie, who was staring hard at the fire with such a troubled face that Belle could not bear to see it.

Jumping out of her nest of cushions, she heaped a plate with good things, and going to Lizzie, offered it, saying, with a gentle courtesy that made the act doubly sweet:

"Please have some; you must be tired of waiting."

But Lizzie could not take it; she could only cover her face and cry; for this kindness rent her heart and made the stolen flower a burden too heavy to be borne.

"Oh, don`t cry so! Are you sick? Have I been rude? Tell me all about it; and if I can`t do anything, mamma can," said Belle, surprised and troubled.

"No; I`m not sick; I`m bad, and I can`t bear it when you are so good to me," sobbed Lizzie, quite overcome with penitence; and taking out the crumpled rose, she confessed her fault with many tears.

"Don`t feel so much about such a little thing as that," began Belle, warmly; then checked herself, and added, more soberly, "It WAS wrong to take it without leave; but it`s all right now, and I`ll give you as many roses as you want, for I know you are a good girl."

"Thank you. I didn`t want it only because it was pretty, but I wanted to copy it. I can`t get any for myself, and so I can`t do my make-believe ones well. Madame won`t even lend me the old ones in the store, and Estelle has none to spare for me, because I can`t pay her for teaching me. She gives me bits of muslin and wire and things, and shows me now and then. But I know if I had a real flower I could copy it; so she`d see I did know something, for I try real hard. I`m SO tired of slopping round the streets, I`d do anything to earn my living some other way."

Lizzie had poured out her trouble rapidly; and the little story was quite affecting when one saw the tears on her cheeks, the poor clothes, and the thin hands that held the stolen rose. Belle was much touched, and, in her impetuous way, set about mending matters as fast as possible.

"Put on those boots and that pair of dry stockings right away. Then tuck as much cake and fruit into your pocket as it will hold. I`m going to get you some flowers, and see if mamma is too busy to attend to me."

With a nod and a smile, Belle flew about the room a minute; then vanished, leaving Lizzie to her comfortable task, feeling as if fairies still haunted the world as in the good old times.

When Belle came back with a handful of roses, she found Lizzie absorbed in admiring contemplation of her new boots, as she ate sponge-cake in a blissful sort of waking-dream.

"Mamma can`t come; but I don`t care about the hat. It will do very well, and isn`t worth fussing about. There, will those be of any use to you?" And she offered the nosegay with a much happier face than the one Lizzie first saw.

"Oh, miss, they`re just lovely! I`ll copy that pink rose as soon as ever I can, and when I`ve learned how to do `em tip-top, I`d like to bring you some, if you don`t mind," answered Lizzie, smiling all over her face as she buried her nose luxuriously in the fragrant mass.

"I`d like it very much, for I should think you`d have to be very clever to make such pretty things. I really quite fancy those rosebuds in my hat, now I know that you`re going to learn how to make them. Put an orange in your pocket, and the flowers in water as soon as you can, so they`ll be fresh when you want them. Good-by. Bring home our hats every time and tell me how you get on."

With kind words like these, Belle dismissed Lizzie, who ran downstairs, feeling as rich as if she had found a fortune. Away to the next place she hurried, anxious to get her errands done and the precious posy safely into fresh water. But Mrs. Turretviile was not at home, and the bonnet could not be left till paid for. So Lizzie turned to go down the high steps, glad that she need not wait. She stopped one instant to take a delicious sniff at her flowers, and that was the last happy moment that poor Lizzie knew for many weary months.

The new boots were large for her, the steps slippery with sleet, and down went the little errand girl, from top to bottom, till she landed in the gutter directly upon Mrs. Turretville`s costly bonnet.

"I`ve saved my posies, anyway," sighed Lizzie, as she picked herself up, bruised, wet, and faint with pain; "but, oh, my heart! won`t Madame scold when she sees that band-box smashed flat," groaned the poor child, sitting on the curbstone to get her breath and view the disaster.

The rain poured, the wind blew, the sparrows on the park railing chirped derisively, and no one came along to help Lizzie out of her troubles. Slowly she gathered up her burdens; painfully she limped away in the big boots; and the last the naughty sparrows saw of her was a shabby little figure going round the corner, with a pale, tearful face held lovingly over the bright bouquet that was her one treasure and her only comfort in the moment which brought to her the great misfortune of her life.


II. Forget Me Nots

"Oh, mamma, I am so relieved that the box has come at last! If it had not, I do believe I should have died of disappointment," cried pretty Belle, five years later, on the morning before her eighteenth birthday.

"It would have been a serious disappointment, darling; for I had sot my heart on your wearing my gift to-morrow night, and when the steamers kept coming in without my trunk from Paris, I was very anxious. I hope you will like it."

"Dear mamma, I know I shall like it; your taste is so good and you know what suits me so well. Make haste, Marie; I`m dying to see it," said Belle, dancing about the great trunk, as the maid carefully unfolded tissue papers and muslin wrappers.

A young girl`s first ball-dress is a grand affair,--in her eyes, at least; and Belle soon stopped dancing, to stand with clasped hands, eager eyes and parted lips before the snowy pile of illusion that was at last daintily lifted out upon the bed. Then, as Marie displayed its loveliness, little cries of delight were heard, and when the whole delicate dress was arranged to the best effect she threw herself upon her mother`s neck and actually cried with pleasure.

"Mamma, it is too lovely and you are very kind to do so much for me. How shall I ever thank you?"

"By putting it right on to see if it fits; and when you wear it look your happiest, that I may be proud of my pretty daughter."

Mamma got no further, for Marie uttered a French shriek, wrung her hands, and then began to burrow wildly in the trunk and among the papers, crying distractedly:

"Great Heavens, madame! the wreath has been forgotten! What an affliction! Mademoiselle`s enchanting toilette is destroyed without the wreath, and nowhere do I find it."

In vain they searched; in vain Marie wailed and Belle declared it must be somewhere; no wreath appeared. It was duly set down in the bill, and a fine sum charged for a head-dress to match the dainty forget-me-nots that looped the fleecy skirts and ornamented the bosom of the dress. It had evidently been forgotten; and mamma dispatched Marie at once to try and match the flowers, for Belle would not hear of any other decoration for her beautiful blonde hair.

The dress fitted to a charm, and was pronounced by all beholders the loveliest thing ever seen. Nothing was wanted but the wreath to make it quite perfect, and when Marie returned, after a long search, with no forget-me-nots, Belle was in despair.

"Wear natural ones," suggested a sympathizing friend.

But another hunt among greenhouses was as fruitless as that among the milliners` rooms. No forget-me-nots could be found, and Marie fell exhausted into a chair, desolated at what she felt to be an awful calamity.

"Let me have the carriage, and I`ll ransack the city till I find some," cried Belle, growing more resolute with each failure.

Mamma was deep in preparations for the ball, and could not help her afflicted daughter, though she was much disappointed at the mishap. So Belle drove off, resolved to have her flowers whether there were any or not.

Any one who has ever tried to match a ribbon, find a certain fabric, or get anything done in a hurry, knows what a wearisome task it sometimes is, and can imagine Belle`s state of mind after repeated disappointments. She was about to give up in despair, when someone suggested that perhaps the Frenchwoman, Estelle Valnor, might make the desired wreath, if there was time.

Away drove Belle, and, on entering the room, gave a sigh of satisfaction, for a whole boxful of the loveliest forget-me-nots stood upon the table. As fast as possible, she told her tale and demanded the flowers, no matter what the price might be. Imagine her feelings when the Frenchwoman, with a shrug, announced that it was impossible to give mademoiselle a single spray. All were engaged to trim a bridesmaid`s dress, and must be sent away at once.

It really was too bad! and Belle lost her temper entirely, for no persuasion or bribes would win a spray from Estelle. The provoking part of it was that the wedding would not come off for several days, and there was time enough to make more flowers for that dress, since Belle only wanted a few for her hair. Neither would Estelle make her any, as her hands were full, and so small an order was not worth deranging one`s self for; but observing Belle`s sorrowful face, she said, affably:

"Mademoiselle may, perhaps, find the flowers she desires at Miss Berton`s. She has been helping me with these garlands, and may have some left. Here is her address."

Belle took the card with thanks, and hurried away with a last hope faintly stirring in her girlish heart, for Belle had an unusually ardent wish to look her best at this party, since Somebody was to be there, and Somebody considered forget-me-nots the sweetest flowers in the world. Mamma knew this, and the kiss Belle gave her when the dress came had a more tender meaning than gratified vanity or daughterly love.

Up many stairs she climbed, and came at last to a little room, very poor but very neat, where, at the one window, sat a young girl, with crutches by her side and her lap full of flower-leaves and petals. She rose slowly as Belle came in, and then stood looking at her, with such a wistful expression in her shy, bright eyes, that Belle`s anxious face cleared involuntarily, and her voice lost its impatient tone.

As she spoke, she glanced about the room, hoping to see some blue blossoms awaiting her. But none appeared; and she was about to despond again, when the girl said, gently:

"I have none by me now, but I may be able to find you some."

"Thank you very much; but I have been everywhere in vain. Still, if you do get any, please send them to me as soon as possible. Here is my card."

Miss Berton glanced at it, then cast a quick look at the sweet, anxious face before her, and smiled so brightly that Belle smiled also, and asked, wonderingly:

"What is it? What do you see?"

"I see the dear young lady who was so kind to me long ago. You don`t remember me, and never knew my name; but I never have forgotten you all these years. I always hoped I could do something to show how grateful I was, and now I can, for you shall have your flowers if I sit up all night to make them."

But Belle still shook her head and watched the smiling face before her with wondering eyes, till the girl added, with sudden color in her cheeks:

"Ah, you`ve done so many kind things in your life, you don`t remember the little errand girl from Madame Tifany`s who stole a rose in your hall, and how you gave her rubber boots and cake and flowers, and were so good to her she couldn`t forget it if she lived to be a hundred."

"But you are so changed," began Belle, who did faintly recollect that little incident in her happy life.

"Yes, I had a fall and hurt myself so that I shall always be lame."

And Lizzie went on to tell how Madame had dismissed her in a rage; how she lay ill till Mrs. Brown sent her to the hospital; and how for a year she had suffered much alone, in that great house of pain, before one of the kind visitors had befriended her.

While hearing the story of the five years that had been so full of pleasure, ease and love for herself, Belle forgot her errand, and, sitting beside Lizzie, listened with pitying eyes to all she told of her endeavors to support herself by the delicate handiwork she loved.

"I`m very happy now," ended Lizzie, looking about the little bare room with a face full of the sweetest content. "I get nearly work enough to pay my way, and Estelle sends me some when she has more than she can do. I`ve learned to do it nicely, and it is so pleasant to sit here and make flowers instead of trudging about in the wet with other people`s hats. Though I do sometimes wish I was able to trudge, one gets on so slowly with crutches."

A little sigh followed the words, and Belle put her own plump hand on the delicate one that held the crutch, saying, in her cordial young voice:

"I`ll come and take you to drive sometimes, for you are too pale, and you`ll get ill sitting here at work day after day. Please let me; I`d love to; for I feel so idle and wicked when I see busy people like you that I reproach myself for neglecting my duty and having more than my share of happiness."

Lizzie thanked her with a look, and then said, in a tone of interest that was delightful to hear:

"Tell about the wreath you want; I should so love to do it for you, if I can."

Belle had forgotten all about it in listening to this sad little story of a girl`s life. Now she felt half ashamed to talk of so frivolous a matter till she remembered that it would help Lizzie; and, resolving to pay for it as never garland was paid for before, she entered upon the subject with renewed interest.

"You shall have the flowers in time for your ball tomorrow night. I will engage to make a wreath that will please you, only it may take longer than I think. Don`t be troubled if I don`t send it till evening; it will surely come in time. I can work fast, and this will be the happiest job I ever did," said Lizzie, beginning to lay out mysterious little tools and bend delicate wires.

"You are altogether too grateful for the little I have done. It makes me feel ashamed to think I did not find you out before and do something better worth thanks."

"Ah, it wasn`t the boots or the cake or the roses, dear Miss Belle. It was the kind looks, the gentle words, the way it was done, that went right to my heart, and did me more good than a million of money. I never stole a pin after that day, for the little rose wouldn`t let me forget how you forgave me so sweetly. I sometimes think it kept me from greater temptations, for I was a poor, forlorn child, with no one to keep me good."

Pretty Belle looked prettier than ever as she listened, and a bright tear stood in either eye like a drop of dew on a blue flower. It touched her very much to learn that her little act of childish charity had been so sweet and helpful to this lonely girl, and now lived so freshly in her grateful memory. It showed her, suddenly, how precious little deeds of love and sympathy are; how strong to bless, how easy to perform, how comfortable to recall. Her heart was very full and tender just then, and the lesson sunk deep into it never to be forgotten.

She sat a long time watching flowers bud and blossom under Lizzie`s skilful fingers, and then hurried home to tell all her glad news to mamma.

If the next day had not been full of most delightfully exciting events, Belle might have felt some anxiety about her wreath, for hour after hour went by and nothing arrived from Lizzie.

Evening came, and all was ready. Belle was dressed, and looked so lovely that mamma declared she needed nothing more. But Marie insisted that the grand effect would be ruined without the garland among the sunshiny hair. Belle had time now to be anxious, and waited with growing impatience for the finishing touch to her charming toilette.

"I must be downstairs to receive, and can`t wait another moment; so put in the blue pompon and let me go," she said at last, with a sigh of disappointment, for the desire to look beautiful that night in Somebody`s eyes had increased four-fold.

With a tragic gesture, Marie was about to adjust the pompon when the quick tap of a crutch came down the hall, and Lizzie hurried in, flushed and breathless, but smiling happily as she uncovered the box she carried with a look of proud satisfaction.

A general "Ah!" of admiration arose as Belle, mamma, and Marie surveyed the lovely wreath that lay before them; and when it was carefully arranged on the bright head that was to wear it, Belle blushed with pleasure. Mamma said: "It is more beautiful than any Paris could have sent us;" and Marie clasped her hands theatrically, sighing, with her head on one side:

"Truly, yes; mademoiselle is now adorable!"

"I am so glad you like it. I did my very best and worked all night, but I had to beg one spray from Estelle, or, with all my haste, I could not have finished in time," said Lizzie, refreshing her weary eyes with a long, affectionate gaze at the pretty figure before her.

A fold of the airy skirt was caught on one of the blue clusters, and Lizzie knelt down to arrange it as she spoke. Belle leaned toward her and said softly: "Money alone can`t pay you for this kindness; so tell me how I can best serve you. This is the happiest night of my life, and I want to make every one feel glad also."

"Then don`t talk of paying me, but promise that I may make the flowers you wear on your wedding-day," whispered Lizzie, kissing the kind hand held out to help her rise, for on it she saw a brilliant ring, and in the blooming, blushing face bent over her she read the tender little story that Somebody had told Belle that day.

"So you shall! and I`ll keep this wreath all my life for your sake, dear," answered Belle, as her full heart bubbled over with pitying affection for the poor girl who would never make a bridal garland for herself.

Belle kept her word, even when she was in a happy home of her own; for out of the dead roses bloomed a friendship that brightened Lizzie`s life; and long after the blue garland was faded Belle remembered the helpful little lesson that taught her to read the faces poverty touches with a pathetic eloquence, which says to those who look, "Forget-me-not."

Working the Corner

by

​Teresa Ann Frazee


It was the month of showers. Ashes filled the air and swirled in a wreath of smoke that had the ambrosial scent of saints. Outside the university’s library, there she stood church-broken. So impatient for eternity. The tan maiden of her time, who led men into battle, was donned in leggings, army boots and wore her hair short, cropped all around-just above the ears. Her jacket was black, with chains that hung below her belt. With each change of her position, I could hear her chains rattle. She was handing out flyers to passing wide eyed youths, who were looking down with both thumbs on their phones. With the raise of her sword, she summoned me to her corner.

I flicked a cigarette to the sidewalk and crushed it under my foot. As I approached her, a warm air current sooth her dry throat, then she spoke,”How interesting, you were the only person who bestowed your eyes upon me. You did not gaze downward at whatever that contraption is.” She gestured to the cell phones of the students passing by. “History’s facts remain untold. You are chosen. And so it is you, who must tell my story.”

“Me?”

“Yes, behold Sir, who better?” she said, as she looked around.

“Sir? Whoa, we’re just about the same age, around 19 right? So, what class are you in?”

“I am a peasant.”

“No, no, no, see, I’m a Freshman here, I said. “Oh, forget it. Anyway, who are you?”

“To look at me now you would surely never know, I am a documented legend, a heroine from the 15th century.”

“You’re kidding me right?” I said, “whatever,” as I scratched my head, “Maybe you had a little too much sun.
You need a lift? Did someone bale on you? Let me call you an Uber.

She murmured something in French then said, “I can see, you are a non believer. For me it is etched on an ever burning page, entangled in the darkness, where eternal flames rise. I assure you it is all written down somewhere.”

“Um, uh, well, I suppose I could Google it.”

“Pardon?” Her brow furrowed.

“Never mind. So, Where… where did you come from? What are doing here, I mean now?” I asked.

She took a long pause, then made a sigh, “The truth is I do not know. I am from an unrealized world. I took a restless detour from the rutted maze of fate. I made a right turn in the wrong part of town. Once I broke through the passage on the edge of oblivion, past phantasmal space, reason and time ceased to meddle, of my destiny, who knew.”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Wait, what’s this now? Who are you?” Part of me already knew.

“I am Joan, an unfulfilled martyr.” She continued to bare her soul. She said, "A trinity of liars dangled immortality in front of my eyes. They spoon-fed me wasted words and sent me hungry to my bed. Encircled by muted apparitions and voices, I was mesmerized by scripted monologues. I never cleared my mind. Then I woke transformed, gathered my bones and plucked the splinters from my feet.”

The height of noon’s temperature was already making me perspire. A shrieking flurry of white birds scattered into flight then disappeared in the haze of the sun. My heart pounded in my chest.”Yeah that might explain why you’re dressed kind of goth. It’s not just a cool fashion statement, is it?” I asked, my voice shaky.

“Branded, while the hopeful pray, I was left to wean off roots, where forgotten genders split.”

Catherine, a colorfully dressed young woman with an English accent had long flowing hair and the sleeve cuffs of her jumpsuit were folded back. As Joan and I spoke, Catherine was sizing us up from the west corner where she was standing. She stepped off the curb and crossed the street. With flyers in one hand and her sword in sheath, she approached Joan. Face to face they stood.

With hostile eyes Catherine then stared at me and said, “Move aside.” Dumbfounded, I hesitated for a moment.

Catherine, very agitated, turned away from me and hissed, “Charles is it? You do not obey orders very well, now do you? It was always your worst trait. Once again you are in my way.”

“How do you know my name? Do I know...?”

“You have much to comprehend! I am done speaking to you”, she snapped, “now begone or I shall remove you.”

I backed away. Besides it wasn't my place to separate them. I’m no referee.
There was going to be trouble no matter what I did.

“So here you are.” Catherine said to Joan.

Joan asked, “Yes, what do you want?”

“I want your corner,” Catherine demanded, “It proves to be the most desirable.”

Joan shook her her head, ”Ah, the enemy.”

“The war is over. This is where I shall stand!” Catherine declared.

Joan took a deep breath, “No, for me the war has not ended.”

There was no response from Catherine, only a grin.

“Move along!” Joan said with a wave of her hand. “You are trespassing across my corner. My patience, do not try.”

“You are just a mere girl,” “Catherine laughed as she grabbed Joan’s arm.

“I assure you, this territory is all I have left.
My dignity, you shall not debase,” Joan said, as she jerked her arm away.

Catherine, stood her ground. Tense emotions balanced on a high wire.

Joan continued,” Who are you to dare confront me?”

“I go by the name Catherine.”

Catherine quickly put her remaining flyers in her pocket and with both hands, shoved Joan. A fight began.
“Know your place, you saints do not own the streets.”

Spectators took photos with their phones. Like breeding sparks, a crowd began to multiply.

Flyers dropped from Joan's hand, she saved herself from falling and staggered back to her feet.
“Leave or you will find yourself in peril!”

Catherine kicked Joan in the shin. Joan stumbled back but regained her footing. Joan drew her sword as she spoke, “English woman, I am not known for my defeats!”

Catherine drew her sword from the sheath, She engaged with Joan. Streams of golden light flashed upon their swords as they crossed.
They began to maneuver. Catherine lunged at Joan.
As Joan dodged her, Catherine missed her quick stroke towards Joan's abdomen.

“What are you going to do about it?” Catherine demanded.

At the same moment, Joan gained the upper hand and thrust her gleaming sword toward Catherine. Catherine fell back and was knocked hard to the ground.

“Do not underestimate my potency!” Joan shouted.

Joan pulled Catherine to her feet by her long hair, Catherine contorted herself free and struck but Joan managed to parry a jab to her heart. The fight continued.

“You are left to your own defenses!” Joan shouted, “just try to dismiss my capability!”

Joan charged in and with a rapid stroke, struck Catherine with her sword. Catherine threw her head back and tumbled like a rag doll, spiraling to the sidewalk. Catherine’s sword fell to the ground and she recoiled in pain. Joan stood over Catherine victoriously with a booted foot upon her chest and her sword held to Catherine's throat.

Joan raised her voice,“For when you are gone I shall still be on this corner handing out flyers, resigned to my newfound career. Destine to disprove beliefs long past the final daybreak here on this two-way street. I will be on the side of right!”

The clouds darkened. There were unsettling high winds with thunder rumbling in the distance.
The sky was stitched with lightning then it started to pour. The bystanders instantly dispersed looking
back down at their phones. I stepped over the puddled asphalt and picked up a flyer wading in the dirty rain water already filled with drifting urban debris. I left that corner on a mission, with Joan’s flyer in hand.
It read, “Charles, just so you know. Do not wish your ashes to merge with mine. They too will blow away with the so called divine. And so, another candle gets lit. I pray you understand.”

Onezzellott’s Search
By Shawn P. Madison


“Dad! Dad!” Twelve year old Tommy Ackerman shouted across the woods as he stared in horror at the thing lying in the moist green grass about ten feet away. Sparky was pulling hard on his leash, his barks echoing throughout the woods.
“Tommy?” Came a far distant reply. “Tommy, where are you?”
“Over here, Dad!” Tommy shrieked. “Come quick!”
The thing smelled awful and was curled up in a ball, shaking in the grass. Tommy grabbed his head in an effort to stop the incredibly painful sound which was bouncing around inside his skull.
The thing looked over at Tommy Ackerman and bore into the boy with its large black eyes. The bright white of its skin stood in stark contrast to the surrounding woods and its mouth was moving, forming words that Tommy couldn’t understand.
“Dad! Dad! Please...” Tommy called between sobs. He didn’t know why he was crying but between the pain in his head, that awful smell and the fact that he was alone with this thing out here in the woods of Hunterdon County, Tommy was scared to death.
He could hear the far off sounds of his father crashing through the woods. Tommy tried to keep his Remington Youth Model 870 shotgun pointed at the creature but he just wasn’t ready yet to kill another living thing, much to the dismay of his father. The thing tried to sit up once unsuccessfully and then tried again, reaching out toward Tommy with one unbelievably long white arm. Tommy took a shaky step back and almost lost his grip on Sparky’s leash. “You stay right there,” he muttered toward it between sobs and tried, once again, to bring his weapon to bear on the thing. His frustration at the tears rolling down his cheeks, which his father would see at any moment, and the fact that he was about to wet his pants in fear made Tommy Ackerman feel like turning and running away. As far away into the woods of Readington, NJ as his feet would take him. For some reason, something about this thing he had stumbled upon kept him riveted to the spot, unable to move more than a step or two in either direction.
It was getting harder and harder to keep Sparky from breaking loose and he could feel his grip on the shotgun loosening as he struggled with the German Shepherd’s leash. Oh, great, he thought to himself, the one thing he didn’t need right now was for his father to see him crying in fear at some unknown thing lying on the ground while his gun lay in the grass.
“Dad...please...come quick,” Tommy cried as the white thing on the ground began to drag itself toward him through the leaves and sticks that littered the ground.
* * *
He ran as fast as he could over the uneven terrain of this wooded place. His First and Second were both just behind him, following him toward the terrified shrieks. I’m coming, I’m coming, he thought as hard as he could while he tried to breathe in the thin, cold morning air.
“I hear her, too,” his First called from several steps away. “She is terrified.”
“Faster, Minaan,” he muttered as his long legs raced over the bumpy ground and slick green grass. The much too bright sun was not yet up but the yellow light was steadily creeping through the barren branches all around them. “You too, Pinaan, run faster...all of us.”
“Danger!” His Second added. “Much danger!”
“Faster then!” Onezzllott commanded. “We must find her! We must...before the elder one does!”
* * *
“Tommy!” Bill Ackerman called as he tried his best to run across the rocky ground of the woods just off of State Road #202. He had brought his son out here, to these woods where he had spent many a Saturday and Sunday morning himself all those years ago, to try and teach him to hunt one last time before the bulldozers moved in and began the housing development.
Now, his son was calling his name in fear and terror of God knew what and he cursed himself for losing sight of the boy’s bright orange hunting vest and cap. “Damn!” He swore out loud between breaths, the cold air scraping his lungs raw. His Remington was nestled snugly against his body while he ran and the solid wood butt of the thing kept jamming into his armpit every time he hit a bump or rock.
“I’m coming, son,” Bill Ackerman cried. “I’m almost there!”
* * *
Tukkoozzllott Jinaan felt incredibly alone, stupid and scared all at the same time. When she had seen the young child and the beast coming her way just moments ago she could think of nothing other than to drop to the green-brown ground and curl up into a ball.
Once the child and beast had found her she began to wail as loud as she could. She knew her intense fear was blocking out all else but she felt a terrible dread throughout her small body. The beast was making an incredible noise and a thick slimy liquid was hanging from its fanged teeth. This scared her most of all, even more than the brown-black rod-like thing that hung in the child’s grasp. A thing that she had heard earlier make an amazing booming sound that echoed off the tall wooden sticks jutting up from the dirt of this place.
The beast was after her blood, this she could sense. The child was just as scared as she was, if not more so, but the loose hold he now had on the strap connecting his hand to the beast’s neck held her attention fast.
“Do not harm me!” She called to the child but the small thing just backed away. “I mean you or your beast or your elder no harm! Leave me be and I will be gone!”
The small child shrieked into the air and a similar shriek returned from much closer now than it had been before. Tukkoozzllott knew that her time was over if the elder was able to reach this place where she now lay. She could sense the urgency of her situation and felt the terror of gaining her endtime in this cruel and senseless place.
She intensified her wailing, calling out in terror for her father, as the child dropped to his knees with his hands on each side of his head. Her father would find her, she
knew it. He would be here within moments. But whether he would find her dead or alive was the question still unanswered.
* * *
There he is! Bill Ackerman quickened his pace as he caught sight of the small orange vest and cap about fifty meters ahead but was suddenly hit by a wall of intense sound that brought him immediately to his knees. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at the same time but it sure as hell was bouncing off the inside of his skull.
“Christ Almighty!” He shouted and rolled on to his back as the intense wailing made his head feel like it was going to open up and let loose his brains on to the ground. “I’m coming, Tommy,” he managed to sputter through gritted teeth and felt his consciousness begin to fade.
* * *
Onezzllott heard the burst from his little girl and knew the peril she faced just as she did. She was terrified beyond belief and he steeled himself inside for allowing the girl to wander off by herself as the repairs were being completed. He had lost himself in the finishing and had let the slight contact fade from his awareness.
It lasted until her first burst alerted he and his crewmen that she was in trouble. How much deeper into the woods do we have to go to get away from them, he thought to himself. Last night, the landing place seemed like the safest from horizon to horizon. Nothing but trees and darkness and no smells of the curious inhabitants.
Now, his decision to set down and commence final repairs before departure from Qroala seemed not wise at all. I shall find you, Tukkoozzllott, he shared and quickened his pace yet again. Your father is coming!
* * *
Tommy Ackerman dropped his gun and his grip on Sparky’s leash as the onslaught of painful sound slammed into his head. Sparky had rolled over and started shaking at first but was somehow able to gain his feet and make a stumbling leap toward the thing on the ground.
Sparky was bearing his teeth and bunching up his nose from the stench of the ugly creature but managed to lunge forward and grab one thin white ankle in his teeth.
Abruptly the painful wailing was gone from his head although the white thing on the ground was now howling in pain, howls he could hear with his ears just as it should be.
“No, Sparky, NO!” He called at his dog, afraid that the flesh of the hideous thing could be poisonous. “Leave it alone, Sparky! Leave it alone.”
A thick dark liquid was oozing out between Sparky’s upper and lower jaw and the look of absolute terror on the white creature’s face made Tommy want to turn away. The tears were flowing freely now and Tommy Ackerman never felt so ashamed and so afraid and so uncertain in all his life. He bent down quickly and grabbed up Sparky’s leash, tugging hard on the leather strap to pull the dog off the thing.
A rustling in the bushes off to his left signaled the approach of someone. He could only wish it was his father and not more of these stinking white things...
* * *
“Hold on, daughter, I am almost there!” Onezzllott called out. He caught a glimpse of a bright orange color up ahead and knew it to be a certain type of bodily covering. That’s where she is, he thought, that’s where her danger lies.
“We must get to her quickly!” Llizznnllott Pinaan cried. “Quickly now!”
“Run, then, run faster,” Onezzllott rasped, the fear wracking his body threatening to render him motionless. “She must return with us! She must!”
“We are unarmed,” Jummozznnett Minaan stated. “We will meet our endtimes as well.”
“RUN!” Onezzllott screamed, both to quiet his First and to settle his nerves. “RUN!”
* * *
It is over, she thought mournfully as the elder crashed through the bushes and stared at her with eyes open wide. For some reason the brown-black rod-like thing looked more menacing in his hands than the one held by the child.
“Goodbye, father,” she sobbed and hoped that he could hear through her fear. “I am sorry for venturing this far from the Humeril. I am sorry that you will no longer have a daughter.”
* * *
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Bill Ackerman mumbled as he caught sight and smell of the small white creature bleeding on the ground not ten feet away from his boy. “Tommy, get you and Sparky out of here! Right now!”
“No, leave it alone!” Tommy cried but his father pushed him away and raised his gun.
“I said get out of here! Now, son!” Ackerman said and lined the large white head up in his sights. “Jesus Christ, Tommy, get!”
“NO!” Tommy shouted, tears stinging his eyes as he tried to lunge for the gun in his father’s hands. “Leave it alone, Dad! It’s hurt!”
“I could give a shit, Thomas,” his Dad answered and flashed him a menacing grimace. “Get you and Sparky out of here. Don’t make me say it again, son.”
“No, Dad, don’t do it,” Tommy sobbed as he backed away and watched his father raise the shotgun to his shoulder. “Just leave it alone, Dad, just leave it alone...”
* * *
Onezzllott felt as if his lungs were going to burst as he rushed toward where his daughter lay in the grass and dirt of these woods. There was much shouting going on and he had just been able to hear his daughter mumbling something which sounded like goodbye. He had raced away from his First and Second then, calling up some long dormant reserve of energy.
Just a little bit farther now, just a little farther. He could see the small one with water streaming from its eyes, a look of fear and sadness etched upon its face.
“Not yet!” He called out, hoping his daughter could hear. “Not yet, daughter!”
* * *
Tukkoozzllott stared up at the elder and felt her fear go away. She saw it lift the rod-like thing and point an empty black hole in her direction. She had heard her father and the others tell stories about how these creatures killed things and each other, most times for sport.
She was pretty sure that the rod-like thing was one of the weapons they used for such purposes. “Goodbye, my father,” she muttered once and lowered her head to the ground. “You must continue your travels home without me...”
* * *
Onezzllott stopped immediately as he heard the shot ring out in the cold morning sky. The echo of the brutal sound reverberated throughout the woods for several moments and then was gone.
The beast alongside the child began making horrendous sounds directed toward where he stood and he could see the sad eyes of the child as they looked into his. The link was gone and with it his daughter. He had failed to keep her safe in this strange place and now he would not be bringing her home. Curse Qroala! Curse this mission! He looked deeply into the child’s eyes and saw the compassion that was there. This was not the dangerous one. It was the elder that almost certainly accompanied this small one that had taken away his daughter.
He hung his head low and watched as the child’s mouth began to produce sounds he could not understand. Onezzllott now owed it to his crew to get them safely back to the Humeril and continue with their travels. He would mourn for his daughter later and during most of the remainder of the mission, most probably meeting his own endtime upon his terms soon after reaching home. He would go to Tukkoozzllott and tell her how sorry and sad he was that he had failed her. But he had to get his ship and crew home safely first. Only in that could he find any remaining honor that was his due.
He looked once more upon the child and nodded his head toward the small creature before turning back for his ship. “Goodbye, daughter, I have failed you but shall see you soon.”
* * *
Tommy Ackerman watched the white thing turn around and head back into the woods through the tears that dripped from his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he sobbed as he grabbed Sparky’s leash tighter. “I’m so, so sorry...”
“Let’s go, boy,” his father said and grabbed him roughly around his neck by the collar of his vest. “I don’t know if there are any more of those things out here but I sure as hell don’t want to find out.”
“Why’d you do it, Dad?” Tommy asked between his sobs, looking up at his father’s face. “Why’d you have to kill it?”
“What kind of question is that?” His father growled and hauled the boy along by his collar. “Who knows how dangerous that thing might have been, Tommy? Who even knows what in the hell that thing was? I don’t take any chances when I got you out here, son. Your safety and mine come first. It had to die and I killed it and that’s the end of it.”
Tommy Ackerman looked over his shoulder and saw what was left of the small white thing lying on the ground as his father half-dragged him away from that place. It was covered in a dark oozing liquid and there wasn’t much left where its head had been.
The smell of the thing was lingering and Tommy began crying again, harder this time. He didn’t know what the thing was either but he was pretty sure that it had been lost, just like he had been a couple of minutes ago. He was pretty sure that it had been scared out of its mind, just like he had been. And he was pretty sure that the other one, the one that had nodded at him while his father was still standing over the one he had killed, was just as sad as he was now... maybe even more so. Yeah, Tommy Ackerman was pretty sure that his father had just killed something else’s child. Much to the dismay of his father, Tommy Ackerman cried all the way home.


Shawn P. Madison's previous work has appeared in over fifty magazines, e-zines and anthologies, including THE HORROR ZINE’S recent BOOK OF GHOST STORIES Anthology and BOOK OF WEREWOLF STORIES Anthology, and most recently in the e-zine Danse Macabre. Shawn's novels GUARDER LORE and THE GUARDER FACTOR were released by NBI in the early 2000’s and reprinted by THE WRITER’S SANCTUM in 2019. Shawn's novellas THE EMPIRE OF THE IRON CROSS and TALES OF THE PLAYER were released by Cyberwit Publishing in 2019 and 2022 respectively.

​

Starstruck

By Gerald Arthur Winter
 
 
 
“Tommy, it’s Danny… Danny Rampling. Come to the old hangout tonight . . . nine o’clock . . . It’s been ages . . . sorry, no other choice . . . they’re gonna kill me—tag, you’re it . . . .”
 
Listening with apprehension to the cryptic, almost stammering message left on his
i-Phone, Tom Larkin saw no number to trace. He considered ignoring the message.
Their friendship had faded to mere acquaintances over the past twenty years. But Larkin’s caseload was always light in August. His clients didn’t want him to start the clock until their kids were back in school. Larkin referred to those numerous clients’ cheating spouses in the plural—as spice, and that’s how he labeled that file drawer. The other drawers were empty.
 
He gave in to curiosity, figuring the challenge of an endangered life might break him
out of the “peeper” tag from his drinking cronies at NYPD Homicide. He kept candid photos of intimate encounters of unfaithful marriage partners in his “SPICE” files. The
last chalk outline of a murder victim was over two years ago and still unsolved, so he
worried he was losing his touch—his bloodhound instinct to sniff out a corpse.
 
Larkin’s recurring dream didn’t help—an old lady, dead in his arms—but the DEA
shrink who signed his early retirement papers told him it must be from guilt over
neglect of his mother. He’d just nodded silently without telling him he never knew
his mother, killed in a car crash when he was an infant.
 
The old woman in the dream had no facial features, so Larkin’s self-analysis told him
she represented his numerous, faceless foster mom’s, void of any affection. Shortly
after the accident is dad had blown his brains out with his NYPD .38 pistol. His DWI
had caused his wife to sail through the windshield. Though hospitalized for intensive
observation from the accident’s impact, which was likened to “shaken infant syndrome,” Larkin survived the crash and began his budding attitude of independence on all fours.
 
Larkin headed through the Lincoln Tunnel, assuming Danny wanted him to drive from his Manhattan office to Wayne, New Jersey where they used to hang out at The Milk Barn on Hamburg Turnpike. From intelligence gathered on his DEA tour in the 80’s, Larkin recalled information about Daniel Rampling’s illicit enterprises. His specialty
was political, outside-the-box escapades, somewhere at the bottom of the most obscure abyss of little known truths, which warranted someone with Danny’s infinite discretion. Back then Larkin had a DEA file on everyone he’d ever known. In retrospect, he preferred to have the friends rather than their dossiers—what goes round comes round. Divorced with no kids and between secretaries, Larkin’s home, away from home, was
Munk’s Irish pub on the corner where his unpaid bar tabs remained stacked a foot high beside the cash register—a sallow pile like a spiral stairway to AA heaven.
 
As he fought the traffic mire surrounding Willowbrook Mall, Larkin headed north on
Route 23. Not until his arrival, had it occurred to him The Milk Barn was long gone.
The local, government-bailed-out Chevy dealer had torn down the teen hangout to
expand its car lot. The sturdy wooden tables where he’d carved his initials as a teen
were now part of a Jersey Meadowlands landfill.
 
His i-Phone buzzed in his breast pocket. Again, the caller’s ID and number were concealed.
 
“Larkin speaking.” He looked around, assuming someone was watching him.
 
“Take a driving demo at the Chevy dealer . . . then we can talk,” the caller said with
a quiver in his voice, but hung up before Larkin could respond.
 
Tom parked in a customer space and got out of his car. As he headed toward the
dealership’s entrance, a paunchy, middle-aged man waved to him. The man’s
swollen midriff preceded him as he held a license plate and tossed Tom a set of
keys. With only white wisps of hair around his ears, the man’s head, glistening
from perspiration, reflected the Chevy dealer’s neon sign from his bald dome.
His thick bifocals fogged from his body heat and a stench of nervous sweat
wafted toward Larkin sitting beside him.
 
“I’m sure you’ll enjoy the ride,” he said, as if someone might be listening. Larkin
didn’t realize it was Danny until he slammed the door and shook his hand with a
clammy grasp. “Hi, Tommy,” he said as if they’d just arrived for lifeguard duty
on a sunny summer morning thirty years ago. “Pull ahead and make a left toward Pompton Falls.”
 
Larkin hesitated with a frown. “What’s the deal? You said your life was in danger.”
 
“It is,” he said with a huff, “but it has been for twenty years. I’m used to it.”
 
“I haven’t seen you since 1988, Danny. I hardly recognize you.”
 
“Right. We ran into each other in Seoul, Korea at the Summer Olympics,” Danny
recalled. “Why were you there again?”
 
“I provided personal protection for a South Korean billionaire,” Larkin said. “You told me you were there with your family as tourists to see the Olympics, but you handed me some bull crap that your wife and daughters were shopping.”
 
Danny gave him no reaction other than a blank stare through his thick glasses, but
Larkin remembered saying to him: “We can’t just run into each other on the other
side of the world by chance without my meeting your family.”
 
He’d ducked that with: “Jade bargains at the Pangsan Market attracted my wife and daughters more than any Olympic gold.” His lip had made a twitch Larkin recognizes
as Tommy’s foretelling a lie, ever since they were lifeguards when Tommy lied to
the Police Water Rescue Squad: “No, we didn’t attempt to free any foreign substance from the drowning victim’s trachea. She was already dead.” No wonder the CIA
recruited him—a compulsive liar.
 
Tom challenged him now with, “You lied to me in Korea--no kids, and you were
never married. What’s this all about? We were just lifeguards together for a few
summers in the Seventies. Why should I come running to help you now?”
 
“Those were the days . . . lifeguards at Seaside Park at the Jersey shore,” he said.
“I was a stronger swimmer, but you had the instinct to see a potential drowning.”
 
Larkin sensed a potential drowning now as he nostalgically recalled, “We recorded
our ‘saves’ with notches carved into our lifeguard perch. I was glad just to get the drowning victim breathing, but you wanted to avoid a lawsuit for any mishandling
of our rescues.”
 
“Leave no trail . . . that’s still my motto,” Danny said with a crooked grin. “My
attitude directed me into an area of security that would stretch even your imagi-
nation well beyond my working for the mob or drug cartels. My clientele has
been as shadowy as my make-believe family. Although the tobacco and pharma-
ceutical corporations had begged to contract me, I’ve remained clean, having
nothing to do with either the corporate arena or criminal underworld.”
 
“Then who would want to kill you?” Larkin demanded.
 
“If I knew that answer, I’d already be dead.” Danny huffed.
 
“If there’s no who—how about why?” Larkin pushed for answers.
 
“Knowing who—would guarantee my demise. And if that information passed
from my lips to your ears, your termination would be certain as well.”
 
“Why pick me?  Why now?”
 
“You’re the only one I considered,” Danny tried to flatter him. “Why now? I have
an inoperable, malignant brain tumor. I’ve got a month to live at best, maybe only
days. My vision is going fast. These glasses help, but my peripheral vision is closing
in. It’s like traveling through a canyon that narrows more each day. ”
 
“I’m sorry, Danny. That sucks.”
 
“Eh! I’ve had a good run.” He smirked. “I want to pass my legacy on to someone
who’ll care. I know we weren’t close—my fault, not yours. But I know you’ve got
what it takes to contain this without letting it spin out of control. I’ve done a great
job until now, and even enjoyed the perks that come with the responsibility. For the
sake of my significant other, I need to pass this torch to you.”
 
Some spittle ran down Danny’s chin, probably an affectation of his worsening
condition . . . if his claim of an accelerating terminal illness was true--compulsive
liar.
 
“Do you have a family or not?” Larkin asked, watching for a twitch of his lip.
 
“Not a traditional family, but someone I’ve come to love. She has moments of
clarity, but she’s been sinking fast…dementia…Alzheimer’s—not sure. No
doctor’s.”
 
“Alzheimer’s…at our age?” Larkin challenged.
 
“No. She’s eighty-two, but she could pass for sixty.”         
 
Incredulous, Larkin asked, “How did you meet?”
 
“A Witness Protection Program . . . of sorts. They hired me to protect—not her—but those she could harm with her testimony. They gave her the choice of this protection program—or her elimination.”
 
“Who are these people?” Not one for conspiracy theories, Larkin frowned with doubt.
 
“I told you, I don’t know,” he said, but his lip twitched, so Larkin wasn’t sure if it
was a lie again or just a symptomatic tremor of his cancer. “I inherited the position
from the original keeper.”
 
Larkin nearly laughed. “Keeper?”
 
“That’s what they call us. He’d been with her since 1962.  Thirty years later, I
took over when he died. I was thirty-seven and she was fifty-six. It began like the Stockholm syndrome . . . the captive enchanted by the captor. She took to me--
big time. Don’t have a clue why.”
 
“You seem to be the captive, Danny? This is crazy. Listen—I’m not interested.”
 
“You’re already in, Tommy. Don’t give me that look. They recruited me the
same way. Consider this duty to your country.”
 
“I don’t buy it,” Larkin challenged, but Danny gave him the look of an oncologist
whose patient was a chronic smoker and couldn’t understand how he got lung
cancer.
 
“We’re done for now,” Danny said with dismissal. “When you see my obituary in
The New York Times you’ll receive an address to go to. If you don’t go . . . you
won’t see the light of day. Let’s head back to the Chevy dealer before they realize
one of their demonstration models is missing and their salesman’s bound and
gagged in the clunker used to advertize the rebate program.”
 
“You don’t even work here?” Larkin glared.
 
“Part-time,” he said with a grin. “My time’s up.”
 
Larkin shrugged. “That’s it?”
 
“That’s all she wrote, Tommy. You’re in—or you’re dead.”
 
“I still don’t get why you put this on me, Danny.”
 
“Neither of us ever allowed our emotions to interfere with duty,” he said. “When
you go to the address; you’ll understand why I chose you to replace me . . . even
if you never comprehend the depth and importance of what you do.”
 
They both got out of the car and Larkin handed him the keys.
 
“The duty is simple and controllable,” Danny assured him. “You’ll be able to come
and go as you wish, but you can’t continue your private investigator’s  practice--
too many contacts and an unpredictable schedule. The pay is outrageously high and comes on the third of the month, just like Social Security, but six figures a month
instead of  four.”
 
Larkin thought about his year-old bar tabs and rent due, but still sought an out.
“Suppose I just ignore you and act as if tonight never happened?”
 
“You know better, Tommy. Pulling out your dick after you’ve already cum has the
same result as when we were beach bums, but no abortions allowed. We won’t see
each other again, so I wish you good luck. Please watch out for her. I trust you will.”
 
They shook hands with a lingering grip then Danny turned and was gone.
 
Driving back to Manhattan, Larkin wished he could share this with someone.
Then it hit him—another reason he’d been chosen—no leaks.
 
Waking the next morning, Larkin wondered if the entire episode had been just a bad dream. He headed to the newsstand on the corner of First Avenue and Forty-fifth
Street, a block from his condo. Though The New York Times didn’t report Danny’s
death in the obituaries, Larkin realized this would become his morning ritual.
 
Heading back to his office, Larkin’s cell phone buzzed in his pocket. When he
flipped it open, a text message read:  216 e 49 st
 
Four short blocks away, the address was among a familiar row of brownstones where some notable celebrities had resided in the past. Larkin hadn’t paid much attention
to that block which, on the surface, remained unchanged over the past fifty years,
other than the astronomical value of a midtown brownstone. Some of that property remained in the estates of old money, though the Japanese turned one brownstone
on the Second Avenue end of the block into a consulate.
 
Larkin knew of a bagel shop at the Third Avenue end, so he had his morning coffee
and sat by a window reading the paper and observing 216 across the street. On a
bright sunny morning at seventy degrees in August, few patrons stayed inside, so
he remained as inconspicuous as possible without ordering another coffee.
 
At noon a postal worker wearing shorts and pulling a three-wheeled cart stopped at
216. She took a bound handful of mail and walked slowly up the dozen steps of the
front stoop. She unbound the mail, flipped through the envelopes to be sure they
were for 216, then slipped the envelopes, a few pieces at a time, through the mail
slot in the door. She ambled down the stairs to her cart, then a uniformed doorman
from the hotel around the corner called to her from behind.
 
Apparently on a coffee break, the doorman stopped to chat, so Larkin moved quickly while she remained preoccupied in conversation with the doorman. He scribbled on
the back of one of his fake business cards before coming into her view. Feigning con- fusion, he held his card up to several brownstones before he stood just a few feet in
front of her.
 
“You lookin’ for an address?” she asked.
 
“I have an address,” he said, showing her the back of his card where he’d printed,
Daniel Rampling, Esq., Suite B, 216 East 49th Street. “But I don’t see any suite
number, so I wondered if I have the wrong address. Maybe it should be 216 West
or I got the wrong street.”
 
Her name tag read, BLONDELLE.
 
“I don’t know where you got this suite number,” she said, turning over his card and seeing the fake ID showing he was an IRS agent. “This Mr. Rampling receives mail
here, Agent Larkin. He has for the past nine years this has been my route. I can’t
say I’ve ever seen the man . . . just his name on the letters and packages.”
 
She seemed willing to side with the IRS against someone rich enough to live in that neighborhood, so Larkin prodded further. “Is there a Mrs. Rampling?”
 
“Couldn’t say, but maybe his mother lives with him,” she offered. “See that open
window on the third floor.” She pointed to curtains blowing outward. “I’ve seen an
old woman at that window . . . usually smoking. Whenever I see her, I wave. She
used to wave back, but she hasn’t done that in over a year. Maybe her mind is going.”
 
“I hope Mr. Rampling is home, so I won’t disturb his mother when I ring the bell.”
 
“No one ever comes to the door,” she said. “I’ve tried to deliver packages that require
a signature. I leave notices, but someone must come to the Post Office to pick them
up went I’m not there.”
 
“I’ll give it shot . . . Blondelle,” he said with a wink. “If no one answers, I’ll have
to return tonight. Thanks for your help. Tell me your last name and the last four digits
of your Social? If your name ever comes up for an audit, I’ll see that it gets buried.”
 
“You can do that?”
 
He just nodded, unable to let himself verbally lie so blatantly, but he might need her
help gain.
           
“Thanks, Agent Larkin,” she said, giving him the information, which he wrote on the back of another card.
 
“Wish me luck,” he said, ascending the front stoop, ringing the doorbell, and thinking how vulnerable poor Blondelle was to identity theft. One good turn deserves another,
he thought, so he’d plug in her data as his part-time employee on his personal security alert. At least he could notify her of any credit breach.
 
Being on the right side of the law sometimes gave Larkin a warm, fuzzy feeling . . .
to serve and protect. That was something he didn’t want to part with, just because
he’d been foolish enough to let Danny rope him into this bazaar security contract
with . . . whoever they were, whatever they professed.
 
He pushed the doorbell three times, but couldn’t hear it ring. He went down the stairs
and looked up where he saw the old woman described by Blondelle—probably Danny’s octogenarian life-mate. A fifty-year-old man enamored with an eighty-year-old woman was hard for him to swallow, but he figured when you’re up to your ears in dung, who has time for psychoanalysis?
 
He heard psst from above. When he looked up, the old woman was staring down at
him. She put her index and middle fingers to her lips and called to him with a deep croaky voice like Kathleen Turner on testosterone “Do you have cigarettes?”
 
He called back, “Sorry, I quit years ago!”
 
“Will you bring me some?” she bargained.
 
“What brand do you smoke?”
 
“Virginia Slims . . . They make me feel elegant!”
 
“One pack?”
 
“Mercy no!” she huffed. “A carton!”
 
“I’ll be right back!” He waved.
 
Heading for the corner newsstand, he considered just walking away, but couldn’t
do it. That would be like leaving a puppy in a locked car with the windows shut
on a scorching, dog day afternoon. With her mind failing, there was no telling
what she might do if he didn’t return. He thought--Damn you, Danny. You knew
I couldn’t walk away from this.
 
Who knew if the old woman even had the ability to let him in? Already suffering
from sticker shock over the cost of a carton of cigarettes, Larkin realized there
might be no way to get them to her, short of her pulling a Rapunzel lift with her
long hair from the third-floor window.
 
She was still at the window when he returned.
 
She shouted down to him, “Door’s open!”
 
He turned the knob and entered, but had to step over a mound of mail that remained unopened—according to the postmarks—for over a month. With a cursory gander at
a handful of mail, he saw that all came to the attention of Daniel Rampling, Esq.  He would have taken time to look at every piece, but the old woman shrilled for her cigarettes from the third floor landing above. 
 
When he came to a puffing halt on the third floor, he saw her reclining on a mauve-
colored love seat and watching a black-and-white movie from the Fifties as she
waited for his delivery of her favorite smokes. He hurriedly broke open a carton,
then a pack, and offered her a long, thin cigarette, which she lit herself with a
butane lighter drawn ceremoniously from her cleavage, exposed for a moment
by the gap of her florid, satin robe.
 
He figured she was nimble enough to handle three flights of stairs and to have
recently bathed herself, since her long, white hair was still damp and her zaftig  
figure emitted a natural essence of hygienic cleanliness. He felt self-conscious
—almost guilty—about his attraction to her with his thoughts burgeoning with
prurient curiosity about her.
 
“You’re the new kid on the block, I suppose—my new companion,” she said
with an exhaled cloud that engulfed his face. “Think you’re up to it?”
 
He gave her a glare. “Up to what?”
 
“Whatever I can dish out,” she said wistfully, and gave him an innocent flutter of
her false eyelashes. “You remind me of Billy Holden . . . in Picnic—bare-chested
and hard as a sharp piece of steel. Are you one of those bad good guys, the kind who
can make a woman surrender in ways she never thought possible?”
 
“No. I’m good bad guy who won’t let any woman talk him out of whatever needs
to be done in her best interest. Where’s Danny?” he asked, observing the third-floor decor.
 
The peeling paint was several layers deep revealing patches of color fashions back
to the Sixties. Though everything seemed reasonably clean, he tried to picture Danny vacuuming and dusting the place to avoid any security breach. He couldn’t imagine himself doing the same. He preferred to do his cleaning with a Glock not a feather
duster.
 
“I don’t know where Danny goes.” She sighed, dragging on her cigarette with dual streams of smoke emitted from her pretty, sculpted nose. The smoke swirled around
her heavily made-up face and damp white hair, giving her a Medusa-like pose. He
imagined her gaze had turned men to stone before—but where it counted most.
 
“Has Danny been here since yesterday?”  Larkin asked.
 
“Yesterday, today, and tomorrow . . . life is but a walking shadow that struts and
frets upon a stage . . . I used to know the drill at Lee-Lee’s studio. He made me
feel my inner being.”
 
“I’ll bet there was plenty of feeling of your outer being years ago,” he said just to
Cross the line and test her temperament . . . to see if a raging hag might emerge--
no dice.
 
“Is that supposed to flatter me?” she huffed. “I’ve always been a full-figured gal.”
She sighed. “I recognize a legman when I see one. You would’ve preferred Marlene.
 I wouldn’t have attracted you—not like that—but we could’ve been close friends.
I can tell from your eyes.”
 
“What do you see?” he tested.
 
“You’re one of those real good guys, like my ex-husbands. I wasn’t good enough
for any of them. I didn’t deserve them. They never let me down . . . but I was too
foolish to let anything go, stuff I’d seen and heard people say and do, important
issues that change lives—even history. I’m here because I was in the wrong place
at the wrong time. Otherwise, I’d be on Leno or Letterman. If people realized what
I know, maybe even on Charlie Rose—a class act.”
 
He grinned broadly.
 
“It’s true! Don’t laugh at me, Danny?”
 
She was so sharp for those few moments before he realized she thought he was Danny. She was playacting in some game they’d established over time. When he gave her a
blank stare, she suddenly gasped for breath. He lunged toward her and put his ear
to her chest then pounded her there with his fist, ready to begin CPR. She waved him
off then stared at him with glassy eyes.
 
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. De Mille,” she said faintly, glassy-eyed, but still
smiling sweetly.
           
He thought she was still just pretending . . . playing him along for amusement.
 
She motioned for him to lean close and held her arms out to him. He embraced her. Against his hot cheek, her hair felt damp as the scent of jasmine flared in his nostrils
and she whispered something in his ear. Before he could pull back to see her suddenly
familiar face, she died with a rattling whimper in his arms.
 
Realizing his danger, Larkin used his pen to flip the receiver off the hook then dialed
911 from the pink, rotary phone on the coffee table. He left the phone off the hook without touching it, so the only article in the room with his fingerprints was the cigarettes. He took them with him and wiped the front door clean with his sleeve
as he left before an EMS arrived in response to the unidentified 911 call.
 
An unmarked van arrived in front of the brownstone so quickly that Larkin wondered if they’d seen him before he made it to the coffee shop across the street. Within a minute
of their arrival, a team of four was in and out, taking her away in a body bag before the EMS got there. Like a pit stop team at the Indy 500, they moved so quickly that their unmarked van was gone before the EMS or any news reporters showed up.
 
The street remained quiet. Neither any EMS nor the media ever came. Larkin figured Danny’s client had rerouted the 911 call by setting up the phone to alert a clean-up
crew if anyone ever made a call from within the brownstone . . . smart . . . efficient
—no trail.
 
Larkin hoped no one had seen him, but as he headed back to his office, his i-Phone
buzzed in his pocket. The untraceable text message read: “We never know who will
go first. You’re safe now. I’m tossing my cell into the East River. I hope they find
me quickly, but I’m Catholic, so I can’t do this myself. It will be on their hands, not mine. Ciao!”
 
 
An hour later, when Larkin walked into his office and removed his jacket and tie, he realized the opened pack of cigarettes remained in his pocket. Pouring a splash of rare single barrel bourbon over three ice cubes, he swirled the tumbler and inhaled the smoky aroma. He took a thin cigarette from the pack and leaned over the gas stove to light it.
 
Plunking down in his easy chair, he watched the trail of cigarette smoke for a moment without taking a drag. After sniffing the whiskey and taking long sip of the dregs he dropped the cigarette into the tumbler, extinguishing the embers on the ice cubes with
the sound of a cat’s hiss.
 
He noticed something on his black trousers, a long strand of white hair. Pulling the hair from his thigh and holding it up to the light, it still felt damp. He slipped it into a plastic sandwich bag then put the bag in his wall safe concealed behind a framed photo of him posed with fellow agents with Mexican Federales from his DEA stint in Guadalajara.
 
The next morning, and probably for the rest of his life, Larkin realized that, although yesterday seemed like a bad dream, the material evidence in his safe would remind him that it had happened. He would have to remain wary now whenever anyone approached him, especially from behind. He knew the image of the mysterious old woman would haunt him forever, but his recurring dream now put a familiar face to her, dead in his embrace, especially with her final words whispered in his ear just before her death rattle: “Happy birthday to you . . . Happy birthday . . . Mister President. Happy . . . birth . . .
day . . . to  . . . you. . . .”
 
 
 THE  END
 
                                                
 
 
           
 
 
 
 

faUx paS
by
Mehreen Ahmed
​

There was banter at the dinner table. People laughed at somebody’s jest. These boisterous gestures of joy distracted me. There were at least twenty people seated here, and the clamour of cutlery and talks rose to high-pitched peals. Then the butler entered with a tray in his beefy hands. On the tray, I saw many bowls of pewter brand. He placed them in front of each person. Most people knew what to do with them. I only had a foray of inkling. I looked away from everyone. I looked at the bowl before me. It held some water and a slice of lemon. I picked up the bowl in my hands and slowly brought it up to my lips. Between my lips, I placed the pewter rim, and drank the water straight off its brim. Dead silence dropped in the room. People who didn’t even steal a glance until now, in-clined their heads all towards me. I wasn’t sure what I had done to become the centre of this sudden attention. My perplexity compounded, when I saw what they did. Finger bowl it was. A mistake made by me. They did just what they were meant to do, dip their nimble fingers into them, and rub them elegantly. I looked at my fingers and deemed them to be clean.


I noted that my hostess, Nancy and Mark suppress a smile. There was nothing I could do now or an-yone else for that matter. No amount of cover-ups could cover what I had done. Oh! I wanted to cut those fingers off. Pull out the nails. That they were meant to be in the anointed water of the holy grail. I felt like running away. But I couldn’t do that either. I couldn’t make an egress, because something had pinned me to the chair. Dried butterflies encased in collector’s possession, I just sat glumly like a frog on a lily pad, in the wake of a rain. Yes, I sat, sat through it, while they watched me in shock and horror and ridicule me. Inwardly they said, I wasn’t sophisticated. I didn’t know the decorum of the kingdom. I knew exactly, every odd thought that crossed their heads. An anomaly had occurred, an oddity took place, right before their eyes, at this dinner table tonight. As much as I fancied to not to appear crude, the brute in everyone, the jury was still out. I knew what they thought, but I didn’t know what they would do to me. I, still sitting, becoming, and gradually com-ing to my senses that the socialites would perhaps abandon me, kicked me out. How dare I brush shoulders with the creams and the gleams of these bunch of elites. While they wondered what to do with me, I thought of a ruse. I decided enough was enough, I was going to save myself from this hu-miliation at any cost. I wanted to normalise. I still wanted to be in. I allowed some fleeting seconds of these petrified moments. Then I stood up on my two heels. I pushed my chair back hard; it fell resoundingly on the floor, to their surprise. I walked up two steps to the door and asked a man standing here, to fetch me a pen and sheets of white paper rolls.


While my audience floundered, I waited for my ammunition. The pen and the papers arrived, I took them in my stride. I quickly laid out rolls of papers on the floor and etched a few parallels and dis-jointed poles. I connected the dots and sketched a tall picture in its opulence, not to mention the am-bience. It was a sketch of this dinner table, and every one seated here in calm demeanours. The fro-zen confused expressions and detailed images, replete with lavish foods, this festive occasion. The pewter bowls were there too, the cause of the faux pas but the picture worthy to behold, although I took a heavy toll.


When my sketching was complete, I held it up in the lights. The disbelief in their eyes, said it all. That I could paint a picture of this magnitude. Some lauded, and others screamed out, ‘say, did you do that on purpose, so you could catch the moment on canvas? ’I took this opportunity and bowed low to ask for forgiveness and to tell purportedly, ‘that it was indeed the intent all along. ’The crowd
cheered, they clapped and forgot about this splendid faux pas. I titled the painting, faUx paS, and then gifted it to my host. This painting received a prestigious award. Another version survived in the gallery of modern arts. However, It was never for sale, because it was the painting which had saved my soul, a re-entry ticket into the world unknown.


It wasn’t the elites that I feared, but my defeat, I wouldn’t consider a feat. My painting may have saved me from one faux pas still, many may await in the future repository. After all it was the few odd faux pas that sent the Boleyn sister off to the gallows to her beheaded misery. The one who spoke her mind, her tongue a shaper bind, in a less forgiving world, faux pas could cause enormous abuse. Transforming Henry’s love into fatal discontent, surely, her faux pas were made at countless social events.


People didn’t know the environment which bred them. Atonements may follow, friendships may mend, to define Cleopatra as not a pretty woman. Or referring to Wales as “part of England,” re-gardless of histories will not relent. And neither would records bend, just because faux pas are an embarrassment.

A Look Back in Remembrance

By Angela Camack 


Princeton, NJ, 1997

"Sometimes I thought they were all going mad," said the elderly woman
in the Bentwood rocker.
"Mad?" asked the young woman with the tape recorder. "You mean the soldiers?"
"It started at the top, contaminating everyone else on the way
down. Some civilians too, Robby. Is it Robby?
"Roby."
"Ah Roby Thank you."
Hannah Lotz was still lovely at 78, with clear skin, white hair in a bun and
clear blue eyes. She was simply dressed in a lavender silk blouse and a
tweed skirt. Poised in front pf a formal tea service, her posture was easy
but erect, spine not touching the chair back. Roberta Hamilton was glad
she had forsworn pants for a suit today.
Hannah's granddaughter was with them, standing by protectively. "Tell
me more about your project, Roby."
"The history department at the university is doing an oral history
project. We're documenting the memories of people who served in or were
active in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Books and
newspapers tell us very little about what people involved in conflict
experienced, how things were from their perspective. So much can be left
out of the " official record of a war. And hearing these stories makes history
more alive, more real. I'm a graduate student in history and I think this work
will be very valuable. One of the registrars is in a book group with Mrs.
Lotz's daughter - your mother? - and connected us.
"Thus the story of the lady spy is needed," said Hannah. "We're fine,
Maggie, unless you wat to hear the story for the hundreth time." Maggie
smiled and left.
Hannah refilled the teacups and moved the plate of cookies closer to
Roby. "So, I am going back to Berlin in 1942."
"Is this difficult for you?' asked Roby.
"No, not now. If I can help people understand it will be worth it.
So, where was I? I thought the country was going mad, with plans to set
itself against the rest of the world. Why? Why would Germany attack her
ow people? One day this shop owner, that family, this student were here,
the next day, gone.
"I knew this would destroy Germany. We had suffered after
the Great War. People embraced the Nazis because they promised economic
renewal, rebuilding, hope. But then everything else started, the
need to overtake the world, to decide which citizens were safe and
those who were not."
"How did you get involved?" asked Roby.
"My family has been in Germany since the 1700's, probably
longer. How could I watch its ruin?"
"Even though you weren't in one of the targeted groups."
"How could I watch the heart of my country be ripped out, its
civilization lost?"
"How did you get started?"
"My husband Stephan taught chemistry at the university. He kept his
ears open. Students were becoming involved in the Resistance. Students are
often the first to push back against authority, to break the rules when
needed, right?"
Hannah poured more tea. "My husband was as appalled at the changes
as I was. He was a man of science, of rationality. He saw teachers
disappearing. He thought it made no sense at all, removing professors
because they were Jewish. What would be lost to education and research if
part of the faculty disappeared?
"So we offered our help. We started by carrying messages. Then I was
introduced to Greta. She owned a yarn shop and knitted sweaters, socks for
sale. She was able to keep a telephone. Nobody suspected the quiet little
Jewish grandmother, knitting away. The information that left that shop in
piles of socks! But some of our members would look out of place in a knitting
shop and attract attention. The professor's wife would not. The yarn and
needles I bought, me, who was clumsy at such things!"
"How long did you keep it up?" asked Roby.
"Two years. Two years of being scared, of being alert to discovery, of
navigating ruined streets. The fear was terrible. People have called us
brave, but we woke up each day with ice in our stomachs and pounding
hearts. And the guilt. We were fighting for the defeat of our own country.
But it wasn't out country anymore, not for everyone." Hannah sighed.
"And your husband? How was he involved?
"Stefan never told me much about hat he did. If we were ever caught it
was better not to be able to give much information about each other. But I
know he started as a courier and wrote anti-Nazi pamphlets. He was a
chemist, you know-yes, I remember, I told you. My memory, these days.
helped make explosives. The Resistance would blow p communication lines,
railroad tracks,bridges. Stopping communication was critical. It could stop
progress for days."
"How did you find the courage?"
"I loved German culture, music, art, drama. Stefan was passionate
about his work. Both were in jeopardy. Did you want more tea, Roby?"
"No, thank you. What did you do after the war?"
Hannah smiled ruefully. "Took a deep breath, at last. Our efforts were
no longer needed and we were safe. But the destruction was horrible. Berlin,
and much of the county, was in ruins.
"Some people left, but we couldn't. Berlin was our home. You don't risk
your life for something and then walk away. Berliners cleaned up the mess
and rebuilt the city. Stephen went back to teaching. But I had changed. I
had been pushed out of my secure life into the world, and although I was
proud to keep my house and raise my children, I wanted to make a
difference in the world. I tutored children and worked as a docent in a
museum. I tried to bring literature and art to people who had not been
exposed to these things." Hannah sighed, deeply.
"How are you doing?" asked Roby. "Do you want to stop, or take a break?"
"No, my dear, I want to see this through."
"I don't have much more to ask. How did you come to America?"
"Both of my children came here. My daughter was a dancer. She came to
New York to study for the summer, and ended up auditioning for American
Ballet Theater. She never looked back, she became a principal dancer. My
son is a scientist, like his father. He became an astrophysicist. He was
fascinated by space travel. Gravity could not hold him. He went to work for
NASA.
So when Stephan died I came here and became a citizen. It's my second
homeland. My daughter lives in here in Princeton and my son in Virginia."
Hannah seemed to be fading. Do you have more questions, Roby?"
"No, I appreciate the time you've given me. Yours is an amazing story."
Hannah walked Roby to the door and they traded conventional good-
byes. Hannah suddenly stopped and grasped Roby's hand.
"You like history, Roby?'
" Very much. What I learn amazes me every day."
"And you will teach?"
"Yes, I will."
"Good. Don't let people forget. It's been only two generations since
the war. I hear of children who don't learn about the world wars, of people
who deny that the death camps existed. I still hear about the old prejudices.
That frightens me most of all. When you hold hatred for a group of people
you lose part of your humanity. Germany made that mistake and was nearly
ruined. You'll do your part in helping people remember, won't you, Roby?"
"Of course I will."
Roby walked back to her car. Throughout her college years she'd caught
a lot of grief about her choice of major.

"You'll never get a job."

"Why don't you study something that will get you a job making real money?"

"Why aren't you getting an M.B.A or studying computers?"

"Isn't it boring?"

Her interview with Hannah would help her answer these questions.

Above: Diptych POE - Acrylic Painting by Teresa Ann Frazee
​

Journal Entry December 22th

by Teresa Ann Frazee

I should not have outlived this. I let go of that little girl's hand. In over a half a century, I never, ever let go of her hand. It's maddening. With the intensity of a religious zealot, I tightened my grip as many obstacles arose down the path of life’s decisions. Void of doubt, always expecting to win the battle, with alarming diligence, solutions and outcomes were carefully calculated, survival was ever on the mind. But there is no victory. Adult and youth, we were one in the same. Our hands forever clasped, I led the way, her pulse mine. We shared a single destiny. This was the only time she was thrust from my care. I took part in being human. Then I watched the fabric of all my yesterday's begin to shred. In not more than a moment, my strict code of behavior was enslaved by diversions deliberate charm, exploring where it will. I broke my rule and took a restless detour. As if waiting in ambush, spontaneity had led me hopelessly astray. Devastatingly lost, the remains of my rapport with her slowly died and was buried under a spadeful of rotting earth. Flawlessly, poised on a high wire of infallibility, I had perfected my realm of control by endless practice, never straying beyond the limits of my code. It kept us in line and we behaved as we should. Yet, pathetically I did not do what I have been specifically designed to do. So certain that only those, incubated minds singled out were, the grief stricken, the fumbling lovesick, the slow to adapt and the very young. Those were the most vulnerable of humanities prey. It never dared approach me. No not me, totally convinced I was too complex to be overtaken by simplicity. I understand these words may provoke inquiry for anyone who may discover and read my journal. You see, I suffer from a sense of unrealistic perfectionism. There should be some consolation. Yet, I have found none. It was so easy to love and protect that inner child who bore my name. With blind trust she held out her hand. The fact remains, she was always my highest priority. Surely, in a master book somewhere, it’s all written down, on an ever burning page. Nevertheless, the adult, who looked at life through the corner of her eye, found herself utterly consumed. And this is by no means an attempt at an excuse, I was reduced to having ordinary human traits, and lured into chasing a mere joyful feeling, much like a cat chasing a ribbon. With trembling open arms, I ushered in adventure, assuming it was a positive change. In no time, that was disproved. Stupidity realized it’s moment. Logic is certainly the sacrifice of the possessed. My independent mind played a trick on me. Betrayed by reason, I stepped out of my comfort zone. How perplexing, like an exiled lame dog, my pride limped away to the safety of a shadow. The cycle of events had made a major impact on my mental and physical well being. My mind raced. Eyes that catered to distortion, glassy and expressionless, aimlessly stared. I became sickeningly thin. My bones protruded, like the ribs of a sunken ship. There in the wilderness of the half imagined, I prayed aloud to a God who must have been called away. Has He forgotten my whereabouts? Did He not hear me, am I that insignificant? Are His looking after me days over. Now I lie wedged between evolution and decay. Pretending everything is all right, I forbid the now. Refusing to submit to the plans of fate, I object profusely to the present. My self respect strains to survive the hour. Stranded on the outskirts of luck, I can barely recognize hope. My heart is filled with dust, where stagnant disharmony ferments in the blood and discontentment oozes in the bone. At a cost, I lick the nagging wound of neglect. Cannot erase remorse completely, it's a permanent stain. Have since given up the expectation of self forgiveness, or lead an ordinary life and rid some of the pain, restoring me to the person I once was. Defeated, slowly like sliding sand into dark collapse, I'm pulled from the wreckage of the past, where mangled memories are kept alive. With a sigh, I regret to say, each night I let the little girl go without a trace. What's certain is there's a child missing and she is me. January 5th Entry… I cannot tell, not sure. It may be January 6th… Stretches of time are unrecorded. The stream of obsessive dysfunctional thinking, is utterly meaningless to write. Quite frankly, I have grown weary of defeatism wasted skill. These are words of a deeply wounded person craving a mind at peace. What I have come to understand, surely, I am quick to forgive someone I love but I look upon myself with a condemning eye. I paid a dear price for this mentality, where perfection is well bred. Oh to be granted closure from a lifelong self appointed affliction. For just a moment, I felt as though, I could entertain forgiveness and pardon my human traits. That being said, It does not stop the pain, it merely is a merciful brief shift in this re-hashing of misjudgment, when emotional strain has exhausted all my strength. Yes, the scars will show. Perhaps, In my private quest, I’ve come to grips with the very thing, I so resent. Humanity devoutly lies in waiting to take it rightful place. I have gone to great lengths to guard myself to resist belonging to my own species. I was born human. It is I who needs to learn that. As dawn’s light was already moving through my room, I look up at the row of books on the shelf, recalling a quote from Edgar Allan Poe, “Never to suffer would never to have been blessed.” My broken spirit, desperate like the control of a dying king, stumbles as it resurrects.

---

A CHILD'S DREAM OF A STAR

By Charles Dickens


THERE was once a child, and he strolled about a good deal, and thought of a number of things. He had a sister, who was a child too, and his constant companion. These two used to wonder all day long. They wondered at the beauty of the flowers; they wondered at the height and blueness of the sky; they wondered at the depth of the bright water; they wondered at the goodness and the power of GOD who made the lovely world.
They used to say to one another, sometimes, Supposing all the children upon earth were to die, would the flowers, and the water, and the sky be sorry? They believed they would be sorry. For, said they, the buds are the children of the flowers, and the little playful streams that gambol down the hill-sides are the children of the water; and the smallest bright specks playing at hide and seek in the sky all night, must surely be the children of the stars; and they would all be grieved to see their playmates, the children of men, no more.
There was one clear shining star that used to come out in the sky before the rest, near the church spire, above the graves. It was larger and more beautiful, they thought, than all the others, and every night they watched for it, standing hand in hand at a window. Whoever saw it first cried out, ‘I see the star!’ And often they cried out both together, knowing so well when it would rise, and where. So they grew to be such friends with it, that, before lying down in their beds, they always looked out once again, to bid it good night; and when they were turning round to sleep, they used to say, ‘God bless the star!’
A Child’s Dream of a Star, illustration 1871But while she was still very young, oh, very, very young, the sister drooped, and came to be so weak that she could no longer stand in the window at night; and then the child looked sadly out by himself, and when he saw the star, turned round and said to the patient pale face on the bed, ‘I see the star!’ and then a smile would come upon the face, and a little weak voice used to say, ‘God bless my brother and the star!’
And so the time came all too soon! when the child looked out alone, and when there was no face on the bed; and when there was a little grave among the graves, not there before; and when the star made long rays down towards him, as he saw it through his tears.
Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels. And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them.
All these angels, who were waiting, turned their beaming eyes upon the people who were carried up into the star; and some came out from the long rows in which they stood, and fell upon the people’s necks, and kissed them tenderly, and went away with them down avenues of light, and were so happy in their company, that lying in his bed he wept for joy.
But, there were many angels who did not go with them, and among them one he knew. The patient face that once had lain upon the bed was glorified and radiant, but his heart found out his sister among all the host.
His sister’s angel lingered near the entrance of the star, and said to the leader among those who had brought the people thither:
‘Is my brother come?’
And he said ‘No.’
She was turning hopefully away, when the child stretched out his arms, and cried, ‘O, sister, I am here! Take me!’ and then she turned her beaming eyes upon him, and it was night; and the star was shining into the room, making long rays down towards him as he saw it through his tears.
From that hour forth, the child looked out upon the star as on the home he was to go to, when his time should come; and he thought that he did not belong to the earth alone, but to the star too, because of his sister’s angel gone before.
There was a baby born to be a brother to the child; and while he was so little that he never yet had spoken word, he stretched his tiny form out on his bed, and died.
Again the child dreamed of the open star, and of the company of angels, and the train of people, and the rows of angels with their beaming eyes all turned upon those people’s faces.
Said his sister’s angel to the leader:
‘Is my brother come?’
And he said, ‘Not that one, but another.’
As the child beheld his brother’s angel in her arms, he cried, ‘O, sister, I am here! Take me!’ And she turned and smiled upon him, and the star was shining.
He grew to be a young man, and was busy at his books when an old servant came to him and said:
‘Thy mother is no more. I bring her blessing on her darling son!’
Again at night he saw the star, and all that former company. Said his sister’s angel to the leader.
‘Is my brother come?’
And he said, ‘Thy mother!’
A mighty cry of joy went forth through all the star, because the mother was re-united to her two children. And he stretched out his arms and cried, ‘O, mother, sister, and brother, I am here! Take me!’ And they answered him, ‘Not yet,’ and the star was shining.
He grew to be a man, whose hair was turning grey, and he was sitting in his chair by the fireside, heavy with grief, and with his face bedewed with tears, when the star opened once again.
Said his sister’s angel to the leader: ‘Is my brother come?’
And he said, ‘Nay, but his maiden daughter.’
And the man who had been the child saw his daughter, newly lost to him, a celestial creature among those three, and he said, ‘My daughter’s head is on my sister’s bosom, and her arm is around my mother’s neck, and at her feet there is the baby of old time, and I can bear the parting from her, GOD be praised!’
And the star was shining.
Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent. And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago:
‘I see the star!’
They whispered one another, ‘He is dying.’
And he said, ‘I am. My age is falling from me like a garment, and I move towards the star as a child. And O, my Father, now I thank thee that it has so often opened, to receive those dear ones who await me!’
And the star was shining; and it shines upon his grave.

Yuletide Yearning
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


T’was bitter cold without a fire in the hearth for weeks. Nestled ‘gainst my little
sister, her flaxen curls ‘neath my chin, we waited for Papa and Mama to return. I’d been
left me in charge of the cabin to be Sally’s big brother protector from what Papa called
“outside influences of the devil which threatened our souls.”
Our parents had left a week’s supply of food for us, mostly bread and blocks of
cheese, and two jars of preserves, peach and plum from the September harvest. Plenty
of snow had piled up outside to melt in a pan over the potbellied stove for water. The
hand pump to our well had frozen solid several days ago. Papa told me not to light the
fireplace for fear I’d be careless and burn down the cabin. Leaving that flaming image
burned in my mind, I didn’t bring any of the stacked logs into the cabin to dry. I used
only kindly to fire up the potbellied stove.
As Papa had said, “The stove is safer, more contained use of fire than an open
hearth. One spark from a damp log could set our lives ablaze. If you and Sally are cold,
wrap more furs around you.”
Some untold emergency required Papa to take Mama on our mule, Moses, to
Doc Martin ten miles away.
“You and Sally will be safer here, Jeb,” Papa had said the morning they’d left,
but Mama had been quiet with a pained expression I couldn’t bare to face for more
than a moment. Mama was usually cheerful, full of joy, which she exuded in song most
mornings while making Papa’s coffee before he went out to hunt for dinner.
I’d scratched a line on the hearth for each day since they’d left me in charge.
Today marked twenty-one, three weeks since their departure. It had been milder when
they’d left the day after Thanksgiving, but a blizzard since had piled a drift against the
door making me have to climb out a window to hand Sally a bucket of snow to melt for
water. I had to stay in view of the window, or else Sally would blubber and whimper for
fear I’d leave her the same way Papa and Mama had left us behind.
“They can’t be gone much longer, Jeb,” Sally said with a questioning quiver. “It’ll
be Christmas any day now. What’ll we do if they don’t come home in time for Christmas?”
“They’ll be back soon. Why don’t you practice the knitting Mama taught you. Maybe
you could knit her a scarf for Christmas. She’d love that, knowing you made it just for her.”
She took my advice, which seemed to help make time pass by faster and take our
minds off our fears and loneliness. I whittled a pipe for Papa as Sally knitted, but as settling
as our craft activities were, each time we heard an icy limb fall from a nearby tree, we’d leap
to our feet and look out the window, hoping it was Papa and Mama returning
safely to cook a Christmas stew to celebrate their return.
* * *
I realized I’d lost count of the days we’d been left on our own. Despite the many
scratched lines on the hearth, I began to fear I’d skipped a day, maybe two. Except for my
midday exit out the window for fresh snow as my only escape from the cabin, the interior
of what had been home became progressively depressing making me feel claustrophobic.
Though Sally looked up at me strangely from time to time, I couldn’t let on that I was
scared. If I let her lose faith in my ability to protect her, I feared all would be lost.
I emerged from the storage bin beside the pantry with curls of wood shavings and
jars of colorful dyes Mama used for making our clothes.
“Look, Sally! It’s almost Christmas and Mama won’t be able to greet Papa, as she
always has when returning from the forest with our Christmas pheasant for dinner. She
always has colorful ornaments she’s made for the tree. We want to be ready with those
decorations when Papa brings home in a freshly cut spruce for us to decorate.”
“Yippee! Let’s do it,” Sally shrieked.
I felt so relieved that our sudden burst of activity had taken Sally’s mind off
how unexpectedly long our parents had been gone, which it did for me, too, even if
only for a little while. Though we’d done as we were told, I began to worry that those
same outside influences, which Papa always warned us about, might have some way
of creeping through unsealed crevices tween the logs of our cabin.
* * *
Later the next day, it felt like Christmas Eve with a celebratory chime of icicles
clinking in the chill wind against our roof. Papa’s orders about the fireplace echoed in
my mind as I considered making a fire in the hearth, even if just a small one from
kindling to give our cabin a holiday glow. I needed to give Sally some feeling of hope.
Some for myself as well.
Yes, I thought. How we needed a bit of holiday glow just to ignite our faith that
our parents would return soon.
“I’m hungry, Jeb,” Sally moaned. “My tummy feels all twitchy inside.”
Mine did, too, but I dared not let on that I was scared, really scared. The bread and
jam were long gone and just a sliver of cheese was left, but had already turned green with
mold. Sally often caught a chill at night with a shiver that lasted till sunrise.
“Let’s pretend I’m Santa, Sally.” I took a bunch of curled wood shavings and strung
them across my face from ear to ear. “Come here, Sally. Come sit on Santa’s lap and tell me
what you want most for Christmas.”
At first, she jumped into my lap and rocked back and forth with enthusiasm, but
she slowly curled her little body against mine and shuttered. She clutched the ragdoll
Mama had made for her two years ago, but one leg and one button eye were missing.
“Yesterday I thought I wanted a new dolly, Santa,” she said with her high, squeaky
voice muffled tearfully against my chest. “But you’re just my brother, Jeb, so you can’t
really know what I want for Christmas. It’s a secret just between me and Santa Claus. If
he brings me what I want most without my telling, then I’ll know he’s real.”
As adorably cute as my little sister could be, she always made my head spin in
circles as if she had a greater sense of magic than I could ever hope to fathom. As I
took a deep breath, just to stall from any response to Sally’s spiritual conundrum, snow
and icicles fluttered down the chimney putting out the feeble fire I’d made in the hearth
with the last of our kindling.
Sally glared at me with wide eyes of joy and shouted, “It’s Santa! He’s trying to
come down the chimney!”
We backed away from the fireplace towards the window and saw a bright star
in the sky, which silhouetted the image of a woman on a donkey, carrying a baby in
her arms. A man’s figure led the woman and baby on the donkey towards the cabin.
“It’s baby Jesus!” Sally shrieked.
I was too dumbfounded to do anything but stare at the door with the sound of
scraping against it from the outside making us tremble. Suddenly it stopped.
“Lift the latch, Jeb!” I heard Papa call to me outside the door.
It was so cold outside that Papa led Moses right inside. The mule brayed with
vapored breath.
“Mama! Mama! Is that baby Jesus?” Sally shouted.
Mama burst into her musical laughter I missed so much since she’d left.
“Certainly not,” Mama said with a trill. “Meet your little sister, Betty Lou.”
Sally held her hands to her chest and sighed. She leaned over and kissed our
baby sister. She nodded for me to do the same then grinned at me and nodded towards
the hearth with a wink.
“Help me put away the food we’ve brought home, Jeb,” Papa said. “Do I smell
smoke from the fireplace?”
Before I could answer, Sally said,” Jeb never made a fire, Papa. You must smell
the ashes Santa brought down the chimney when he brought my secret Christmas gift.”
The gleam in Sally’s eye told me our sister was her Christmas wish, perhaps it
was mine, too, but I’ve yielded to Sally’s intuition over mine ever since.
I felt glum over my own self-assessment of my inefficiencies, but Papa said, “I
knew I could trust you to take care of everything while we were gone. Tomorrow’s
Christmas Eve. You and I will chop down our Christmas tree, and I’ll show you how to
shoot and clean a pheasant for our Christmas dinner. You’re almost twelve, young man.
You’ve earned my respect.”
He must have senses my uneasiness.
Papa leaned down and whispered, “Sometimes you have to change direction or
alter a plan when things go haywire. I thought we’d be back in three days. I might’ve
lit the fireplace after a week, regardless of what my father had told me to do. You held
out as long as you could to obey your father. I’ll never forget that, son.”
I looked back over my shoulder at the hearth, sharing what I believed Sally had
wished for, and wondered if her unshaken belief that Santa had fulfilled her Christmas
wish is what had made it come true.

Myopic


by
 
 Gerald Arthur Winter  
 
            At 4:00 a.m. I start up the black, diesel van with its chugging snort like a pissed  
off bison stomping a hoof to ward off a coyote from its day-old calf. It’s February in
Tampa Bay, so I check under the van with a flashlight to be sure there isn’t a gator
keeping warm from the night’s chill with its scaly back against the engine after last
night’s patient run.
            I was the all-round handyman for the laser eye clinic when first hired five years
ago just back from my final Afghanistan tour, but the job evolved as the clinic’s driver
picking up patients for their cataract and laser surgeries then bringing them back home
the same day.
Surgeons don’t want patients driving after anesthesia. Not until their follow-
up next day and drop-off at home again. Poor eyesight with hallowed images and
watery eyes during healing are problematic if a patient tries to drive a car too soon
without medical approval. Liabilities are a major drain in Pinellas County with lawyers’
billboards outnumbering palm trees along Florida’s west coast highways.
            For the most part, folks are cordial and grateful for the courtesy transportation,
but after you’ve been doing this circle jerk for enough years, you mostly recall the
kooks. There’s been enough of them over the past five years to start a Ringling
Brothers, Barnum and Bailey circus. The nurses at the clinic often wink at me after
their initial consultation with my pickups.
            “You ought to paint that black van with pastel swirls like a clown car in the
circus,” Nurse Wendy once offered. “That half-blind old man with the walker tried to
grope me while I was checking his vision knees-to-knees.”
            “Imagine if you were allowed to use perfume, body wash, and scented hairspray
in the clinic,” I quipped. “He’d be all over you, like he was reading brail, Wendy-bird.”
            I walk that thin line between kidding and verbal sexual harassment, but nurses
can be just as inappropriate along coworker boundaries. Helps let off steam. Stress
runs rampant at this tightly organized clinic that’s willing to serve anyone’s optical
needs. We all feel good about our jobs and sleep well after a long, hard day dealing
with patients’ deficient vision—and often the mental anguish that comes with their fear
of blindness.
            This morning’s early run sends me south on Rte.19 from Odessa to Seminole
for my first pickup at 4:45 a.m. When I first started to work at the clinic, I had residual
visual problems with night vision because, on patrol in Afghanistan, we used night-
vision goggles which diminished my innate ability to see well in the dark without them.
I’ve imagined getting pulled over by a Pinellas County Sheriff’s Deputy while I was
wearing my night goggles that served me well in war— “Step out of the car, slowly.”
            After my second year on the job doing maintenance at the clinic, the chief
surgeon said she’d like to start a free driving service for patients so they wouldn’t             
need cab fare or bother a friend or family member to take time off work to shuttle                               
them back and forth. They’d have to stay at the clinic during the entire procedure.
She asked me to be the clinic’s shuttle driver in addition to my maintenance tasks.
            “I thought you only wanted me for minor plumbing, electric, and lawn mowing?”
I shrugged, concerned about my night vision, which she quickly addressed.
            “I’ll do your eyes, no charge, if you take the job. I’ll double your salary, provide
a new van, and let you have it for personal use when you’re not working. I’m trusting my
instincts about your people-person abilities to ease my patients’ pre and post operation
anxieties with your good-natured charm. I’ll even pay for your personal fuel. We really
need someone like you who we trust, and without doing an exhausting cold search for
someone we know nothing about.”
            She could’ve sold ice in Alaska, so I couldn’t say no. Her trust in me was
flattering, and I already loved my job, even without the raise. Done deal.
            What I didn’t foresee was the rush I got from so many—no pun intended--
blind encounters, Monday through Friday. I felt like the guy who locks the safety
bar across a rollercoaster seat before the thrills come. Often surprised, I’m never
disappointed because I learn something new about the human spirit on every
journey, which makes me feel more whole than ever before.
            First passenger this morning is an old woman who stands with a walker beneath
her porchlight surrounded by dense darkness. A yippy little dog barks inside her one-
bedroom home set on a slab near the Gulf but surrounded by gator-populated ponds.
            “Don’t try to come off your porch till I give you a hand, Gladys!” I shout to her,
always knowing the addresses, phone numbers, and names of my passengers. I use
their first names to put them at ease and tell them to call me “Mike.”  
            I help her into the seat beside me, buckle her seatbelt, then fold her walker,
put it in the rear and close the hatch.
            “Am I your only passenger, Mike.”
“One down and three to go on this round, Gladys. Comfy?”
            She nods and off we go towards Clearwater. The silence lasts ten minutes then
Gladys breaks the ice.
            “Why don’t they toss Biden into a wooden box and throw dirt on him. I’m seventy
and talk and walk better than that old geezer. You know he’s just Obama’s puppet and
the Communists are running the country now. I wish they’d shot all those jackass
Democrats. Why don’t they leave Trump alone? That’s know way to treat our savior.”
            Being under fifty, I’m not thrilled with any candidates over seventy-five, but
silence is rarely a choice in close quarters unless I have only one passenger. Rather
than having my next passenger greeted with a fiery political discussion, I find that
nodding and grunting is often interpreted as agreement, which doesn’t matter after
two cataract surgeries in ten days because I’ll never have to see this person again,
let alone share my own political ilk, which is more like being a forest ranger than a
confessor priest.
            Next stop is a high-end, gated condo on Tampa Bay. I stop to give the security
guard my pickup passenger’s name and address and identify myself as the surgery
shuttle driver by showing my license. The guard phones my next passenger and
confirms the pickup. As we drive through the complex past the condo’s pool, tennis
courts, and marina on the Intracoastal Waterway, Gladys lets out a snort.
            “Don’t mind if you drop me off here by mistake on the ride home, Mike.”
            I nod with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll hang out with you, Gladys. We could play
some tennis and fish off the dock.”
            She wheezes with amusement then lets out a slow, high-pitched fart.
            I pull up to the address, slide open the backseat door, and open the rear
hatch so my next passenger won’t be engulfed in the after effect of pre-dawn
flatulence.
            “Mornin’, Joe,” I greet the passenger as he struts briskly from his porch to the
van.
            “It’s Joseph,” the man in his sixties says abruptly. “Professor or Doctor will
also suffice.” 
            It’s a live one, I think, wondering if Maestro or Your Highness would work.
            Gladys seems to concur with a soft, hissing, “Jeeeesuuuuz.”
            “Must I sit in the rear?” Joseph huffs “If the drive takes more than twenty
minutes and I have to stare at the back of the front seat, I’ll get car sick—maybe  
vomit in the van.”
            “Sorry, Joseph, but the elderly woman in the front needs my help in and
out of the van with her walker. Only the front seat has the proper handles to let
her hold on. She made the front-seat request on her application at her pre-op interview.”
            “No one asked me where I preferred to sit,” he huffs.
            “Probably because you’re ambulatory.” I slide the rear door closed.
            “The instruction sheet said no perfume, hairspray, or body wash,” Joseph
complains. “Have you been eating your lunch in this van? Smells like rotten eggs
back here.”
            “Sorry. Just crack your window open for a minute while we’re on Route 19.”
            “My, God,” he growls gasping for breath.
            Gladys responds with an audible fart, to erase any doubt about the source
of the olfactory offense. I crack my window for more relief. Fortunately, the clinic
calls me to see how my pickups are progressing, which muffles any additional
reprise from Gladys, but Joseph sounds short of breath.
            “Yes, I have my first two passengers, heading for the third,” I say on my
Blue Tooth hands-free connection. “OK. I’ll call you when I’ve picked up my last
patient and I’m heading for the clinic. Right now, barring traffic, I’ll be back at the
clinic by 7 a.m.”
            “Where’s the next stop?” Joseph asks with impatience.
            “Palm Harbor in about ten minutes, then Tarpon Springs and a short drive from
there to the clinic in Holiday.”
            “I should’ve had my daughter fly down from New York to drive me,” Joseph says.
“She was too busy with her asshole boyfriend. I paid for her four years at NYU and she
can’t spare a goddamn week to help her father. Thankless brat. Always sided with her
damn mother—bitch.”
            “Huh! Maybe her mother is less of a bitch than you--Joseph!” Gladys huffs.
            “I don’t have to take that from you—you—you. Ah!”
            “Please, folks. It’s a short drive. No need to be unpleasant. Relax and you’ll both
be home in a few hours from now. You’ve been fasting and haven’t had your morning
coffee. Makes you irritable. Happens on all my pickups. So, Joseph, what kind of
professor are you, doctor of what?”
            “Psychology. I’m a therapist.”
            Gladys, snorts, “Only crazy people go to therapists. Total rip-off.”
            “Mental health is an important issue in today’s society,” Joseph retorts.
            “Doctor, heal thyself,” Gladys grumbles.
            Fortunately, curiosity, including my own, silences my passengers as we pull up
near a self-storage complex. A woman in her fifties wearing lemon yellow shorts and a
neon pink halter stands in front of the security gate. With the morning sunrise breaking
the eastern horizon, she strikes a pose in a beam of sunlight. The sun glows around
her, showing a deep tan and silhouettes her short, frizzed coif that looked like she’s just
rolled out of bed without brushing it. Before I can get out of the van to assist her, she
slides open the rear door and gives Joseph a shove.
            “Move over, buddy. I won’t bite.” She tips her over-sized sunglasses and peers
over the rims. “Unless you like that.”
            “I say!” Joseph huffs.
            “Say whatever you like, but slide your butt over and give me room. Got bit by a
recluse spider and nearly died last week, but I need room to scratch what’s left of the
scabs on my ankles. Itches like hell. C’mon, c’mon. Shove over.”
            Joseph complies with reluctance. “I say. Dear me.”
            “Me, too,” she chortles. “But I’m sure you won’t like what I have to say . . .”
            “Valerie, this is Joseph and Gladys. This is Valerie, folks,” I say. “One more
stop before the clinic. Everyone comfortable?”
            A grunt from Gladys, a sigh from Joseph, and a chortle from Valerie.
            “This is like Driving, Miss Daisy 2.0,” Valerie grumbles. “Shit! I’m having caffeine
withdrawal. Can’t wait till this is over, and I can sip my cappuccino with lunch. Hey, Joe,
did you cut the cheese back here? Whew! Stinks like hell!”
            “I concur,” Joseph says with a nod towards Gladys in the front seat. “I had
encountered the same unpleasant scent upon entry.”
            “My first husband was unpleasant, Joe. This is putrid. Like death on wheels.”
            “Crack your windows, and I’ll put the A/C on blast,” I say.
            “Joseph is a shrink,” Gladys offers to distract the focus on her digestive
symphony.
            Valerie asks Joseph, “Many aliens show up for therapy, Doc?”
            “I have a few Mexican patients.”
            “No-no. I mean from Mars or Venus. I married one, but he had to report
back to base on Venus a couple of years ago. He should’ve had one of these
laser procedures. He couldn’t see worth shit, Myopia.”
            “No doubt,” Joseph says with a dry hiss that goes over Valerie’s head.                 
            “I used to call him my Venetian blind. He couldn’t go to any of our doctors
because they’d see the gills behind his ears. He could swim underwater in the Gulf
without coming up for an hour. Cheated on me with a manatee. Nearly died when
the red tide poisoned the Gulf a couple of years ago. That’s why he really had to go
back to Venus, for the cure. There are no diseases on Venus because they have the
best doctors there.”
            Gladys whispers to me, “Drop her off at the nut house.”
            I just smile and announce, “Last pickup, folks!”
            I haven’t been down this narrow road in Palm Harbor before. Right off Rte.19,
the road meanders through scrub palms towards the west shore of Lake Tarpon. A sign
posted outside a rusty gate looks more like a means to keep occupants in rather than
to keep intruders out. I notice a security camera atop a ten-foot metal fence post with
a sign that says:
            UNDER SUVEILLANCE BY ORDER OF PINELLAS CO. SHERIFF’S DEPT.
            The morning sunrise lights up a dozen mobile homes like a tray of corn muffins
fresh out of the oven with a yellow glow to the identical white structures. Signs are
posted on doors of each residence with a black-and-white photo. I squint to read the
closest sign, which reads beneath the photo: REGISTERED PEDOPHILE.
The names of the occupants are posted beneath their photos. Optically
challenged, my three passengers can’t read the distant signs, but the sound of my
diesel van makes lights in every residence turn on. Then, like a scene from THE
WALKING DEAD, resident pedophiles stand in their doorways with a Pavlovian
response to fresh meat. Only one of the suburban inmates comes towards the van.
            I call to him, "Henry!"
            "Yeah, yeah," he huffs and opens the backdoor, wedging Valerie between
him and Joseph.
            "Henry, that's Valerie beside you, Joseph on her left, and Gladys up front with
me. I'm Mike. Folks, this is Henry."
            "Is this some kind of co-op?" Valerie asks Henry.
            "Uh. Yeah, yeah. Sure, that's what it is," Henry grumbles.
            I’ve read about this place in the news. It’s paid for by the state and county to
keep convicted pedophiles housed where they can be closely watched by the Sheriff's
Department.
            “Must be swell living so close to the lake,” Valerie says.
            “What planet are you from, girl?” Henry asks her with sarcastic pitch.”
            “This one, Henry, but one can never be sure. Aliens from Venus smell like
cucumbers. Almost married one, but he had to go home. You smell like tobacco.”
            “You smell like trouble, girl. You on somethin’?”
            “I’m on the level, Henry. But at fifty, I’m flattered to be called ‘girl’. My Venetian
just grunted when he wanted my attention. Never picked up our language.”
            “Ugh. How much longer, Mike?” Joseph huffs.
            “U-turn at the next light and we’re there.”
            “Thank God,” Gladys sighs.
            “Indeed,” Joseph says under his breath.
            “Five minutes was already too long for me,” Henry grumbles.
            “You takin’ us home later, Mike?” Valerie asks, putting a long-nailed hand
on my shoulder.
            “None other, Valerie. I’m the only driver. You should all gather in the lobby
after your procedures. Should be about noon. Then I’ll take you all home.”
            At the clinic, I get Gladys’s walker and help her out of the van. Joseph and
Henry forge ahead of Valeri as if she has the plague, so I hold the door open for
her. She winks at me.
            “Such a gentlemen, Mike. Are you married?”
            “To my job. Go to the desk and check in.” I point to the others lined up
ahead of her.
            “Thanks, Honey,” she says, pinching my cheek on tiptoes to reach my face.
“See ya later.”
            I nod, take a deep breath, and sign in with my manifest naming the patients
I drove and the time I picked them up. Chief surgeon, Nancy, who hired me, heads
across the lobby towards the OR. She wears a surgical mask, but one eye winks at
me, then she gives me a thumbs up. I’ve never indulged with Nancy in the verbal
flirting that’s prevalent at the clinic. She’s the boss. I’ve heard she’s been divorced
for several years. Maybe it’s my military training that makes Nancy taboo, like she’s
my commanding officer and my comfortable livelihood depends on her good graces.
Can’t say I’m not attracted to Dr. Nancy, but she’s out of my league—so smart,
independent, and a face that makes you want to kiss her. Hard to look away from
Nancy once you make eye contact. But she’s not stuck up, as if she’s humbly
unaware of her attractiveness. Ironically, that makes her even more attractive to me.
I’m thankful she’s masked whenever we talk at the clinic. That way I only have to deal
with her sparkling green eyes. My obsession is pointless. I must stop thinking about
her, but when I’m not driving patients in my van, I have too much lone time mowing
the grass and maintaining the plumbing and electric at the clinic.
Fortunately, when I get home to my house on Friday nights after working twelve
to fourteen hours a day, after a couple of brews with supper, I’m out cold till Saturday
morning. I spend Saturdays working on my own place and Sundays with some military
cronies at a tiki bar on the Gulf, trading war stories and watching sports on the wide-
screen TVs behind the bar. I’ve flirted a few times with women at the bar, but never
brought any home—just casual conversations of mutual attraction whispering in
each other’s ears over the din of live music. A convenience of the heart, or maybe
PTSD from Afghanistan, because nothing sticks, and I forget their names and faces.
 
            After treating the clinic’s foundation with insecticide and fixing a leaky faucet,
I grab a sandwich and a can of Coke from the clinic’s snack bar to eat and drink in
the van while taking the patients from this morning’s run back home. I put Gladys
in first, so the others won’t have to sit in the van waiting for me to get her in. It’s
unusually hot for winter, 85 degrees at noon, and I don’t leave the diesel engine
running while loading and unloading, so the A/C is off. My brow beads with sweat
as I help Gladys with her seatbelt. The others take the backseat.
            “Everybody happy?” I call out to my passengers as I start the engine.
            A cacophony of responses is like banging on a cage full of chickens, but
the consensus is that everyone’s procedures went well. Each was provided with
wrap-around sunglasses to protect their dilated eyes from the bright sun. Otherwise,
their procedures were painless and successful.
            “My, my, Mike,” Valerie says. “Now that my right eye is fixed, you look even
more handsome in the bright light of day.”
            “Thanks for the flattery, Valerie, but I still can’t drop you off first. It will be in
reverse order of this morning’s pickups. Henry, Valerie, Joseph, then Gladys.”
            The off-key quartet of complaints goes unanswered. I’m captain of this ship.
            “You can drop me off on the corner, Mike. I’ll pick up a sandwich at Dunkin
Donuts and walk back home.”
            “Sorry, Henry. Clinic rules—got to drop you off at your home.”
            “Aw come on. Give a guy a break.”
            “Only if you sign the waiver on my manifest and the others must sign as
witnesses.”
            In my rearview mirror, I see from Henry’s expression that he’s perplexed.
            “Forget about it,” he huffs staring out the side window. “I’ll walk back from
Home to get some lunch.”
            Henry’s expression is like a thirsty man in the desert, a look I know well.
At first, I think he’s eying the Dunkin Donuts longingly, but then I see a middle-
school field hockey game in progress with eleven-year-old girls competing. It
seems Henry has more on his mind than food. Maybe he’s just window shopping,
but I make a mental note to call the sheriff’s office at the end of my run.
            When we arrive at Valerie’s drop-off address, in the bright light of day, I’m
surprised there’s no mobile home or trailer park within sight.
            “I have to drop you off at your door, Valerie.”
            “You have, Mike. Just two hundred a month with my bed, a dresser, TV,
and a clothes rack. I have a key to the ladies’ room and my ten-by-ten castle has
A/C and heat.”
            “You live here?” Gladys stammers.
            “Life got simple after my Venetian lover left for home. Tell them back at
the clinic that I won’t be returning tomorrow for a procedure on my other eye. I
see just fine now. Ciao!”
            Valerie uses her security card to open the storage facility gate, then turns
and waves. I return the gesture.
            “What a freak,” Gladys huffs.
            “Indeed,” Joseph concurs.
            “Ah, she’s OK,” I say. “Takes all kinds to make the world go round.”
            “She’s the one from outer space. A boyfriend from Venus. My God.”
            Joseph sighs. “I could do a thesis on her.”
 
            I drop Joseph off at his gated condo and tell him I’ll call him tomorrow when
I’m within ten minutes of picking him up for his morning follow-up with Dr. Nancy. I
head for Seminole to end my route at Gladys’s home. Her yippy dog makes a clamor
inside as I help her with her walker to the front door.
            “Same time, bright and earlier tomorrow morning, Gladys.”
            “Thanks, Mike. I’m glad I won’t have to listen to Valerie’s nutty chatter again.”
            “You never know, Gladys. She may change her mind and call me tonight for a
pick-up tomorrow morning.”
            “For my sake, I hope not.”
            I wave to her from the van and call the clinic to say I’m done for today.
            “Is that Mike?” I hear Dr. Nancy’s voice in the background as I’m reporting
to Nurse Wendy on my cell. “Ask him if he can stop by my home at six tonight to
fix a leaky faucet.”
            I have mixed emotions. Though it’s been an exhausting day with patients
bickering in my van, compared to driving a Humvee in the desert, it’s a picnic.
            “Tell him I’ll make him dinner—pretty please,” Dr. Nancy says.
            “Tell her thanks, but that’s not necessary.”
            Wendy says, “She insists.”
            “OK,” I say and hurry home to shower and shave. What to wear?
I could get messy if I replace any pipes, but it could be just a simple washer,
nothing to get plumber’s gunk under my fingernails. I’ll wear rubber gloves.
I’ve never been inside Dr. Nancy’s home, only in her garage to check out her
car, and outside to mow her grass every week.
            Dinner? No mask. I feel short of breath, like when the Humvee in front
of me hit an IED and body parts of my buddies hit my windshield. Mentally, I’m
trying to balance the worst moment of my life against tonight with the potential
to be the best, a close encounter with a woman I’ve put on a pedestal, an
ethereal creature of higher intelligence and exquisite beauty, a goddess.
            I pull into her driveway and see her car in the open garage. I get out of
my van and smell barbecued beef. I see smoke from the grill billowing from
her backyard patio. I walk around the side of her house and see her tending
the fire and turning over steaks with tongs. Her delicate surgeon’s hands are
gloved for protection from burns. She doesn’t know I’m at a short distance
behind her, admiring her tan, well-toned legs I’ve never seen before. In tight
shorts, her butt cheeks look firm. Her surgical gown could never fully conceal
the ample mounds of her breasts, but she’s wearing a snug halter as she
turns and leans over to baste the steaks. I shudder, mentally weighing them
in my grasp.  
            She checks her watch and pauses to listen for my van chugging into her
driveway, but catches my presence and smiles with those full lips and perfect
teeth—a land mind set for me to blow up all my security since my military
discharge five years ago.
            “Where’s the leaky faucet?” I ask, carrying my tool kit as I approach her.
            She grins and muffles a snort.
            “How else could I invite you for dinner without suspicion from the staff,”
she says with an unfamiliar tone, as if my passion has written lines I could
only dream of. “Want a beer?”
            I nod but feel paralyzed. She clicks her crystal glass of chilled white
wine against my beer bottle. Our conversation is light, the weather, the clinic,
her medical training, my desert tours. She brings me another beer then pours
herself more wine.
            “No leaky faucet, Nancy?”
            “No, Mike. I just want to get to know you better.”
            “You mean like a Human Resources interview for a promotion?”
            She smiles broadly, and I’m hooked, her lips glistening reflectively from
the fire in the grill with the sun setting through palm trees in her yard.
“I realize a got you to come here under false pretenses, Mike, but from my
perspective, this is a dinner date, but in a casual sense.”
            “How casual?”
            “I want you to interview drivers to replace you in that capacity at the clinic.”
            “Replace me? I thought you liked what I was doing.”
            “Of course, I do. That’s why I’ll leave the selection entirely up to you.”
            “That’s like asking me to choose the axe to cut off my head.”
            “Oh no, Mike. I still want you to work in your other capacities at the clinic
—if you want to—but I’m buying another home closer to the Gulf and it’s huge and
will need much maintenance.”
            “The grass, the pool, etc.”
            “Much more than that, Mike.”
            “Sure, the plumbing, electricity, A/C. Maybe you want a dog for me to walk?”
            She giggles, which I think would make me angry, but only makes her more
attractive than I could have imagined. I want to smother her laughter with my lips.
            “Mike, I need your maintenance—up close and personal. Not like ships passing
in the night at work, but fulltime, every day. I’ve been watching you for five years
and, even from a distance, I long for you. I shudder at night when I go to bed alone,
thinking only of you. Though so much about each of us is so different, I can’t keep
putting my longing for you aside. I want you now, Mike, while we’re still young
enough to start making memories. Please, Mike, kiss me and say you love me,
want me, just like I want you.”
            Her words, her face, her scent, all felt like déjà vu, but only a desert mirage
to quench my thirst. Her tangibility might evaporate before I can touch her, kiss her,
inhale her essence.
            “Take me now, Mike, before we have time to think about the consequences.
Dinner can wait. Let’s work up an appetite. Hord oeuvres first, inside, then dinner,
then a midnight swim.”
            Is this real? Have I lost it? As I wonder, she tugs at my arm, leading me into
her house, down the hall, into her bedroom, and onto her king-size bed. I’m dizzy
with the taste of her. No part of her chiseled body goes untouched, wafting a feast
of delicacies hidden beneath a surgical gown ever since we met five years ago. Our
hunger is mutual as she snorts, pants, then shudders with delight repeatedly for
hours.
            As if awakening from a coma, my own breathing, and the occasional shriek
of waterfowl, slowly reveal the strangeness of my surroundings. It was similar in
the desert, those few moments before dawn recalling happy images of my family
when I was a kid, sports victories, college frat parties all swallowed up with the
roar of the Humvee ready for patrol into uncertainty and a cold sweat of fear, less
for myself than for my buddies. I was always the toughest nut. My nickname was
“Wolverine,” the only whacko creature in nature who’d stand up to a grizzly bear
five times its size.
            But somehow, the beast in me has been tamed, maybe bewitched by a
woman with the seductive charm to bring me back to her lair. I hear her singing
cheerfully, like the trill of a bird from the kitchen. Quietly, I fumble towards the
light from the kitchen beaming down the hall. Naked, I peak around the corner
and see her wearing just an apron as she prepares breakfast at the stove.
            Did we ever eat the steaks last night? My stomach growls in response
as I approach her from behind then wrap my tattooed forearms around her
waste and nuzzle her neck. As she sighs, I notice two slits, one behind each
ear.
            A face lift, I figure. So what. Everything else is natural. No boob job.
I love her, my Dr. Nancy. I’ll never mention the scars behind her ears. If she
wants to tell me, that’s her choice. She turns to face me with those shimmering,
green eyes and kisses me.
            “I sliced up the steak to make you a sandwich for lunch, Mike. But I
know you’re starving, so I’ve made you an omelet for breakfast. I’m going to
have a swim in the pool first, then I’ll join you.”
            She pecks my lips with hers then slips out of the apron and dives into
her sixty-by-forty-foot pool. I sip my black coffee and savor the omelet as I
watch her naked figure swimming underwater from one end of the pool to
the other. I pause, coffee mug in hand, anticipating her loud burst of breath and
a water spray at the far end of the pool, but she’s made one of those Olympic
turns off the wall and continues back towards me underwater.
            I sip my coffee and grin, watching how graceful her nakedness cuts through
the water like a dolphin. I grab a fresh, fluffy towel from the back of my chair and
walk towards the near end of the pool. I’m prepared to congratulate Nancy on her
amazing underwater swim two lengths of the pool. But rather than embracing her
cool nakedness with the towel, I watch with shock as she pushes off the wall again
back towards the far end of the pool.
            Stunned, I wait to see if she’ll making it underwater to the far end again. She
does. My pulse starts pounding in my head as I watch her coming towards me
underwater. When she’s close, I put my hand into the pool and slap the water to
get her attention and make her stop and surface. She pushes off the wall again, but
gives me a wave with one hand as she continues at the same speed toward the far
end of the pool. . .   
 
            Three hours later, I find the steak sandwich Nancy made for my lunch. It’s
yummy, but not as delicious as Nancy was last night.
I figure, must be a dream. I’ll wake up soon with the Humvee ready for morning
patrol. I anticipate a shout—Let’s go Wolverine!
I recall the scent of cucumbers from Nancy’s hair last night as I reached the
warmth of her slick core. Her scent reminds me of the odd sound I heard while
nuzzling her ear.
Now, in the bright light of day, I recall what kookie Valerie had said about her
boyfriend: “I used to call him my Venetian blind. He couldn’t go to any of our doctors
because they’d see the gills behind his ears. He could swim underwater in the Gulf
without coming up for an hour. Cheated on me with a manatee. Nearly died when
the red tide poisoned the Gulf a couple of years ago. That’s why he really had to go
back to Venus, for the cure. There are no diseases on Venus because they have the
best doctors there.”  
            I finish eating the steak sandwich and wait, but with more confidence now.
I stop counting laps and no longer worry about when Nancy will surface.
When she finally does, I ask her, “Are you from Venus?”
She takes the fluffy towel and wraps it around her shoulders then wrinkles
her nose with a giggle. “Of course, Mike. Aren’t you from Mars? Our love is out
of this world.”
 
                                                            __________

A CHARMED LIFE

By Richard Harding Davis
​

She loved him so, that when he went away to a little war in which his country was interested she could not understand, nor quite forgive.

As the correspondent of a newspaper, Chesterton had looked on at other wars; when the yellow races met, when the infidel Turk spanked the Christian Greek; and one he had watched from inside a British square, where he was greatly alarmed lest he should be trampled upon by terrified camels. This had happened before he and she had met. After they met, she told him that what chances he had chosen to take before he came into her life fell outside of her jurisdiction. But now that his life belonged to her, this talk of his standing up to be shot at was wicked. It was worse than wicked; it was absurd.

When the Maine sank in Havana harbor and the word "war" was appearing hourly in hysterical extras, Miss Armitage explained her position.

"You mustn't think," she said, "that I am one of those silly girls who would beg you not to go to war."

At the moment of speaking her cheek happened to be resting against his, and his arm was about her, so he humbly bent his head and kissed her, and whispered very proudly and softly, "No, dearest."

At which she withdrew from him frowning.

"No! I'm not a bit like those girls," she proclaimed. "I merely tell you YOU CAN'T GO! My gracious!" she cried, helplessly. She knew the words fell short of expressing her distress, but her education had not supplied her with exclamations of greater violence.

"My goodness!" she cried. "How can you frighten me so? It's not like you," she reproached him. "You are so unselfish, so noble. You are always thinking of other people. How can you talk of going to war—to be killed—to me? And now, now that you have made me love you so?"

The hands, that when she talked seemed to him like swallows darting and flashing in the sunlight, clutched his sleeve. The fingers, that he would rather kiss than the lips of any other woman that ever lived, clung to his arm. Their clasp reminded him of that of a drowning child he had once lifted from the surf.

"If you should die," whispered Miss Armitage. "What would I do. What would I do!"

"But my dearest," cried the young man. "My dearest ONE! I've GOT to go. It's our own war. Everybody else will go," he pleaded. "Every man you know, and they're going to fight, too. I'm going only to look on. That's bad enough, isn't it, without sitting at home? You should be sorry I'm not going to fight."

"Sorry!" exclaimed the girl. "If you love me—"

"If I love you," shouted the young man. His voice suggested that he was about to shake her. "How dare you?"

She abandoned that position and attacked from one more logical.

"But why punish me?" she protested. "Do I want the war? Do I want to free Cuba? No! I want YOU, and if you go, you are the one who is sure to be killed. You are so big—and so brave, and you will be rushing in wherever the fighting is, and then—then you will die." She raised her eyes and looked at him as though seeing him from a great distance. "And," she added fatefully, "I will die, too, or maybe I will have to live, to live without you for years, for many miserable years."

Fearfully, with great caution, as though in his joy in her he might crush her in his hands, the young man drew her to him and held her close. After a silence he whispered. "But, you know that nothing can happen to me. Not now, that God has let me love you. He could not be so cruel. He would not have given me such happiness to take it from me. A man who loves you, as I love you, cannot come to any harm. And the man YOU love is immortal, immune. He holds a charmed life. So long as you love him, he must live."

The eyes of the girl smiled up at him through her tears. She lifted her lips to his. "Then you will never die!" she said.

She held him away from her. "Listen!" she whispered. "What you say is true. It must be true, because you are always right. I love you so that nothing can harm you. My love will be a charm. It will hang around your neck and protect you, and keep you, and bring you back to me. When you are in danger my love will save you. For, while it lives, I live. When it dies—"

Chesterton kissed her quickly.

"What happens then," he said, "doesn't matter."

The war game had run its happy-go-lucky course briefly and brilliantly, with "glory enough for all," even for Chesterton. For, in no previous campaign had good fortune so persistently stood smiling at his elbow. At each moment of the war that was critical, picturesque, dramatic, by some lucky accident he found himself among those present. He could not lose. Even when his press boat broke down at Cardenas, a Yankee cruiser and two Spanish gun-boats, apparently for his sole benefit, engaged in an impromptu duel within range of his megaphone. When his horse went lame, the column with which he had wished to advance, passed forward to the front unmolested, while the rear guard, to which he had been forced to join his fortune, fought its way through the stifling underbrush.

Between his news despatches, when he was not singing the praises of his fellow-countrymen, or copying lists of their killed and wounded, he wrote to Miss Armitage. His letters were scrawled on yellow copy paper and consisted of repetitions of the three words, "I love you," rearranged, illuminated, and intensified.

Each letter began much in the same way. "The war is still going on. You can read about it in the papers. What I want you to know is that I love you as no man ever—" And so on for many pages.

From her only one of the letters she wrote reached him. It was picked up in the sand at Siboney after the medical corps, in an effort to wipe out the yellow-fever, had set fire to the post-office tent.

She had written it some weeks before from her summer home at Newport, and in it she said: "When you went to the front, I thought no woman could love more than I did then. But, now I know. At least I know one girl who can. She cannot write it. She can never tell you. You must just believe.

"Each day I hear from you, for as soon as the paper comes, I take it down to the rocks and read your cables, and I look south across the ocean to Cuba, and try to see you in all that fighting and heat and fever. But I am not afraid. For each morning I wake to find I love you more; that it has grown stronger, more wonderful, more hard to bear. And I know the charm I gave you grows with it, and is more powerful, and that it will bring you back to me wearing new honors, 'bearing your sheaves with you.'

"As though I cared for your new honors. I want YOU, YOU, YOU—only YOU."

When Santiago surrendered and the invading army settled down to arrange terms of peace, and imbibe fever, and General Miles moved to Porto Rico, Chesterton moved with him.

In that pretty little island a command of regulars under a general of the regular army had, in a night attack, driven back the Spaniards from Adhuntas. The next afternoon as the column was in line of march, and the men were shaking themselves into their accoutrements, a dusty, sweating volunteer staff officer rode down the main street of Adhuntas, and with the authority of a field marshal, held up his hand.

"General Miles's compliments, sir," he panted, "and peace is declared!"

Different men received the news each in a different fashion. Some whirled their hats in the air and cheered. Those who saw promotion and the new insignia on their straps vanish, swore deeply. Chesterton fell upon his saddle-bags and began to distribute his possessions among the enlisted men. After he had remobilized, his effects consisted of a change of clothes, his camera, water-bottle, and his medicine case. In his present state of health and spirits he could not believe he stood in need of the medicine case, but it was a gift from Miss Armitage, and carried with it a promise from him that he always would carry it. He had "packed" it throughout the campaign, and for others it had proved of value.

"I take it you are leaving us," said an officer enviously.

"I am leaving you so quick," cried Chesterton laughing, "that you won't even see the dust. There's a transport starts from Mayaguez at six to-morrow morning, and, if I don't catch it, this pony will die on the wharf."

"The road to Mayaguez is not healthy for Americans," said the general in command. "I don't think I ought to let you go. The enemy does not know peace is on yet, and there are a lot of guerillas—"

Chesterton shook his head in pitying wonder.

"Not let me go!" he exclaimed. "Why, General, you haven't enough men in your command to stop me, and as for the Spaniards and guerillas—! I'm homesick," cried the young man. "I'm so damned homesick that I am liable to die of it before the transport gets me to Sandy Hook."

"If you are shot up by an outpost," growled the general, "you will be worse off than homesick. It's forty miles to Mayaguez. Better wait till daylight. Where's the sense of dying, after the fighting's over?"

"If I don't catch that transport I sure WILL die," laughed Chesterton. His head was bent and he was tugging at his saddle girths. Apparently the effort brought a deeper shadow to his tan, "but nothing else can kill me! I have a charm, General," he exclaimed.

"We hadn't noticed it," said the general.

The staff officers, according to regulations, laughed.

"It's not that kind of a charm," said Chesterton. "Good-by, General."

The road was hardly more than a trail, but the moon made it as light as day, and cast across it black tracings of the swinging vines and creepers; while high in the air it turned the polished surface of the palms into glittering silver. As he plunged into the cool depths of the forest Chesterton threw up his arms and thanked God that he was moving toward her. The luck that had accompanied him throughout the campaign had held until the end. Had he been forced to wait for a transport, each hour would have meant a month of torment, an arid, wasted place in his life. As it was, with each eager stride of El Capitan, his little Porto Rican pony, he was brought closer to her. He was so happy that as he galloped through the dark shadows of the jungle or out into the brilliant moonlight he shouted aloud and sang; and again as he urged El Capitan to greater bursts of speed, he explained in joyous, breathless phrases why it was that he urged him on.

"For she is wonderful and most beautiful," he cried, "the most glorious girl in all the world! And, if I kept her waiting, even for a moment, El Capitan, I would be unworthy—and I might lose her! So you see we ride for a great prize!"

The Spanish column that, the night before, had been driven from Adhuntas, now in ignorance of peace, occupied both sides of the valley through which ran the road to Mayaguez, and in ambush by the road itself had placed an outpost of two men. One was a sharp-shooter of the picked corps of the Guardia Civile, and one a sergeant of the regiment that lay hidden in the heights. If the Americans advanced toward Mayaguez, these men were to wait until the head of the column drew abreast of them, when they were to fire. The report of their rifles would be the signal for those in the hill above to wipe out the memory of Adhuntas.

Chesterton had been riding at a gallop, but, as he reached the place where the men lay in ambush, he pulled El Capitan to a walk, and took advantage of his first breathing spell to light his pipe. He had already filled it, and was now fumbling in his pocket for his match-box. The match-box was of wood such as one can buy, filled to the brim with matches, for one penny. But it was a most precious possession. In the early days of his interest in Miss Armitage, as they were once setting forth upon a motor trip, she had handed it to him.

"Why," he asked.

"You always forget to bring any," she said simply, "and have to borrow some."

The other men in the car, knowing this to be a just reproof, laughed sardonically, and at the laugh the girl had looked up in surprise. Chesterton, seeing the look, understood that her act, trifling as it was, had been sincere, had been inspired simply by thought of his comfort. And he asked himself why young Miss Armitage should consider his comfort, and why the fact that she did consider it should make him so extremely happy. And he decided it must be because she loved him and he loved her.

Having arrived at that conclusion, he had asked her to marry him, and upon the match-box had marked the date and the hour. Since then she had given him many pretty presents, marked with her initials, marked with his crest, with strange cabalistic mottoes that meant nothing to any one save themselves. But the wooden matchbox was still the most valued of his possessions.

As he rode into the valley the rays of the moon fell fully upon him, and exposed him to the outpost as pitilessly as though he had been held in the circle of a search-light.

The bronzed Mausers pushed cautiously through the screen of vines. There was a pause, and the rifle of the sergeant wavered. When he spoke his tone was one of disappointment.

"He is a scout, riding alone," he said.

"He is an officer," returned the sharp-shooter, excitedly. "The others follow. We should fire now and give the signal."

"He is no officer, he is a scout," repeated the sergeant. "They have sent him ahead to study the trail and to seek us. He may be a league in advance. If we shoot HIM, we only warn the others."

Chesterton was within fifty yards. After an excited and anxious search he had found the match-box in the wrong pocket. The eyes of the sharp-shooter frowned along the barrel of his rifle. With his chin pressed against the stock he whispered swiftly from the corner of his lips, "He is an officer! I am aiming where the strap crosses his heart. You aim at his belt. We fire together."

The heat of the tropic night and the strenuous gallop had covered El Capitan with a lather of sweat. The reins upon his neck dripped with it. The gauntlets with which Chesterton held them were wet. As he raised the matchbox it slipped from his fingers and fell noiselessly in the trail. With an exclamation he dropped to the road and to his knees, and groping in the dust began an eager search.

The sergeant caught at the rifle of the sharpshooter, and pressed it down.

"Look!" he whispered. "He IS a scout. He is searching the trail for the tracks of our ponies. If you fire they will hear it a league away."

"But if he finds our trail and returns—"

The sergeant shook his head. "I let him pass forward," he said grimly. "He will never return."

Chesterton pounced upon the half-buried matchbox, and in a panic lest he might again lose it, thrust it inside his tunic.

"Little do you know, El Capitan," he exclaimed breathlessly, as he scrambled back into the saddle and lifted the pony into a gallop, "what a narrow escape I had. I almost lost it."

Toward midnight they came to a wooden bridge swinging above a ravine in which a mountain stream, forty feet below, splashed over half-hidden rocks, and the stepping stones of the ford. Even before the campaign began the bridge had outlived its usefulness, and the unwonted burden of artillery, and the vibrations of marching men had so shaken it that it swayed like a house of cards. Threatened by its own weight, at the mercy of the first tropic storm, it hung a death trap for the one who first added to its burden.

No sooner had El Capitan struck it squarely with his four hoofs, than he reared and, whirling, sprang back to the solid earth. The suddenness of his retreat had all but thrown Chesterton, but he regained his seat, and digging the pony roughly with his spurs, pulled his head again toward the bridge.

"What are you shying at, now?" he panted. "That's a perfectly good bridge."

For a minute horse and man struggled for the mastery, the horse spinning in short circles, the man pulling, tugging, urging him with knees and spurs. The first round ended in a draw. There were two more rounds with the advantage slightly in favor of El Capitan, for he did not approach the bridge.

The night was warm and the exertion violent. Chesterton, puzzled and annoyed, paused to regain his breath and his temper. Below him, in the ravine, the shallow waters of the ford called to him, suggesting a pleasant compromise. He turned his eyes downward and saw hanging over the water what appeared to be a white bird upon the lower limb of a dead tree. He knew it to be an orchid, an especially rare orchid, and he knew, also, that the orchid was the favorite flower of Miss Armitage. In a moment he was on his feet, and with the reins over his arm, was slipping down the bank, dragging El Capitan behind him. He ripped from the dead tree the bark to which the orchid was clinging, and with wet moss and grass packed it in his leather camera case. The camera he abandoned on the path. He always could buy another camera; he could not again carry a white orchid, plucked in the heart of the tropics on the night peace was declared, to the girl he left behind him. Followed by El Capitan, nosing and snuffing gratefully at the cool waters, he waded the ford, and with his camera case swinging from his shoulder, galloped up the opposite bank and back into the trail.

A minute later, the bridge, unable to recover from the death blow struck by El Capitan, went whirling into the ravine and was broken upon the rocks below. Hearing the crash behind him, Chesterton guessed that in the jungle a tree had fallen.

They had started at six in the afternoon and had covered twenty of the forty miles that lay between Adhuntas and Mayaguez, when, just at the outskirts of the tiny village of Caguan, El Capitan stumbled, and when he arose painfully, he again fell forward.

Caguan was a little church, a little vine-covered inn, a dozen one-story adobe houses shining in the moonlight like whitewashed sepulchres. They faced a grass-grown plaza, in the centre of which stood a great wooden cross. At one corner of the village was a corral, and in it many ponies. At the sight Chesterton gave a cry of relief. A light showed through the closed shutters of the inn, and when he beat with his whip upon the door, from the adobe houses other lights shone, and white-clad figures appeared in the moonlight. The landlord of the inn was a Spaniard, fat and prosperous-looking, but for the moment his face was eloquent with such distress and misery that the heart of the young man, who was at peace with all the world, went instantly out to him. The Spaniard was less sympathetic. When he saw the khaki suit and the campaign hat he scowled, and ungraciously would have closed the door. Chesterton, apologizing, pushed it open. His pony, he explained, had gone lame, and he must have another, and at once. The landlord shrugged his shoulders. These were war times, he said, and the American officer could take what he liked. They in Caguan were noncombatants and could not protest. Chesterton hastened to reassure him. The war, he announced, was over, and were it not, he was no officer to issue requisitions. He intended to pay for the pony. He unbuckled his belt and poured upon the table a handful of Spanish doubloons. The landlord lowered the candle and silently counted the gold pieces, and then calling to him two of his fellow-villagers, crossed the tiny plaza and entered the corral.

"The American pig," he whispered, "wishes to buy a pony. He tells me the war is over; that Spain has surrendered. We know that must be a lie. It is more probable he is a deserter. He claims he is a civilian, but that also is a lie, for he is in uniform. You, Paul, sell him your pony, and then wait for him at the first turn in the trail, and take it from him."

"He is armed," protested the one called Paul.

"You must not give him time to draw his revolver," ordered the landlord. "You and Pedro will shoot him from the shadow. He is our country's enemy, and it will be in a good cause. And he may carry despatches. If we take them to the commandante at Mayaguez he will reward us."

"And the gold pieces?" demanded the one called Paul.

"We will divide them in three parts," said the landlord.

In the front of the inn, surrounded by a ghostlike group that spoke its suspicions, Chesterton was lifting his saddle from El Capitan and rubbing the lame foreleg. It was not a serious sprain. A week would set it right, but for that night the pony was useless. Impatiently, Chesterton called across the plaza, begging the landlord to make haste. He was eager to be gone, alarmed and fearful lest even this slight delay should cause him to miss the transport. The thought was intolerable. But he was also acutely conscious that he was very hungry, and he was too old a campaigner to scoff at hunger. With the hope that he could find something to carry with him and eat as he rode forward, he entered the inn.

The main room of the house was now in darkness, but a smaller room adjoining it was lit by candles, and by a tiny taper floating before a crucifix. In the light of the candles Chesterton made out a bed, a priest bending over it, a woman kneeling beside it, and upon the bed the little figure of a boy who tossed and moaned. As Chesterton halted and waited hesitating, the priest strode past him, and in a voice dull and flat with grief and weariness, ordered those at the door to bring the landlord quickly. As one of the group leaped toward the corral, the priest said to the others: "There is another attack. I have lost hope."

Chesterton advanced and asked if he could be of service. The priest shook his head. The child, he said, was the only son of the landlord, and much beloved by him, and by all the village. He was now in the third week of typhoid fever and the period of hemorrhages. Unless they could be checked, the boy would die, and the priest, who for many miles of mountain and forest was also the only doctor, had exhausted his store of simple medicines.

"Nothing can stop the hemorrhage," he protested wearily, "but the strongest of drugs. And I have nothing!"

Chesterton bethought him of the medicine case Miss Armitage had forced upon him. "I have given opium to the men for dysentery," he said. "Would opium help you?"

The priest sprang at him and pushed him out of the door and toward the saddle-bags.

"My children," he cried, to the silent group in the plaza, "God has sent a miracle!"

After an hour at the bedside the priest said, "He will live," and knelt, and the mother of the boy and the villagers knelt with him. When Chesterton raised his eyes, he found that the landlord, who had been silently watching while the two men struggled with death for the life of his son, had disappeared. But he heard, leaving the village along the trail to Mayaguez, the sudden clatter of a pony's hoofs. It moved like a thing driven with fear.

The priest strode out into the moonlight. In the recovery of the child he saw only a demonstration of the efficacy of prayer, and he could not too quickly bring home the lesson to his parishioners. Amid their murmurs of wonder and gratitude Chesterton rode away. To the kindly care of the priest he bequeathed El Capitan. With him, also, he left the gold pieces which were to pay for the fresh pony.

A quarter of a mile outside the village three white figures confronted him. Two who stood apart in the shadow shrank from observation, but the landlord, seated bareback upon a pony that from some late exertion was breathing heavily, called to him to halt.

"In the fashion of my country," he began grandiloquently, "we have come this far to wish you God speed upon your journey." In the fashion of the American he seized Chesterton by the hand. "I thank you, senor," he murmured.

"Not me," returned Chesterton. "But the one who made me 'pack' that medicine chest. Thank her, for to-night I think it saved a life."

The Spaniard regarded him curiously, fixing him with his eyes as though deep in consideration. At last he smiled gravely.

"You are right," he said. "Let us both remember her in our prayers."

As Chesterton rode away the words remained gratefully in his memory and filled him with pleasant thoughts. "The world," he mused, "is full of just such kind and gentle souls."

After an interminable delay he reached Newport, and they escaped from the others, and Miss Armitage and he ran down the lawn to the rocks, and stood with the waves whispering at their feet.

It was the moment for which each had so often longed, with which both had so often tortured themselves by living in imagination, that now, that it was theirs, they were fearful it might not be true.

Finally, he said: "And the charm never failed! Indeed, it was wonderful! It stood by me so obviously. For instance, the night before San Juan, in the mill at El Poso, I slept on the same poncho with another correspondent. I woke up with a raging appetite for bacon and coffee, and he woke up out of his mind, and with a temperature of one hundred and four. And again, I was standing by Capron's gun at El Caney, when a shell took the three men who served it, and only scared ME. And there was another time—" He stopped. "Anyway," he laughed, "here I am."

"But there was one night, one awful night," began the girl. She trembled, and he made this an added excuse for drawing her closer to him. "When I felt you were in great peril, that you would surely die. And all through the night I knelt by the window and looked toward Cuba and prayed, and prayed to God to let you live."

Chesterton bent his head and kissed the tips of her fingers. After a moment he said: "Would you know what night it was? It might be curious if I had been—"

"Would I know!" cried the girl. "It was eight days ago. The night of the twelfth. An awful night!"

"The twelfth!" exclaimed Chesterton, and laughed and then begged her pardon humbly. "I laughed because the twelfth," he exclaimed, "was the night peace was declared. The war was over. I'm sorry, but THAT night I was riding toward you, thinking only of you. I was never for a moment in danger."

Live Seafood

 by K. A. Williams



"You've got to try this new restaurant called Next," my first mate Tim had said to me this morning. "I went there last night after we docked, while you were at that corporate captains' dinner. I'll meet you there for lunch."

I read the menu in the transparent glass surface of the table while I waited. When Tim never showed up I called him on my wrist communicator. "Where are you?"

 A tiny image of his face appeared. "Loading supplies onto the ship. Almost done. Try their sushi. I had it last night. It's great. Order me the sushi and iced green tea."

"All right."

Four identical blue-skinned humanoids with red hair spikes entered. The one in front turned to the others, said "Duf blist eck gor rak shast sed ach kak sku krig cre tonk riv sca tik," and clicked its teeth together.

The device in my ear translated, "That human was stupid. He traded me a new translator for one of my hair spikes."

They saw me, raised their eyebrows in unison and bowed their heads.

Must be a greeting. I did the same and they sat at the table next to mine.

The waiter finally came. No expression on his face or in his eyes. Android.

A buzzing circled my head, then stopped.

The waiter opened his mouth and something slapped the top of my head. He closed his mouth and swallowed. Alien.

"Can't have bugs in a restaurant."

The blue-skinned aliens clicked their teeth.

 I gave him Tim's order and asked, "What's sushi?"

"Rice and raw seafood. It's very popular."

"Okay, double the order."

The waiter returned before Tim arrived and I was hungry. He had brought our tea and a covered silver platter. I lifted the lid and something leaped onto my face. I pulled it off and waved the tiny octopus at the waiter. "Hey! I've changed my mind, I want this cooked."

The waiter was heading toward me but almost got run over by a huge octopus that rushed out of the kitchen area on two tentacles, gesturing with the other six. He gargled something my translator didn't understand.

"What's he saying?" I asked.

"Give me back my daughter, human," the waiter translated.

"Daughter?!" I tossed the small octopus at him and she landed on his chef hat. "What was she doing on the platter?"

"Eating. She's supposed to stay in her nursery behind the kitchen but won't. She must have gotten inside the platter when I wasn't watching and someone put the lid on," the waiter translated again.

Tim arrived. He passed the aliens at the next table who were clicking their teeth. "Why are they doing that?" 

I shrugged.

He sat down and regarded the empty silver platter with a frown. "Couldn't you have left me some?" 

"I didn't eat it, she did." I pointed at the baby octopus sitting on top of her father's chef hat.

The father gargled.

Tim nodded and the octopi went into the kitchen.

"You understood that?" 

"Sure. Something wrong with your translator?"

"It doesn't work on marine languages." I planned to buy a new one at this space station.

"He said that since his daughter had eaten our sushi, he would fix us another platter and our meal was on the house, and he also thanked you for not eating her."

"They're lucky I didn't want live seafood." 

                                                                 

She Loves You

​By Jeff Blechle



            He wasn’t real handsome or real smart or even real popular; Abram Troilus was, however, a real pain in the ass, and it seemed like after every other incident Gondola Herzog wanted to sink her long scarlet fingernails into his throat and fine-tune his larynx. Perhaps fear of a clean and sober life for herself prevented her.
Abram’s thick whitish skin made him a sort of exoskeleton, which helped him maintain a mincing posture while pontificating. He accused Herzog of things she didn’t do wrong, or right. He speculated to strangers about her faults. And his mouth was always hanging open. Yesterday he tripped her at Bingo and sent her sprawling into folding chairs, causing Herzog’s hairspray to lose its hold, and all the old men cheered when one of her hefty boobs flopped out of her tube top and plopped nipple-first into a bowl of tapioca. She had to rush to the restroom with her breast in her mouth, take a few of Abram’s pilfered pills and convince herself that all the crap she had to put up with was worth the daily pharmaceutical buzz.
Now, standing in his kitchen with a small Band-aid on her elbow, Herzog wondered if Abram even remembered tripping her. She asked him.
“Nope,” he answered.
“Instead of helping me up, you told a racial joke. That’s class. There were a dozen colored women in the room.” She lit a cigarette, shook her head, exhaled with her lips to one side.
Abram gazed through his huge glasses into his glass of milk. “Hey, quit filling in my blackouts. I’m old. I like a little mystery in my life.”
“It’s a mystery you got a life.” She turned away and into a thoughtful smoke-breathing pose, jaded by the violence of her own voice and the constancy of the stagnant kitchen, hung thick with the smell of cigarette smoke, cabbage and old coffee.
Herzog was a stout Bavarian woman with mean eyes and a shapely body that moved with the loose reckless movements of a vaguely dissatisfied chimp. After moving it through a tour of the kitchen, she plopped down at the table in her aquamarine scrubs and fiddled with her squirrel-brown hair in its loose bun. Between the refrigerator and a wall cabinet, she stared at a calendar from a funeral home and a wooden crucifix; they appeared to be fusing.
“You sleepy or drunk?” Abram mumbled. “Your eyes look like two jars of cherries that should be thrown out.”
Abram’s doctor had confided in Herzog that Abram could linger on for another twenty years or so, weather permitting, despite his twenty-seven afflictions.
“Well, look at you. One of your eyes is crooked and you have dents in your skull.” She took a long drag off her cigarette and aimed the two fingers that held it at him. “Make no mistake, Abram. I have a lot of better jobs I could go to. There’s better people out there I could be sitting with in the afternoons, you know.”
“Name one.”
“This conversation is over!” Herzog’s harsh voice cut through the smoke like an unbalanced propeller, but how could Abram be alarmed after fourteen hours of sleep, a bottle of sangria, a jacuzzi bath, a handful of prescription pills and a pot of decaf?
Thirty years ago, Abram went to work at the steel mill and carelessly detonated a propane tank, which temporarily blinded and deafened him and compelled him to read brail, not to mention it hurled him six-thousand feet and into tin trashcans. He received a fine settlement and blew much of it on alcohol and charming women. He aged rapidly. Now, at fifty-five, he looked eighty and required a nurse.
Herzog said, “Go see Agnes. Get out of the house and do something besides bingo. Take her to the movies.” She got out Agnes’s checkbook and started checking figures. “You need airing out.”
“Nope.”
“Get the hell out of here, Abram, goddamn you!”
Abram’s dentures collided. “The hell you say!”
“Why ya bullheaded old man, you couldn’t be talked into eternal life by Jesus himself.”
“Wanna bet?” Abram looked around as if he didn’t know where he was—where anyone was. “Herzog, will you join me in a nightcap?”
“It’s one in the afternoon.”
Abram yanked a light blue conical nightcap from under his leg and dangled it, snickering. Herzog rolled her eyes and smashed out her cigarette. For the next few minutes she leaned back and listened to his stabs at common sense, but when the calendar and the crucifix fused into the sword of Damocles and took aim at her, she floated into his bedroom and tossed back a couple of his more colorful pills. In five minutes, she could have flown around the house, and she did.
 
“Gil, does Abram really see things that aren’t there?” Agnes Bass asked her grandson, lifting her cup of coffee to her mouth and regarding him with her usual suspicion.
“No, G-ma, Herzog says he doesn’t see things that are there,” Gil Bass said with red squinty eyes, uncrossing his legs beneath the kitchen table. “She also says he has some other health problems that’d make ya puke. But so what? You’re not exactly the picture of health, meemaw. You look like and old dried-out dishrag that’s been trapped behind a stove for five years.”
            “Boy, you been at my pills?”
Everything about Agnes’ brown and orange kitchen verged on yellow until Herzog tore in through the door with sunlight and a bag of groceries and crashed down on the table with the sound of buckshot on canvas, rupturing a jar of horseradish sauce and a package of bun-length wieners.
“Oh my God! Rover did it again!” Herzog shrieked, running up to a string of sausages hanging on the wall near the stove. “Bad dog, Rover! Shitting on the ceiling!”
Gil laughed.
“Those are just sausages.” Agnes clenched at the lapels of her housecoat. “But something in here does stink. Gil installed that water heater wrong. Best check it for leaks, Herzog.”
Herzog went to make a pot of coffee as if nothing had happened, as if she had entered the Bass residence this morning with decorum and dignity and had found, by way of a passing thought, safety in the knowledge that the possibility of a gas leak was always to be taken lightly, if not ignored.
Gil stood bowlegged with rage. “I installed the water heater right!”
Herzog looked at her watch. “Shit, Agnes. I forgot to stop at Walgreen’s to get you and Abram’s prescriptions. It’s such a pain in the ass doing for you two.”
 Agnes lifted her hand and let it fall against her leg. “I don’t even know why I hired ya. Herzog. Ha! What a nurse!”
The kitchen filled with Herzog’s patronizing remarks as the smell of brewing coffee intensified. She circled the table like a sumo wrestler, putting away groceries, wiping up horseradish sauce and hot dog juice with one of Agnes’s decorative dish towels and crabbing about not getting enough sleep, respect, money, and kindness no matter who she intimidated. Her eyes searched for Agnes’s purse. The special effects of Abram’s pills were wearing off, painting gray the edges of her mind.
“Some blind date that Abram fellow was.” Agnes adjusted her hair rollers. She had dyed her hair cedar brown to match the siding on her house. “Old fart.”
Herzog eyed Agnes like a porterhouse steak that needed turned.
 Agnes threw her hand. “He actually was blind, at least he groped around like he was.”
Three days ago, Abram, wearing his huge black VFW cap and plaid slacks, had left Agnes at her front door, danced to his 1983 maroon Caprice, started the engine, waved, turned the ignition key again, and then swerved slowly out of sight like a bowling ball lost between bumpers, honking blocks away. Agnes went inside sneering at the tiny plastic brontosaurus Abram had won for her at the St. Boniface picnic.
Herzog took her coffee to a rocking chair alongside a window with orange-gold curtains and settled in with a groan. “Agnes, I smell gas. Why don’t you run off and get married before your creepy grandson blows you straight to hell?”
Gil rushed in from the stairwell in a confusion of smoke. “Are you going to let Herzog talk about me like that?”
“Blow off,” Herzog said. “She’s running off with Abram. A match made in Walgreen’s.”
Agnes threw up her hands and her cigarette ash landed in her big orangey-brown curls.
Herzog creaked forward. “Why don’t you marry Abram, Agnes? After a few days of your zany antics he’ll have a coronary and my work load’ll be cut in half. Think about someone else for a change.”
Agnes swung her head at Herzog and her eyes sizzled like two open sores. “Call the old fool then! You two act like you gotta be in everybody’s business. Like you’re both up to something. It’s a sick world, boy.” These statements trailed after Agnes as she left the kitchen for the bathroom.
Herzog’s cell phone rang. “Hello? Abram?”
Herzog heard the rustling of an old man attempting something difficult.
“Who is it?” Abram said.
“Gondola Herzog. I sit with you every afternoon. Listen, old man, since you called, do you remember Agnes? You took her to the picnic a few days ago. She substituted for Maxine when we went bowling. You know, sinus problems, tight stretch shorts, pot belly, raccoon eyes, trollish, deep growling voice, little boy haircut, varicose veins, broad shoulders, no hips, stands with her palms facing backwards. Real looker. Smokes Virginia Slims. I’m always raving about her. Remember? She thought you were coked that time you bowled a strike and didn’t let go of the ball. She loves you, old man.” She put her hand over the phone and hissed at Agnes, who had returned with toilet paper on her heel, “Holy Christ, Agnes, it reeks like rotten eggs. You better flush the toilets today.”
Now it sounded to Herzog like Abram had dropped the phone into a garbage disposal. Then she heard him in the background, “Why, I’ll be. My arm ain’t long enough to read the caller i.d.”
“This is Herzog.”
“Whitey?”
“I sit with you every afternoon. We worked at the Farm Service together for three years, remember? Hello?”
Abram turned on the garbage disposal. Then he hunched out to his Caprice and, downshifting into first gear, drove in a slow parade of veers toward Agnes’s house.
Learned essays could have been written on the excessively tortoise-like manner in which Abram overran Agnes’s mailbox and flowered landscaping, and how he oozed his vehicle too close to the brick of her garage wall and pushed his driver’s side headlight out of alignment against a dripping hydrant. And what dark forces compelled him to turn the ignition key and make the starter scream before he shifted into second?
He rang the doorbell.
Gil opened the door, chewing.
“Agnes?” Abram asked, frowning, hair chrome in the late-morning sunlight. His organdy jacket was huge on him, especially the neck opening.
Gil shrugged with his baloney sandwich. “I think g-ma’s in the toilet battling diarrhea. Come on in.”
Abram ratcheted through the living room moving his hands out in front of his belly like restless hand puppets. They sat at the kitchen table. Abram complained about a fire and brimstone smell and then puffed a cigar to life.
The cuckoo clock on the dining room wall spoke volumes.
 Gil slowed his chewing and peered at Abram’s constantly startled face. “Herzog been popping your pills, old dude? She’s been poppin my g-ma’s. I been selling them to her half price.”
A moment later Agnes rocked into the kitchen without hair curlers.
“Gil, go check that dern water heater. Cold water’s hot.” Her gaze fell onto Abram. “Do I have to call a dadburned plumber?”
“How-de-do,” Abram said, sensing someone had entered the room.
“Oh dear sweet Christ,” Agnes said, picking up a meat clever and
raising it high above Abram to turn on the ceiling fan. “Abram, you look worse than I do. Wooo!”
Gil dashed to the bathroom door. “Ma’s about to whack that old dude you sit with. And I ain’t shittin.”
“Well I am,” Herzog growled. “Get the hell away so I can finish, fool. No wonder I get blocked up.”
From the kitchen came Agnes’s mean-spirited voice, “Gil should be happy with what he’s got, it’s more than he deserves. I know he screwed up my water heater. Trying to kill us. He’s got a third shoulder blade. Aw, you seen him walk, ain’t ya? Like he’s fighting a polar bear. Yep. Tsk tsk. My daughter, who liked her scotch and water, well, her backyard was an oil refinery under giant power lines. Then come Gil.”
Gil leaned numbly and fell into the bathroom and landed at Herzog’s bruised shins. She kicked him. He got to his feet and returned to the kitchen, rubbing his aching nose.
“Did you check the water heater, Gil? Now I’m not playing around here.”
“There’s nothing wrong with the water heater.” Gil said this respectfully, as if for shock value. “And I heard what you said about me.”
Agnes threw up her hands. “You’re nineteen years old, boy! The truth oughtn’t hurt no more! Go see about why I smell gas!” She swung a mop at him. “Now get!”
“Do what she tells you!” Abram shouted at the refrigerator.
Agnes clenched Gil’s shoulders. “Listen here, me and dumbhead here, why, we figure Herzog’s been stealing our meds. We decided tonight we’ll accuse her directly, and we don’t want to be asphyxiated nor blowed up while we’re condemning and ridiculing that sarcastic, hateful tramp. So move!” Agnes plopped into the rocker and wobbled her head at the window. “Thick as a brick.”
A loud release of gas, like a smattering of applause through cracked stadium speakers, clapped from the bathroom. Agnes twisted and raised her butt off the cushion. “Thar she blows.”
Herzog appeared in the kitchen entryway disheveled and knock-kneed, her eyes jiggly, her wet mouth sneering. “Running for meds.” She walked away, sniffing her entire forearm.
Agnes shouted, “Herzog, you want to play rummy?”
Herzog’s white block heels stopped at the front door. “Who’ll be whose partner?”
“Me and Abram and you and Gil!”
A long silence. A doorknob turned. Venetian blinds jangled. “Aw, hell no!” The front door slammed on Herzog’s whooping laughter, but Herzog remained in the house. She tiptoed into the bedroom off the living room and snuck a couple red and brown capsules out of Agnes’s purse.
Agnes moved her head like a bull about to charge. “Gil, by God, go check that water heater before I call the Humane Society.”
Gil headed for the door to the basement, rubbing his hands together before his red shiny cheeks. “Herzog’s finally going to get a taste of her own medicine.”
“It’s about time,” Agnes said. “She’s already tasted everybody else’s. Well, we’ll sort everything out over rummy and Sanka. I’ve ironed many a wrinkle out over cards and coffee. Fixed my first marriage thataway.”
“How’s that?” Abram asked.
“Caught my husband cheating and brained him with a Mr. Coffee.”
In the basement, Gil leaned against the water heater and flipped through a catalog, occasionally rapping on the rusted-out flue with his backscratcher.
“I’m on some powerful mind-altering stuff,” Abram confessed, adjusting his glasses with both shaky hands. He sat across from Agnes with a bowl of plastic fruit between them. “Sometimes, when a breeze kicks up, I’m hugging rabbit ears and magazine racks to keep from getting sucked up the chimney.”
“Well, I’m not exactly popping sweet tarts,” Agnes boasted. “Anyhow, I better gather up all my medications and put them in the safe, especially the experimental ones that the university gave me that make me see Satan.”
Gil yelled up from the bottom of the stairs. “Water heater’s fine, g-ma!”
With the heels of her hands at her temples, eyes slanting, Agnes shrieked, “Chicken today, feathers tomorrow!” She leaned to Abram and pointed at the ceiling with both index fingers. “He’s in cahoots with Herzog.”
Gil snorted from half a yellow capsule, then stared cruelly at the corner of his unmade bed that touched the furnace.
Abram said, “I can’t call the cops. Herzog’s got too much on me.” He tried to eat a plastic pear. “Might have to kill her.”
Gil yelled up the basement stairs, “Backbiters!”
Agnes’s eyes rolled into whiteness. “If there’s anything worse than being young and stupid, I have no idea what it is. Be right back.”
Agnes searched her bedroom. She pulled her head out of her dresser drawer with eyes like stomach ulcers exposed to sunlight. “M’ university pills!” She turned to Herzog, who stood in the doorway with an unlit cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other. “Herzog, you swiped my pills.”
“Naw. Bought em off Gil.”
Agnes grabbed Herzog’s wrist. “Let’s go!” She rounded up Abrams, and then shoved the them down into the basement. “This shit gets sorted out right now.”
While Gil protested, Agnes lifted and dropped his mattress, crushing Abram’s head beneath it, and scads of colorful pills shot from Abram’s pockets and skittered across the concrete floor.
 Gil shouted, “Old dude is Herzog’s stash place!”
Herzog shrugged her eyebrows. “Not even. I down em right after I swipe em. Must have been Abram the whole time. Playing us all for suckers. Good detective work, Agnes. But who here’ll call the police? They’ll lock us all up.” She placed the cigarette in her smirking mouth and flicked her lighter.
Agnes’s house exploded.
Pieces of, and items from, the house, including a strong box containing the title deed, birth records, Gil’s disinheritance papers, and a large bag of yellow and blue cat-eyed marbles, landed unnoticed in the bed of a passing pick up truck and wound up in a landfill in Wanda.
The next day, Agnes’s neighbor gave his statement to the press: “We never seen em outside the house much until, well, right after the explosion.”

 Unknown Threat

 by K. A. Williams


“Look at the third planet's defense shield. What type of material is that, Krudict?”
I asked my co-pilot.

“I don’t know. It is unfamiliar to our ship’s computer.”

“Can you plot a safe course to the planet, Mylont?”

“Negative, Captain,” my navigator said. “There are no openings big enough for our fleet to pass through.”

“Clear the way with our cannons.”

“It might be unwise,” said Krudict. “That material could be combustible and destroy the whole fleet.”

“Then we'll have to keep searching.”

Everyone was counting on us to find another habitable planet before
​a black hole devoured our world.

No Angels Tonight, Please

By Angela Camack


“There’s nothing I can do, you little shit! I’m a psychologist, not an oncologist! I can help them, I do everything I can to help them, but I can’t cure them.”
Alicia Donatello, for the third straight night, woke sitting straight up in her bed, gasping and sweating. The child had visited her dream again. It was a pale, blond, eldritch little being, of indeterminate gender. It was always the same. The child appeared, and said with an oddly mature little voice, “No angels tonight, please ma, am.”
Ally knew who the angels were. She was a psychologist at a children’s hospital in Boston, on the unit where terminally ill children were treated. Not for sniffles or sprained wrists, but for terminal illnesses.
“Angels” were the ones who couldn’t be saved. Ally had been counseling the mother of a ten-year-old girl who was going home with hospice care. She had known the family for two years, had seen how the disease had altered not only the patient but her mother. Mrs. Sands had become ashen-pale and thin, not so much older as disappearing, erased by her struggles.
“Well, I always knew Patty was my angel,” Mrs. Sands said. “And know she will be an angel. I have to hold on to that thought, that Patty’s not going to disappear. That’s the only way I can hold on to any hope.”
The courage of children and their families amazed Ally, especially as her own courage was failing her after three years of working with them. She should have been stronger. The hospital was one of the best in the country, she knew. It provided a completely child-centered environment
and support for families. Treatments had never been more effective, outcomes never better. Clinical trials of new therapies were going on all the time. Children were living longer, often cancer-free lives (with therapies that made them ill, took their hair and often required surgery.) And the families persevered, swimming against every tide that went against them.
Almost all families, that is. Tensions caused rifts in marriages and left other children in the family feeling neglected. That’s where Ally came in. Someone had to help the children understand what was happening to them, to help families carry the burdens and cope with the difficulties. All of them faced the possibility of a terminal outcome, crossing into “undiscovered country,” as Hamlet referred to death. It was Ally’s role to help them deal with the anxiety and depression, to help families deal with tension, and at worst, to let them know they wouldn’t go to the border of the undiscovered county alone.
Ally was ashamed of her own anxiety and depression while coping with her responsibilities. Everyone on the unit faced the same problems. But she had trouble dealing with her own problems. She found herself coming to work early and staying late, to make up for what she thought were her inadequacies in doing her job. For the first time in her adult life, she didn’t have to watch her diet, as food held no appeal for her. She forced herself to socialize, to smile, refusing to talk about her job. Even so, the man who had dated steadily for a year left her, saying he found her “too intense.”
And still the little ghost taunted her in her dreams, a pale little figure in a Minions tee shirt, shorts and sneakers. No longer did the child come only in dreams. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw vague glimpses of the translucent figure in places no child would be, like the staff lounge and the conference room. One terrible day she had to stop herself from screaming at a child in the
hallway, realizing in time that it was not a ghost but a pale little blond boy whose hair was growing back like duckling feathers.
“OK,” Ally thought, “Time for the doctor to get off her butt and heal herself.” She began to see Dr. Raymond, who was the doctor who had been Ally’s advisor while she was in training.
“It’s a tough job you have, Ally,” said the doctor. “Why didn’t you come to me sooner?”
“Medical people are the worst patients, right?” said Ally. “We never want to admit we’re sick. It’s worse when the problem’s between our ears. I think psychologists expect that their work confers immunities to problems.”
“What can we do. Ally?”
“One of my Chicago classmates is part of a practice in Beacon Hill. They’re hiring people and they need another woman on staff. The work would be more hopeful, I’m sure. More money, too.”
“No,” said Dr. Raymond.
“No?” said a startled Ally.
“No. I know that’s not how it works. We have to discover why you feel the way you do and find solutions. But the psych world is smaller than you think, even in Boston. I’ve heard about your ability to work with sick kids and their families.”
“There are people with troubles in Beacon Hill. Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean you don’t suffer,” said Ally.
“I know,” said Dr. Raymond. “But you have something special that makes you so good at what you do.” She paused. “It’s like you’re missing a layer of protection between you and the world, something that most other people have. It helps you connect with people. We always talk about empathy, but you have it by the bucketful, Ally. If the situation weren’t so serious I would
say you were the ‘patient whisperer. You’re able to bond with people, to guide them toward healing. But the gift is a double-edged sword. You’re more sensitive. It’s going to be harder for you to accept that there are limits to what you can do, to what any of us can do.”
“So, what do I do?”
“When was the last time you had a vacation?”
“Fourteen months ago, “said Ally,
“Good grief, and I bet you drag yourself to work from your sickbed.”
“Guilty as charged,” laughed Ally.
“No, no more guilt. Take some days to decompress, to take care of yourself. And we’ll keep working.”
Ally asked for a week off. She spent most of the time resting, going to movies and reading books that had nothing to do with psychology or illness. The ghost-child was never far from her unconscious, though. Being away from work kept it at a distance, but still it broke into her sleep “No angels tonight, please ma’am.” Fever dreams that left her cold.
Nonetheless, Ally returned to work rested on Monday. She’d caught up with friends and bought new clothes. She determined to face her work with a new vision of what she could and couldn’t do for her patients.
She left work on time. She had a glass of wine with dinner and treated herself to ice cream. She watched Casablanca for the millionth time and went to bed early. She fell deeply asleep, only to have the ghost appear again.
She was going crazy, she knew. The ghost was less translucent and appeared to her more clearly, by the coffee machine, at the front desk, in the parking lot. How long would it be before she gave herself away, before a co-worker realized what was wrong with her?
A week after her vacation she had her worst night ever. Even as the child appeared, she saw the curtains of her bedroom move, smelled the lavender in a bowl on her bedside table.
“No angels tonight, please, ma’am. Please?”
“Ally fell to the floor by her bed. “Why can’t you understand? I can’t keep them alive. All I can do is listen to them, talk to them, to explain to them, to help their parents pick up the pieces if it comes to that? Why can’t you understand that?”
The ghost met her eyes. “I do understand. The problem is, you don’t.” Ally went back to bed and fell asleep. It was like she’d never woken. The rest of her sleep was undisturbed.
That was the end of the nightmares, of the glimpses of the child at work. It was as if Ally had been absolved for some terrible failure. How foolish, how egotistical she had been to imagine that she could work miracles, that she could be more than the best possible practitioner. She began to find joy in her work again, and relief at being able to put it aside to live the rest of her life. Beacon Hill could wait. She was where she needed to be.

My Weird Tour Guide

 by K. A. Williams


It was hot for early September, at least ninety degrees in the shade. The sand must be burning the feet of the people walking along collecting seashells. 

Two men from our senior tour group were swimming in the green Atlantic Ocean. They were older than me, and I hoped they didn't need saving. The lifeguard had hurried up the beach when those two young women, in the tiniest bikinis I've ever seen, walked by.

I was content to just sit under the big beach umbrella and watch Ted and Murray bob up and down with the waves. Angela, our tour guide, came over to me. "How are you doing, Nora?" she asked.
     
"I'm fine, but hot even under this umbrella. I was hoping the heat would help my arthritis."

"Has it?"
       
"Maybe a little."

"Good. You can sit out here again tomorrow but now we need to head inside and wash the sand off of us, before going to the dinner theater I've booked. They're doing a modernized Shakespeare play."
     
"Which one?"

"I'm not sure. I better get Ted and Murray out of the ocean or we'll be late."
      
Angela was very pretty but her eyes were yellow. I'd seen her this morning without her sunglasses. Her hair, tied back in a ponytail, was platinum blonde.

But it wasn't only her hair and eye color that were unusual. While she'd been standing there in the glaring sun talking to me, I'd noticed that her skin was dry. There were no perspiration stains under her arms on the white tee shirt she wore over her swimsuit either. The woman did not sweat.

She stood at the water's edge, called to the men, and they headed toward her. 

***

We weren't late but I would have rather missed it. The meal was excellent, though I couldn't say the same thing about the play. It had been dreadful listening to Amerians trying to say the lines to "Romeo and Juliet" with British accents. It was almost a relief when the main characters died at the end, but at least I didn't laugh like Angela did. 

I mentioned to my roommate Betsy that night about how weird Angela was and she said, "You're not used to hanging around young people, Nora. They're all like that."

***

The next day on the beach proved that Angela really was different. Ted and Murray were enjoying their afternoon swim as usual, and Angela was checking her watch. I couldn't remember the plan for tonight's entertainment, but I hoped it wasn't another night at the dinner theater. I'd hate to see them ruin my favorite Shakespeare play, "Macbeth".

Angela called to them like yesterday. Ted was slower getting out of the ocean, and a big wave knocked him down. Angela walked into the surf without hesitation, and pulled him up.

When she came out of the water, I noticed her feet. The left one was turned almost backward, and she walked on it without limping. Then she flexed her foot and it moved back into place.

Betsy sat two umbrellas away with her head down reading a mystery novel, and obviously hadn't noticed anything unusual. I opened my science fiction paperback quickly and pretended to be totally engrossed in the plot about a UFO investigator. 

"I guess you saw that, didn't you, Nora?"

"Saw what?" I didn't look up from my book.

"You might be more convincing if you weren't holding your book upside down."

I put the book down and regarded her evenly. "What do you think I saw, Angela?"

"You know what I'm talking about, I twisted my ankle."

"I put one of those stretchy wraps around mine when that happens to me."

"I know you've been watching me."

"Okay, you're right, I have been watching you. You're weird. No offense. You don't sweat. Your eyes and hair are an odd color. You laughed at the end of "Romeo and Juliet" and it's a tragedy."

"Their version certainly was." She cackled.

I couldn't argue with her about that. 

"And you have a strange laugh," I continued. "I observed all that before you walked on what appeared to be a badly broken ankle, without seeming to be in any pain. And then you moved it back into place. I know you're really unusual. Are you an alien?" 

Angela turned around to see if anyone could overhear our conversation, and seemed to be thinking about how to answer. "I'm not supposed to reveal my identity, but since you've already guessed, I might as well tell you the truth. Yes. But we're humanoid, just a little different in our anatomy."

"Are you here to conquer the planet?"

"Of course not. We're mostly only observing you Earthlings. Although some of us, like me, are interacting with the planet's citizens, we're not ready to make official contact yet. Your species is too volatile. I hope you haven't said anything to the others." She sounded worried.

"Who would believe me? I told Betsy I thought you were weird, and she just said I wasn't used to young people. It can be our secret."

"Thank you for that."

***

No one wanted to go back to the dinner theater, so Angela took us uptown to the Beach Pavilion. It was late in the season with no kids around, they had gone back to school, so the pavilion wasn't that crowded.

We split up. Tim and Murray went to the shooting gallery, others got cotton candy, a few went to the arcade, and the rest of us went on the more sedate rides.

Angela joined me on the Ferris wheel. We enjoyed the ride awhile before she pressed something into my hand. 

"What's this?" I asked.
      
"I'm not supposed to interfere in any way, but I'm a bit of a rule breaker, and I like helping people. I know you have arthritis. It's a cure."

"Just the one pill?"

"That's it."

"Thank you. Why don't you change your mind? Go ahead and conquer our planet, we might be better off."

She only cackled in response.

                                                       

THE VISION OF THE FOUNTAIN

By Nathaniel Hawthorne (July 4, 1804 – May 19, 1864) 


At fifteen, I became a resident in a country village, more than a hundred miles from home. The morning after my arrival--a September morning, but warm and bright as any in July--I rambled into a wood of oaks, with a few walnut-trees intermixed, forming the closest shade above my head. The ground was rocky, uneven, overgrown with bushes and clumps of young saplings, and traversed only by cattle-paths. The track, which I chanced to follow, led me to a crystal spring, with a border of grass, as freshly green as on a May morning, and overshadowed by the limb of a great oak. One solitary sunbeam found its way down, and played like a goldfish in the water.

From my childhood, I have loved to gaze into a spring. The water filled a circular basin, small but deep, and set round with stones, some of which were covered with slimy moss, the others naked, and of variegated hue, reddish, white, and brown. The bottom was covered with coarse sand, which sparkled in the lonely sunbeam, and seemed to illuminate the spring with an unborrowed light. In one spot, the gush of the water violently agitated the sand, but without obscuring the fountain, or breaking the glassiness of its surface. It appeared as if some living creature were about to emerge--the Naiad of the spring, perhaps--in the shape of a beautiful young woman, with a gown of filmy water-moss, a belt of rainbow-drops, and a cold, pure, passionless countenance. How would the beholder shiver, pleasantly, yet fearfully, to see her sitting on one of the stones, paddling her white feet in the ripples, and throwing up water, to sparkle in the sun! Wherever she laid her hands on grass and flowers, they would immediately be moist, as with morning dew. Then would she set about her labors, like a careful housewife, to clear the fountain of withered leaves, and bits of slimy wood, and old acorns from the oaks above, and grains of corn left by cattle in drinking, till the bright sand, in the bright water, were like a treasury of diamonds. But, should the intruder approach too near, he would find only the drops of a summer shower glistening about the spot where he had seen her.

Reclining on the border of grass, where the dewy goddess should have been, I bent forward, and a pair of eyes met mine within the watery mirror. They were the reflection of my own. I looked again, and lo! another face, deeper in the fountain than my own image, more distinct in all the features, yet faint as thought. The vision had the aspect of a fair young girl, with locks of pale gold. A mirthful expression laughed in the eyes and dimpled over the whole shadowy countenance, till it seemed just what a fountain would be, if, while dancing merrily into the sunshine, it should assume the shape of woman. Through the dim rosiness of the cheeks, I could see the brown leaves, the slimy twigs, the acorns, and the sparkling sand. The solitary sunbeam was diffused among the golden hair, which melted into its faint brightness, and became a glory round that head so beautiful!

My description can give no idea how suddenly the fountain was thus tenanted, and how soon it was left desolate. I breathed; and there was the face! I held my breath; and it was gone! Had it passed away, or faded into nothing? I doubted whether it had ever been.

My sweet readers, what a dreamy and delicious hour did I spend, where that vision found and left me! For a long time I sat perfectly still, waiting till it should reappear, and fearful that the slightest motion, or even the flutter of my breath, might frighten it away. Thus have I often started from a pleasant dream, and then kept quiet, in hopes to wile it back. Deep were my musings, as to the race and attributes of that ethereal being. Had I created her? Was she the daughter of my fancy, akin to those strange shapes which peep under the lids of children's eyes? And did her beauty gladden me, for that one moment, and then die? Or was she a water-nymph within the fountain, or fairy, or woodland goddess peeping over my shoulder, or the ghost of some forsaken maid, who had drowned herself for love? Or, in good truth, had a lovely girl, with a warm heart, and lips that would bear pressure, stolen softly behind me, and thrown her image into the spring?

I watched and waited, but no vision came again. I departed, but with a spell upon me, which drew me back, that same afternoon, to the haunted spring. There was the water gushing, the sand sparkling, and the sunbeam glimmering. There the vision was not, but only a great frog, the hermit of that solitude, who immediately withdrew his speckled snout and made himself invisible, all except a pair of long legs, beneath a stone. Methought he had a devilish look! I could have slain him!

Thus did the Vision leave me; and many a doleful day succeeded to the parting moment. By the spring, and in the wood, and on the hill, and through the village; at dewy sunrise, burning noon, and at that magic hour of sunset, when she had vanished from my sight, I sought her, but in vain. Weeks came and went, months rolled away, and she appeared not in them. I imparted my mystery to none, but wandered to and fro, or sat in solitude, like one that had caught a glimpse of heaven, and could take no more joy on earth. I withdrew into an inner world, where my thoughts lived and breathed, and the Vision in the midst of them. Without intending it, I became at once the author and hero of a romance, conjuring up rivals, imagining events, the actions of others and my own, and experiencing every change of passion, till jealousy and despair had their end in bliss. Oh, had I the burning fancy of my early youth, with manhood's colder gift, the power of expression, your hearts, sweet ladies, should flutter at my tale!

In the middle of January, I was summoned home. The day before my departure, visiting the spots which had been hallowed by the vision, I found that the spring had a frozen bosom, and nothing but the snow and a glare of winter sunshine, on the hill of the rainbow. "Let me hope," thought I, "or my heart will be as icy as the fountain, and the whole world as desolate as this snowy hill." Most of the day was spent in preparing for the journey, which was to commence at four o'clock the next morning. About an hour after supper, when all was in readiness, I descended from my chamber to the sitting-room, to take leave of the old clergyman and his family, with whom I had been an inmate. A gust of wind blew out my lamp as I passed through the entry.

According to their invariable custom, so pleasant a one when the fire blazes cheerfully, the family were sitting in the parlor, with no other light than what came from the hearth. As the good clergyman's scanty stipend compelled him to use all sorts of economy, the foundation of his fires was always a large heap of tan, or ground bark, which would smolder away, from morning till night, with a dull warmth and no flame. This evening the heap of tan was newly put on, and surmounted with three sticks of red-oak, full of moisture, and a few pieces of dry pine, that had not yet kindled. There was no light, except the little that came sullenly from two half-burned brands, without even glimmering on the andirons. But I knew the position of the old minister's arm-chair, and also where his wife sat, with her knitting-work, and how to avoid his two daughters, one a stout country lass, and the other a consumptive girl. Groping through the gloom, I found my own place next to that of the son, a learned collegian, who had come home to keep school in the village during the winter vacation. I noticed that there was less room than usual, to-night, between the collegian's chair and mine.

As people are always taciturn in the dark, not a word was said for some time after my entrance. Nothing broke the stillness but the regular click of the matron's knitting-needles. At times, the fire threw out a brief and dusky gleam, which twinkled on the old man's glasses, and hovered doubtfully round our circle, but was far too faint to portray the individuals who composed it. Were we not like ghosts? Dreamy as the scene was, might it not be a type of the mode in which departed people, who had known and loved each other here, would hold communion in eternity? We were aware of each others presence, not by sight, nor sound, nor touch, but by an inward consciousness. Would it not be so among the dead?

The silence was interrupted by the consumptive daughter, addressing a remark to some one in the circle, whom she called Rachel. Her tremulous and decayed accents were answered by a single word, but in a voice that made me start, and bend towards the spot whence it had proceeded. Had I ever heard that sweet, low tone? If not, why did it rouse up so many old recollections, or mockeries of such, the shadows of things familiar, yet unknown, and fill my mind with confused images of her features who had spoken, though buried in the gloom of the parlor? Whom had my heart recognized, that it throbbed so? I listened, to catch her gentle breathing, and strove, by the intensity of my gaze, to picture forth a shape where none was visible.

Suddenly, the dry pine caught; the fire blazed up with a ruddy glow; and where the darkness had been, there was she,--the Vision of the Fountain! A spirit of radiance only, she had vanished with the rainbow, and appeared again in the firelight, perhaps to flicker with the blaze, and be gone. Yet, her cheek was rosy and life-like, and her features, in the bright warmth of the room, were even sweeter and tenderer than my recollection of them. She knew me! The mirthful expression that had laughed in her eyes and dimpled over her countenance, when I beheld her faint beauty in the fountain, was laughing and dimpling there now. One moment our glance mingled,--the next, down rolled the heap of tan upon the kindled wood,--and darkness snatched away that Daughter of the Light, and gave her back to me no more!

Fair ladies, there is nothing more to tell. Must the simple mystery be revealed, then, that Rachel was the daughter of the village squire, and had left home for a boarding-school, the morning after I arrived, and returned the day before my departure? If I transformed her to an angel, it is what every youthful lover does for his mistress. Therein consists the essence of my story. But slight the change, sweet maids, to make angels of yourselves!

The Fun House

By Bill Tope

 
It was late October, the last weekend for the Fun House, the featured attraction of the regional Eventree Carnival, a fixture in Southern Illinois during the1960s. We made our way past the farmland and the lakes, through the trees with their scarlet and orange and brown leaves, visible by moonlight.  We drove down Interstate 55--which climbed up all the way from St. Louis to Chicago--to an abandoned wheat field, where the Eventree Carnival was held each fall.  En route, Patty goosed me, said, "This was your bright idea, Kev; what if they're closed?" The air became a little
hazy as a light rain began to fall, hiding the full moon.
 
"They can't be closed," I insisted. "They got two paying customers here."  And I
goosed her back.  Finally we turned into the fair grounds, parked in the abandoned lot.  Strings of orange lights encircled the field.  At the entrance to the carnival was a large placard, emblazoned with the word, "Freaks," and featuring a picture of the star attraction: the Fat Lady. It was late and so they would be preparing to close, but we thought we had just enough time to have a little fun.  Besides. this was our last chance for the season. I glanced around the grounds, saw not a soul besides Patty and myself; we had the place to ourselves. Cool.  Alighting from Patty's yellow and rust '61 VW Bug, we approached the ticket booth and I leaned through the window,
but no one was present.  Even cooler. We embarked across the muddy, straw-
strewn field, straight to the Fun House, our favorite. 
 
"There's nobody around," I said in my best spooky voice. "Maybe someone escaped from the State Hospital and murdered everyone." Patty punched me.  "Jerk," she said. Inside the Fun House, we walked up precipitous inclines and through low-ceilinged, attenuated corridors, where almost-human hands stretched out to wrap our ankles with supple fingers. Rubber spiders dangled from the ceiling and bedeviled our faces. Everything here was in total darkness, increasing the shivers and the prickly feeling down our spines. Finally we came to a lighted area: the hall of mirrors.  There I pointed to Patty's eggplant-shaped reflection and she
to my green bean physique.  We mugged in front of a hundred bizarre, crazy mirrors, just having a ball. Overhead, a multicolored glass globe sprayed dazzling colors everywhere. Calliope music blared out of hidden speakers.
 
Then we heard a sizzling and snapping sound, like a short circuit, and suddenly all the lights went out and we were plunged into inky blackness.
"What happened?" asked Patty, less afraid than annoyed.  She was enjoying
her ten foot reflection.
"Search me,"  I replied.
"I can't see, Kevin," she said.  "How are we going to get out of here?  It's getting
late!" We literally couldn't see our hands n front of our faces.
"Just lean against a wall and follow it to the door," I suggested.  But the walls were convex and concave and bulging and covered with latex snakes and spiders and jazz, and often led into blind alleys or dead ends.
 
"Kevin, help me," cried Patty from a distance and she sounded panicked. Totally, not like her.  I heard a sound like a door slamming, then took off running towards the sound of her voice, only to slam into one of the many full-length mirrors, which shattered spectacularly. A shower of glass rained down upon me. I bounced off and landed on my backside, my mind spinning.  I touched my forehead, felt the bloody abrasion from where I'd smashed into the mirror. 
 
"Kev..." Her voice sounded very distant now. Scrambling to my feet, I moved blindly
towards the sound, my hands extended before me.  Feeling my way I came at last
to a corner, and beyond it a small lighted space. A single dim bulb hung pendulously
from the ceiling, casting a weak light over the straw-covered floor; there I found Patty--or what was left of her.  Lying upon one side, her blond hair was drenched in vivid scarlet:  her blood.  And protruding from her chest was a hunting knife of some kind.  I gaped, started to hyperventilate, was dragged back to the present by a scream--Patty's voice!  Checking the victim a second time I discovered it was in fact a mannikin.  The blood looked real, though. It reminded me of a quotation from Shakespeare about there being so much blood. 
 
I hastened away. Reaching the back of the vast tent, I charged through, came face to face with the figure on the poster at the entrance to the carnival--The Fat Lady. She was even bigger in real life than in the artist's rendering.  No more than five feet tall, she must have tipped the scales at 600 pounds!  And she had Patty in a death grip, clutching her round her abdomen.  Surely her ribs must fracture into splinters! 
The Fat Lady kept repeating, over and over, "You'd better pay for them tickets!"  Yikes!  Seeking to loosen the freak's grip, I pulled on her arms and shoulders, but she was terrifically strong.  I couldn't budge her.  She shook off my efforts.
"I'll get to you next, Cookie," she snarled. Looking round, I saw nearby a High Striker,
one of those gizmos where you slam a sledge hammer to test your own strength.
Taking up the cudgel, I slammed it as hard as I could into the back of the Fat Lady's skull, which was covered by ringlets of orange hair. There was a sound like breaking concrete. Suddenly the Fat Lady quivered, then went limp, collapsing to the ground. Patty inhaled rapidly, starved for breath.
 
"You alright?" I asked stupidly. 
"Come on," Patty gasped.  "Let's get out of here!"
"Don't you think we should call the cops?" I asked incredulously. (This was decades before the cell phone and calling would have meant finding the nearest pay phone). Patty shook her head no.
"Shes not alone, Kev."  I looked frantically around, saw no one. "There are eight or ten midgets who keep her company," Patty explained.  "And they're mean little turds,
too!  Quick, to the car." We hightailed it to the parking lot, found the old VW and climbed inside. You might think I'm making this up, for dramatic effect, but the damn car wouldn't start!  No Vroom, no turnover at all, just "click, click, click."  Then I noticed that the engine cover was up. The engine in a Bug was always in the rear, so I hurried to the back of the car and peered inside.  A screw fastening the power cable to the starter was askew.  I quickly righted it.  I climbed back into the car, just in time to watch an army of scurvy-looking midgets descend on our vehicle. We quickly locked the doors and braced for the assault, uncertain how all this would eventually play out. 
 
None of those nasty little men, all of whom were clad in lurid carnival garb and seemed to be chewing on big black cigars, appeared to be armed with anything more formidable than a rock. Suddenly one of the little devils climbed atop the shoulders of a second and then a third handed the uppermost midget the enormous sledge from the High Striker.  I must have dropped it after I conked the Fat Lady. Once or twice the elevated midget tumbled from the shoulders of his compatriot, cursing fluently, but finally he gained purchase, drew back and smashed the windshield of the VW into a zillion shards of glass.  He was strong for his size. The
midgets next began crawling over the trunk lid, seeking to enter through the hole in the glass.  But the surface of the car was slick from the rain and the assailants tumbled off again and again.
 
So fascinated was I at the spectacle generated by the maniacal midgets that I'd completely forgotten about starting the car.  In the next instant, the engine turned over with a loud Vroom!  I threw the VW into gear and we were off. The mob of horrible midgets swarmed after the car, throwing themselves before the vehicle.
I heard a couple of "thunks," indicating we'd run over several of the treacherous throng, but we'd only passed through several potholes; looking through the rearview mirror I spotted the entire army, chasing after us but growing smaller in the distance. We sped away, not pausing till we reached the Interstate and safety.  On the journey home we were quiet, lost in our own thoughts.
 
Recovering from the shock, we moved slowly through town and saw by the clock in the square that it was nearly midnight. We were exhausted. "What should we do now?" I asked Patty.  We both stared at the gaping hole where the rest of the windshield used to be, then at one another.  She felt experimentally her ravaged ribs and gingerly touched the wound upon my forehead.  Her hand felt warm.
"I think we should just forget all about tonight," she said unexpectedly.
"But, don't you think we should tell anyone? A cop, maybe?" I asked.  She regarded me with her sky blue eyes. "Look at it this way, Kev:  if you were a cop would you believe us?  Besides," she added, "Let's not ruin it for next year; I can't wait to get back to that fun house!"

Lost

By Yash Seyedbagheri


I just got done getting new glasses. So I’m killing time in this little lakefront community of just under three thousand. And I’m here to take something away beyond Harry Potter-looking frames. It’s all too easy to imagine, anyhow. There’s a gentle warmth in this town, not the heat I’m used to in the deepest hills. There’s a giant market with green and brown walls—with more than four aisles. This place even has a kickass selection of booze. Elegant wines, brandies, champagnes, even—fortresses of temporary euphoria, booze fit for a king. In here, freezers emit overwhelming coolness, a whoosh and I can’t help but stick my head into a few, pretending to look for who-knows-what. Man, I wish I could just fall asleep among that whoosh. It’s like a mother, promising something sweet. A new home, more money, a better job.
The floors are even polished and not just rife with tired linoleum, like back home. And the scents of pizza and hot dogs complement this whole scene, although the grease makes me want to ralph. Not because it’s a bad scent, but because it’s a reminder of the peanut butter sandwich I had coming up here.
But the PA system plays music that’s upbeat. Little Richard shrieks with joy. Drums and bass thump with the motion of carts in some song I don’t know. Some people shake their hips too, while they rush from aisle to aisle with a frightening briskness, carts clattering away.
“Need any help?” a clerk asks. He wears a purple smock and white button-down short-sleeve shirt. He has big owl-like eyes, a hooked nose, and he smells like mint soap. His tag reads Travis. He probably thinks this is a good job. He’s probably twenty, twenty-one and I hope he’s still not working in this sort of place when he’s my age. Thirty-six. But then again, he probably comes from money. He could quit right now.
“No thanks,” I say.
“Nothing in particular?”
“I’m still thinking,” I say, because that sounds reasonable. That sort of answer reeks of being organized, having the ability to browse— to buy.
“No problem,” he says.
To say I’m thinking also conceals the truth. I’m a long-haired man in blue jeans among people clad in crisp Khakis, Capris, and tan shorts. I’ve got forty dollars in my wallet now. And I’m wearing Harry Potter frames, thanks to near-sightedness. I fucking asked for the small round ones, the type John Boy wore on The Waltons, something intelligent. Something that screams ambition, thoughtfulness, achiever. But now I look like I’m about to cast a spell on this lakeside town. And I smell a little too, like a cross between an armpit and a stale foot. But sometimes you make the choice between dinner or a shower.
“I’m just thinking,” I repeat.
“Take your time,” he says, and I smile, a smile that’s wobbling. And I realize I’ve been running through the store myself, my feet the thump of insistence, of hurry. So I slow down.
These men and women, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters actually carry food. Real food. Steaks, vegetables, fruits, God forbid, chocolates too. And brand ice-creams. Good old Ben and Jerry’s. Haagen Daz. I subside on onions and crackers, peanut butter, and Diet Pepsi. Not even real Diet Pepsi, but a store brand. They, on the other hand, pack their carts until they burst.
Back home, people carry Bud Light, Coors, and Miller, the holy trinity of liquid dinners. The one true, small treat. I’m no exception there. Even I need a little liquid courage to complement the onions, crackers, dust-filled rooms, and heat. If it means one less shower, so be it. If I didn’t drink beer, I’d be a freak.
Meanwhile, away from home, they shove their groceries across smooth, swift belts. Bag them with an almost frenetic, robotic motion. Then they rush to minivans, BMWs, even a few Subarus. I should leave now, but there’s a little time. Standing in the parking lot, watching the shoppers leave, I imagine them packing oak and mahogany tables with feasts. I conjure dirty jokes and laughter rising, preserved forever in these rooms with actual space. An image: they are talking of plans, plans to enrich themselves, renovations, new homes, tearing things down. They talk like this simply because they can.
They don’t eat at plastic tables covered with wine stains and pen marks. They don’t worry about rude customers behind cash registers. Here people don’t juggle credit card bills, tucking reality in the drawers until they pop out again. Here everything’s a plus sign. The plus signs swell, they shrink, but they’re always plus signs. And no one’s a risk, no one’s delinquent, no one’s another case.
I discard my truck in the market parking lot, the mud streaks and dents on the Chevy all too visible. I’ll come back soon enough, though. I trample the parking lot, traipse down Lake Avenue, late afternoon following me around. Streetlamps line both sides of the street and clay pots sprinkled throughout contain lilacs. The air turns cooler the closer I get to the lake. Not freezer cool, but gentle. I savor the beige and tan buildings, mixed with a few brick structures, the clean plate glass. Chinese and Mexican, a pizza joint, some knickknack shops, a lawyer. A bookstore too. Even a little dollar theater.
This beats home, where you have one street that sweeps into town and out into nothingness fast. Buildings are all faux rustic. A market, a bank, two bars, a hardware store, a gas station. That’s about it. And people don’t walk or stride, rather they waddle, in bib overalls and camo. They have the saddest fucking smiles. And the only music back home is The Eagles wafting from trailers and cabins that lean on hillsides and threaten to plunge into the valley. Well, and whatever the bar chooses to play. Dueling Pianos. Buford and The Good Times Band. Two chords over and over again.
I don’t even realize I’m just stopped, staring at the buildings around me, until a woman in a lavender blouse and Capris asks if I’m lost. She wears these big cat-eye glasses, and I think of her as some professional. An accountant, perhaps. God forbid, a lawyer. No, an accountant. Lawyers can grandstand, whip out fifty-dollar vocab words and harangue. She’s the sort to add things up and make a cold, precise decision.
“No ma’am,” I say. “Not lost at all. Just looking around.”
“Are you sure?” she says. And the way she assesses me, me with my Harry Potter frames, my blue jeans, even my long hair, I know what she’s thinking. Smelly, freak, drifter.
“I’m fine,” I say, voice rising. “Just looking around.”
“What do you need?” she says. I wonder if I look homeless or something. “I’d be glad to help you. Is there something you want to buy? Are you looking for a store?”
“I can find it,” I say.
Of course, I can’t fucking buy anything. But how do I tell her that? She’s the sort to think everything is your own fault. Bootstraps. I’ll bet her great-grandfather got off the boat a century ago, learned to speak English, and picked himself up. But not before being mugged, kicked, and beaten a few times. And paying more than a few bills.
“I didn’t mean any offense,” she says, but I know that her eyes are bearing into me, that she’s waiting for me to do something stupid. Punch a wall. Beg for something. Demand a slice of pizza. But I won’t. I’ve seen people with signs outside the market back home, along the highways, and the shame on them is unbearable.
“You didn’t?” I say.
“You just looked, well, lost,” she says, and she tries to smile. Her smile looks more like constipation though. I hate that word. Lost. Lost. Lost. I know what I’m doing here.
“Fuck off, asshole,” I say and march off. The harshness of the words hangs over the swath of blue sky and sun, but there’s a power to it. An odd, crude dignity. And yet a shame. But I can’t think of that now.
I walk down Lake Avenue a bit further, road sloping as it gets closer to the lake, an expanse of blue and ripples. I absorb the breeze, the Ponderosas swaying. The easy laughter rising, the tan shorts, the T-shirts festooned in blue, purple, greens. The scent of Chinese and Mexican sizzling through windows and not oil, Camels, and exhaust. I try to not think about the food I can’t have, about that lady’s judgments. And I don’t make eye contact with people.
I could leave right now but going back would be too much. Where else could I even go? The towns between here and back home grow smaller and smaller, more boarded-up, full of weeds. And I don’t have enough gas to just drive north into the wheatfields.
I try not to think of the sun sloping downward bit by bit, even if it doesn’t actually get dark until late. I walk closer and closer to the lake, the ripples welcoming. I imagine just walking further and further, into its depth, not giving a crap. Hell, I could just float and let the water wash over me. Crisp, cold, no bullshit. But a boat roars across the lake, bodies waving and laughing, relishing the ease of space. The ripples are broken, the boat sputtering toward some point. Probably a cabin, surrounded by other cabins, a place where neighbors exchange easy greetings and don’t look twice at the people around them. A place where no one is lost.
They’d probably call security on this Harry Potter-looking guy. No explanations asked, nothing. Their word would be enough to bank on and the guard would whisk me away, while the neighbors turned away, making up even more stories about me.
I turn back. Look back up the avenue, that steep hill. I turn forward. And then back. I imagine continuing my march into the lake, but it’s all broken now. The lake looks almost menacing now, something that never ends. So I start the trek back to the truck, splattered in mud. One step, another one. The street gapes before me.
I’ll go back to that market lot. Hop into my truck. Then I’ll crank up the AC, try to find something nice on the radio, and try to drown out its sputter, its sputter that shrieks surrender, surrender, as I move out of the coolness, driving back into early evening’s fatigue. And I’ll wish I could cast a spell on someone, wearing these fucking Harry Potter frames. Maybe I’ll try.

Time Lapse

By Robert P. Bishop
 
Mr. and Mrs. Barton, twenty-seven years old and the parents of two-year old twin boys, Josh and Jake, clear the breakfast dishes from the table. The twins play on the floor with four spoons and a yo-yo.
            Mrs. Barton says, “I’m taking the twins to the park. I’m meeting my sister there. Then we’re going to have a late lunch.”
            “Super,” says Mr. Barton. “That means I have time for a bike ride.”
 
Mrs. Barton straps the twins into the car and drives to the park where she finds her sister sitting on a swing. Mrs. Barton puts the twins into swings. She and her sister push the boys to and fro and talk.
            “Are you happy?” the sister inquires of Mrs. Barton.
            “Oh, yes. Mr. Barton is such a wonderful husband.”
            “How is he with the children?”
            “Marvelous. He gives them so much attention.”
            “What kind of attention?”
            “Why, he reads to them every night when he puts them to bed, before they go to sleep.”
            “Is that all he does? Read to them?”
            “Of course not. He plays with them and tells them stories.”
            “What kinds of stories?”
            “You know, ones he makes up. Fables and such about mythical things.”
            The sisters stop talking and push the boys in the swings some more. Finally, the sister says, “You are a lucky woman.”
            “I know, I know,” Mrs. Barton replies, and thinking of her wonderful life, smiles happily.
 
Mr. Barton brushes his light brown hair from his forehead, puts on his red helmet and pedals into the street. Several minutes into his bike ride he notices the streets are deserted of cars and this both pleases and perplexes him. Perhaps because today is Sunday there are few cars on the streets, he surmises.
            Leaning forward over the handlebars and pushing hard on the pedals, Mr. Barton senses he is going quite fast. He looks to the side of the road. The houses flash by in colorful, blurry blobs. Mr. Barton is thrilled with his speed and pushes harder and harder on the pedals.
 
Following lunch with her sister, Mrs. Barton returns home and puts the twins down for a nap. Then she thinks of what to have for dinner.
            Later, she checks the time as the food simmers on the stove and the twins sprawl on the kitchen floor, drawing on paper with broken color crayons. “Where is Mr. Barton?” she asks. “He is late.” The twins do not respond to her question.
 
Mr. Barton leans far over the handlebars, his face cleaving the air like the steel prow of a warship slicing through ocean waves and crushes down on the pedals. He is going so fast now he is unable to see the houses. They appear to him as one long streak of color. Wind whistles past his ears. He grins savagely as he flashes along the streets.
 
Four years later Mrs. Barton writes a book about being abandoned by her husband and how difficult it is to raise two boys on a single income without a father.
            The book becomes a smash best seller. Mrs. Barton appears on several television shows, sharing her difficulties with sympathetic audiences who rush out to buy more copies of her book and increase her wealth.
            Soon Mrs. Barton becomes more successful than her book and is offered her own television talk show, which she readily accepts. Her fame grows, and she creates a media empire. Now she mentions Mr. Barton only occasionally.
 
The years pass and reports come in about a young man matching the description of Mr. Barton, riding incredibly fast on a bicycle. Someone in Cheyenne, Wyoming, reports seeing a bike rider flash through the town. Later, another sighting comes in from Seattle’s Queen Anne neighborhood of a young man going unbelievably fast on a bicycle.
 
Now sighting the bicyclist becomes a game. He is given a name; The Barton Bullet, and every day citizens call in to police departments and television stations across the country, saying they have seen The Barton Bullet in such far-flung places as Two Dot, Montana, Patchatatoolie, Mississippi and Prince Edward Island, Canada.
            After a while someone starts a blog where people describe their encounters with The Barton Bullet. He seems like such a nice young man, they write, but never has time for a conversation.       One enterprising person develops a line of Barton Bullet clothing that becomes quite successful. Another person begins manufacturing Barton Bullet bicycles and makes a fortune. These bicycles are reported to be the most mechanically reliable in the land as well as the fastest.
 
Years go by and sightings of The Barton Bullet decline in number, but still a few diehard fans continue to report seeing him flashing with lightning speed over the streets of their towns.
            Mrs. Barton no longer mentions her missing husband on her television show. Nor does she mention her twin boys, who turn out to be bad apples and are in prison serving life sentences for murder and various other crimes, including drug smuggling, car theft, and fixing professional football games.
 
Despite her fame and fortune, Mrs. Barton continues to live in the small, modest house she shared with Mr. Barton. Many years later, Mrs. Barton finally retires and withdraws from the public eye.
            Neighbors know her now as an old lady, long retired, tending her flowers, and speak kindly to her as they pass along the sidewalk in front of her house.
 
Late Sunday afternoon a young man rides his bicycle down the street and turns into the driveway of the Barton house. He takes off his red helmet and shakes out his light brown hair, damp with sweat. Several emergency vehicles, among them an ambulance, are parked in the street. The man with light brown hair watches as two men in paramedic uniforms wheel a gurney out of the house. There is a body in a black body bag on the gurney. The two men put the gurney in the back of the ambulance and drive away.

            The young man enters the house and shouts: “Honey, I’m home!”

​
Bio: 

Robert P. Bishop, an army veteran and former teacher, holds a Master’s in Biology and lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is the author of three novels and four short-story collections and is a four-time Pushcart nominee. His short fiction has appeared in Active Muse, Ariel Chart, Better Than Starbucks, Bindweed Magazine, The  Blotter Magazine, Bright Flash Literary Review, Clover and White, CommuterLit, Corner Bar Magazine, Creativity Webzine, Down in the Dirt, Flash Fiction Magazine, Fleas on the Dog, Friday Flash Fiction, Ink Pantry, Literally Stories, The Literary Hatchet, Lunate Fiction, Scarlet Leaf Review, Spelk, and elsewhere.

Black Magic

by

  Gerald Arthur Winter


            Sophie left the Peach Tree Station in Atlanta to begin what would soon become
her unexpected Magical Mystery Tour to New Orleans. Amtrak’s Crescent line took her
to her desired destination in what seemed only minutes rather than hours. She was
pleased to be traveling in a car with the scent of disinfectant for protection against
COVID, Omicron, malaria, whatever. Fewer passengers in troubled times allowed ample
separation from any unmasked travelers. She wore a new outfit for the trip just to give
her the posture of a fresh outlook. Her small carry-on kept a change of clothes for a
one-night stay and a return to Atlanta the following afternoon. In two days she had a
quarterly report to present to the Board of Directors at  9 am sharp.
            The motion of the train allowed peaceful slumber to comfort Sophie on her
journey. She’d left her demanding job in Atlanta on a mission of retribution and
revenge. Fitful nights for the past weeks had woken her in the dead of night with
a persistent calling . . . You must come . . . you must come soon . . . you must . . .
            Sophie heard there was an old Creole woman-of-color living in the bayou who
could cast out demons and conjure spirits. Though that intrigued her enough to attempt
to learn more at the source, Sophie’s main interest was putting a curse on a younger
woman who’d stolen her estranged husband. All she’d ever known about New Orleans
were from movies like:  A Street Car Named Desire, Cat People, The Big Easy, and Déjà vu.
The latter was her favorite with Denzel in the lead.
            Sophie Duquesne was a woman-of-color, but her taste in music had gone astray
only once with an undying love for--Creedence. Their rhythms made her feet twitch and
her heart pound with a voodoo-like drumbeat that appealed to her darkest intentions.  
When Sophie was eight years old, her daddy had left her mama who’d said: “Only bared
fangs can assuage a wronged woman’s fury. I swear I’ll kill that man and that young
thing he took up with if they ever cross my path again. Till then, I give’m my juju. If a
man ever betrays you, Sophie, find your juju and give ’m hell.”
            Sophie loved Creedence, especially John Fogerty, because her missing husband,
Cal, was a ringer for Fogerty. She’d made Cal the doppelganger of that unfortunate son
in her wildest dreams of lust. She’d considered legally changing her name to “Susie Q.
Duquesne” so she could feel as if Fogerty was singing on a hotline directly to her soul.
            Eye of the beholder, was the consensus of her closest friends. Familywise, Sophie’s
Cal, was what her sistahs called: “An assless, classless, cheater who ought to be road kill.”
            Sophie never took the name La Salle when she married Cal, which had literally
been an immediate bone of contention with Cal reminding her she’d never be more than
his rib bone.
            “Says so in the Bible!” he’d contended. “Sophie La Salle’s more fittin’. Sexier, too.
There’s no fame to the name Duquesne.”
            By word-of-mouth, Sophie learned that the only way to meet the “Voodoo Woman
of the Swamp”, as locals called her, was by airboat. The old woman lived in a shack that
only gator hunters had access to in the month of August. She was told the Creole crone
had twelve sons ages 22 to 47, all gator hunters as their three dad’s had been. Apparently
the bayou in her youth was like a Petri dish for propagating her clan.
            Some women have no shame—Uh-uh, Sophie thought.
            That dirty dozen was often referred to in town as The Twelve Tribes of Israel or
The Twelve Apostles of the Swamp Sorceress, just a tribal moniker that never quite fit
the old woman’s motley offspring rabble.
            It was mid-August, dab in the middle of gator season, so it wasn’t easy to convince
the Swamp Sorceress’s good ol’ boy sons to give up any space in their watercraft used
exclusively to bring back at least a dozen ten-foot monstahs to market.
                              
            “Our mama don’t want some city gal from Atlanta interferin’ with our business,
mam,” said the eldest son, Jed, a gumbo stew of at least four ethnicities. His mate on
board was his albino brother at least fifteen years younger and aptly nicknamed “Bleach.”
            “Ya heard about Mama all the way back in Atlanta?” Bleach asked with doubt.
“Nuttin’ attracted anybody to Mama’s door b’fore. You some kinda reporter? Ya gonna
put ‘er on TV in one a them re-al-i-ty shows?”
            “Sorry, no. Just interested in her gift to help me with a personal problem, fellas.”
Sofie stood her ground with attitude and extended her hand to Bleach for help into their
airboat, but her conscience told her . . . you must come . . . you must.
            Uncertain, Bleach turned to his oldest brother for approval to help Sophie aboard,
but his posture remained slumped with doubt about this woman from outside the bayou.
            Jed shrugged and gave Bleach the nod to help her aboard, but both brothers kept
sharp eyes on her as if she were up to something unsaid, something more devious than
just some bitchin’ payback to a man who’d wronged ‘er.
            They powered forth into the swamp with the big fan blowing behind her as she
clung her sun bonnet close to her breast. The miasmic stench of the prehistoric swamp
made her scrunch her nose and squint her eyes in the wind and bright sun. The sweat
from her neck quickly evaporated with the breeze, but the humidity still kept her breasts
and armpits damp with dark patches of perspiration that made her white ruffled blouse
translucent.
            Self-conscious about her vulnerability, she was relieved to see that Jed and Bleach
were oblivious to her and more interested in the shore where their lines had been staked
with raw chicken bait to draw hungry bull gators.
            She was startled with the sudden cut of the engine’s power and the continued
drift of the airboat towards shore.
            They’d been heading into the swamp for no more than half an hour, so she felt
relieved, thinking they must have arrived at the old Creole woman’s shack. Jed saw her
smile with a sigh, so he shook his head.
            “We ain’t there yet, mam. Ya gotta sit further back in the boat ’cause it looks like
we got a dinosaur tuggin’ at this line. Can’t chance losin’ em. If ya don’t shift back towards
the engine, his nasty head’s gonna end up right at yer feet. Maybe take a toe or two.”
            She gasped. “You don’t intend to put an alligator in this boat?”
            “It’s what we do, mam. How we make our livin’. No time to waste.”
            “I hope you’ll tie its mouth shut so it won’t eat me,” she huffed with sarcastic
annoyance.
            “No need for that, mam. He’ll be dead when we haul ’m into the boat, but ya
don’t want to be too close or he’ll bleed all over ya.”
            Bleach grinned at his brother’s manner. Though straight and strong, Bleach’s
teeth were sallow in contrast with his chalky blanched face with pinkish eyes.
            Sophie retreated to Captain Jed’s vacant double seat, a step higher aft than
the front of the boat where the gators would be stored under tarps in their return
trip to the wholesale market. There the gators would be skinned by machine and cut
into saleable packages for retail. Unlike Florida where gators are more protected,
even when troublesome to a neighborhood, rather than shooting a gator, game
authorities will relocate it to the Glades. In the Louisiana bayou, if the organized
hunt in August/September didn’t shoot enough gators, the whole state would turn
into Jurassic Park.
            “We got a big ‘n’, Jed!” Bleach called out as he grabbed the line out of the
shallows along the shore.
            The overhanging willow branch fluttered then bent to the water.
            “Throw the treble hook on him before he snaps the line!” Jed shouted to Bleach
as he grabbed his rifle.
            Sophie cowered and shrieked pulling her knees up to her waist with swamp water
splashing into the boat from the gator’s effort to get free. She was sorry she’d worn her
best shoes for a fashion statement to let the Swamp Sorceress know she was a serious
client willing to pay well for casting her spell. That tactic worked in Atlanta where she
was the CFO of an accounting firm. None of her girlfriends could understand what a
smart woman like Sophie ever saw in a low-life loser like Cajun Cal La Salle.
            “Animal magnetism,” Sophie told them with dismissal. “Closest I could get to
John Fogerty without making a damn fool of myself. Cal turns my heart aflutter.”
            “Uh, huuuuh,” was the harmonized response from her sistahs, knowing she’d
done much worse than being a fool with her dumbass doppelganger Calvin Q. La Salle.
            With much splashing and spinning of the boat by the treble-hooked gator,  
its huge head and snapping jaws slammed against the aluminum watercraft. Sophie
held her breath till the rifle fired, echoing across the lagoon and sending snowy egrets
squawking in flight like a tickertape parade.
            It took the brawny Jed and sinewy Bleach all their strength to pull the thirteen-
foot gator aboard by its head, the size of an Atlanta Hawks backboard in the State Farm
Arena. Just above its closed eyes was a bleeding hole the size of a quarter making the
gator brain-dead, but its clawed feet continued to open and close and its spiny-plated
tail whipped back and forth as they rolled it onboard belly whopping in a scarlet pool
of its blood.

            “That’s what I’m talkin’ about!” Jed shouted as the brothers exchanged high
fives with a harmonious howl.
            “Are you done?” Sophie asked with her knees still raised to her chest and her eyes
closed.”
            “This big bull is, but we ain’t done till we fill the boat with a lot more,” Jed said
with a huff as he nudged her aside to start the engine.
            Uncovering her eyes and blinking, she saw Bleach covering the gator with a tarp.
From head to tail it stretched two thirds the length of the boat. She gagged at the sight
of the blood, and the taint of death made her vomit over the side. She took deep breaths
but, although the sudden breeze of the speeding airboat cooled her off, the motion made
her dizzy. She fought her nausea and sat up straight remembering she had a mission of
vengeance to fulfill, a promise to herself to get even with the woman who’d stolen her
man, “Cajun Cal La Salle,” for better or worse.
            Six miles and a dozen gators later, Jed cut the engine again. Sophie saw no
gator stake-out on shore marked with a bright pink ribbon like the other twelve gators
the brothers had shot, rolled onboard, and  tagged for the wholesale market.
            “Why are we stopping?” she asked as the engine sputtered to silence and the
water fowl screeched in cackling cacophony throughout the swamp.
            “We’re there, but we’re blocked from entering Mama’s lagoon by undergrowth,”
Jed explained. “We either gotta blow up the snag with some homemade explosives
I got onboard, or make a daring attempt to skim over it at fifty miles an hour with a
thousand foot start from back yonder.”
            Sophie’s big brown eyes glared back to where their boat had come from, then
she turned with a huff back towards the impasse. “You tryin’ to kill us?”
            “Naw. We done it before. I think we need to do a combination of both cause
that’s three months of undisturbed, summer undergrowth. Bleach, you get out along
the bank and set up the explosive up ahead where you think best. Give it a five-yard
fuse and don’t light it till I’ve got the boat turned round so you can run like hell and
jump in while we’re movin’ away. Once yer in the boat, I’ll gas it the hell out a here,
make a U-turn a thousand feet upstream and come back full throttle to jump over
what’s left of the blockage.”
            “Can I wait on the bank for you to do that?” Sophie asked, seeing the brothers’
Jack-o-lantern grins.
            “Sure, mam—if you want to get bit by a cotton mouth.”
            She paled. “Then what can I hold onto in the boat?”
            “I’ll be holding the accelerator, so hold onto me in back by my belt.”
            “What about Bleach?” she asked.
            “Hell, he’s fallen out of this boat a dozen times and the gators always spit
him back out. Gators must like darker meat like me . . . and you, mam.”
            Bleach grinned like a full moon then did as Jed had instructed with the
explosive canister attached to a five-yard fuse.
            Sophie could see the sparkling fuse ahead, then she watched Bleach ambling
through the swamp’s dense flora. The Spanish moss swayed from the low tree limbs
in the wake of Bleach’s path as he gained speed and waved one arm to signal Jed to
turn the boat around and come close enough to shore for him to leap aboard.
            Sophie already clung with both hands to Jed’s belt where his shirt slid up
exposing a devil tattoo above his butt cleavage. She heard Jed laughing as he teased
Bleach with the boat’s acceleration, slow then fast in a jerking motion to make it
hard for his younger brother to time his jump to safety into the boat. What seemed
like a life-or-death peril to Sophie was just child’s play to the sibling gator hunters.
The back spray of swamp water drenched Bleach as the airboat’s wake made the
shore slippery for Bleach underfoot. He fell twice before Jed finally conceded to
slow down enough for Bleach’s awkward dive, but short of the boat.
            Sophie shrieked, but Bleach emerged covered with leeches as he hung on
to the starboard side. Jed’s extended hand to tug Bleach aboard made Sophie slip
off the captain’s bench onto the deck. Jed yanked her to her feet and set her back
beside him as he revved the engine to head away from the explosives. He looked
over his shoulder as the canister blew tree limbs a hundred feet into the air and a
cloud of green smoke billowed above the murky bayou.
            “That did her,” Jed said, making a sharp U-turn and hitting the throttle full
force towards the gap they’d blown to enter the lagoon where, according to local
folklore lore, the ageless Swamp Sorceress had dwelled for over three centuries.
            “Yahoo!”  Jed hooted waving his crumpled cap.
            Bleach echoed Jed’s call, but Sophie just held onto Jed’s belt for dear life.
A few startling clunks from the bottom alarmed Sophie, but their leap of faith was
over so fast she just gasped with relief that none of them had been maimed and
the boat hadn’t flipped.
            “Look at that big bull, Jed!” Bleach cried out. “Must be fourteen feet, maybe
half a ton!”
            “Ya know we can’t touch that ’n, nor any other gator in this honey hole lagoon.
This is Mama’s private property. No one can hunt here. Not even her own kin.”
            “I know. I know. But just look at the size of ’m,” Bleach pointed towards the
shore.
            Sophie looked in that direction and felt a chill seeing the monster sunning
himself on the bank, so calm and peaceful as if there had been no thunderous
explosion only moments ago. The atmosphere was so different to her from the bayou
outside the hidden lagoon, as if she’d entered a sacred sanctuary protected from any
exposure to the outside world.
            The boat hummed as it approached the dock in front of a dilapidated shack
showing much damage from numerous high Cat hurricanes over the years. Half-
sunken boats of various types and sizes littered the lagoon like a timeless maritime
morgue. One vessel looked as if it might have been from an amusement park, but
with all the folklore about the Swamp Sorceress, Sophie wondered if it could actually
be a Spanish galleon or a Brigantine captained by the infamous pirate, Jean Lafitte.
 
            She wondered. How long had it been since anyone else, other than the Creole
crone and her twelve sons, had been here?

            The humungous bull gator onshore with a sudden yawn and snap of his jaws
seemed to tell her, not since he’d hatched. From his size, she figured he was at the top
of the food chain in this secluded lagoon, so maybe a hundred years old. She wondered,
if a biologist could get close enough, would there be rings to count, like on the stump of
downed tree, or the number of rattles on an eastern diamondback? Perhaps the creature
was as old as Death itself.
            The shack seemed uninhabited and the dock creaked when Bleach tied a line to
the bulkhead’s twisted piling. She hesitated to get out of the boat. Her pulse pounded in
her head with alarm.
            “S’ matter, mam? Don’t be scared. Mama knows yer comin’.”
            “How c-could she?” Sophie stammered.
            “She must’ve put the idea of ya comin’ here in yer head,” Jed said with a shrug.
            “Sure, mam,” Bleach agreed. “It’s what she does.”
 “But I—”
            “Best ya go to her. Ya don’t want her havin’ to come to you, mam. That never
works out well.” Jed nodded towards the shack’s front door, closed but hanging by one
hinge.
            Sophie thought she heard a muffled guffaw under Bleach’s breath, but Jed gave
him a warning glare. She didn’t want to get out of the boat, but the shack seemed the
only alternative to becoming a gator snack, so she took Bleach’s hand and stepped onto
the dock. Her legs were unsteady and she felt lightheaded as she approach the front door.
The splintered door was tilted at an angle, but seemed to tell her that it was plumb and
she, not it, was off kilter.
            The single room of the shack was dim as she entered still blinded by the bright
sunlight reflecting off the bayou. Even as her vision adjusted, the presence in the far
corner of the room could not be seen beyond the glow of a crystal ball on a round,
three-legged table, its top no bigger than an Atlanta manhole cover back home.
            “Come to me, Dearie,” a hoarse whisper beckoned from an unseen face concealed
beneath a hooded shawl. “No need to be frightened. You’ve wanted to come here for some
time . . . to make things right. I know tis so, as does thee.”
            “Y-yes. Then you will help me?” Sophie asked.
            “Your journey by rail was the worst of your travels, sweet one. You will soon be at
peace again. All will be right with your world.”
            “What must I do?” Sophie asked the old woman, just a voice with no discernable
form beneath the hooded cloak.
            “Pull up that stool and extend your hands to me.”
            Sophie pulled the stool over to the table and sat facing the shroud beyond the
crystal ball, but was hesitant to offer her hands.
            “Both hands—NOW!” the voice shrieked.
            Trembling, Sophie put out both hands, palms up.                                                           
            Two gnarled and weathered hands grabbed hers in a vice-like grip. Sophie wondered
how so much strength could come from these boney hands. Her spindle-shaped fingers and
swollen arthritic knuckles were stippled with liver spots. The heaving breath emitting from
the hooded cloak was worse than the miasmic stench of the stagnant bayou shallows or the
pile of dead gators in the airboat left festering beneath the tarp in the hot sun.
            “Look into the crystal ball and declare your wish that it may be granted—NOW!”
            Sophie stared into the crystal ball and found herself shouting in rhyme:
  “Curse the bitch who stole my Cal from me.
so I may have my doppelganger FO-GER-TY!
 A century of living hell for you
That I may be his only SUSIE Q!”
            The dark room began to spin, making Sophie feel as if she were falling down a
deep well . . . down . . . down . . . down to the pit of hell.
            The sudden impact at the bottom of the pit left her limp and broken, but she
realized, as she raised her head, that her hands were still clenching the old woman’s
hands. Sophie was shocked to see the face emerge with eyes sparkling from the shrouded
hood across the table. A beam from the sunset off the bayou, like a laser through the
crooked front door, reflected off the crystal ball to ignite new life in the old hag’s eyes.
            “Your turn, Dearie,” the youthful Swamp Sorceress proclaimed. “I’ve been stuck in
this stinking swamp for over a century. Don’t fret. I’ll be back in a century or two.”
            She released Sophie’s hands, now gnarled and liver-spotted, just like the Creole
crone’s who’d beckoned her to come to the secret bayou for her fateful  turnabout.
                        
            “What about the curse you promised to cast on the woman who stole my Cal.”
            “And so I have, Dearie. THIEF, know thyself! Cal La Salle was always mine. To thine
 own self be true.”
            Sophie slumped back into the dark corner of the shack and folded her wrinkled
hands in her lap. The last thing she saw through the open door was a likeness of herself
getting back into the airboat with Jed and Bleach. She heard the big bull gator’s bellow
from across the lagoon then resolved herself to destiny by pulling the hooded shroud
back over her head in wait . . . in wait . . . in wait . . . for her return.
                  
👹

A Day in the Life of ‘Rosie’
​

By Angela Camack



Brooklyn, 1944


Jenna picked up her purse, lunch, and keys. Kissing her fingertips, she pressed them to the poster of Rosie the Riveter that hung on her wall and left for work. She loved Rosie. Rosie, in her blue shirt and red-and-white bandanna, flexing her muscles, a level, steady gaze in her brown eyes. And what eyes, they were, determined and strong and highlighted with subtle makeup. Rosie was doing what was a man’s job, but she was still a woman.
Jenna walked quickly to the corner to wait for her ride to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where she had what was once only a man’s job. The blazing crucible of world war had ended the icy despair of the Depression. Everyone had jobs now, for the war effort and to replace men sent overseas. New or re-opened restaurants popped up and the movie houses were open around the clock. But what was the cost? And when would the war end?
So many men overseas. Industries like the Brooklyn Navy Yard called on women to fill the gaps left behind. For many women, the new jobs paid more than they had ever made before, even though they were paid less than men for the same work. So, like Rosie, women bound up their hair, put on pants and went to work.
Jenna attended Cooper Union, the free college for qualified art students. Jenna had no family, so college would have been almost impossible otherwise. But she still had expenses like clothes, art supplies and summer lodging. She had always worked every summer, stretching her earnings and working during school breaks. But her salary at the Navy Yard would pay for her room in Brooklyn this summer and cover her senior year expenses.
She shared a ride with some of the other women at the Yard, chipping in for gas. They had become her comrades, her companions, her support, these very different women. Brooklyn was a series of neighborhoods, often divided by ethnicity or religion. Everyone at the Yard worked with people they had scarcely seen before. They soon learned to put differences aside and work together.
Donna McGerrity pulled up. “Hop in, Professor.” Hellos were caroled back and forth. Donna was 45 and savvy. She was brash, funny and took nothing from anyone. Several of the men had taken to using obscene language around the women in an attempt to shock them. That stopped when Donna showed that she could curse with an almost Shakespearian complexity. She was miraculously able to talk around the lit cigarette always in her mouth. But the women knew that behind the brashness was a deep fear for her two sons, one in the Army and the other in the Navy.
“How was your day off, Jenna?” asked Rosa Giametti.
“Oh, wonderful! I had dinner with Lawrence Olivier at Sardi’s We saw Harvey, what a fabulous play. Then we went dancing at the Copacabana. Larry’s such a gentleman, so smart. And then I woke up.”
“No Clark Gable?” asked Willow Jenkins.
“No. I mean he’s so manly, but I like the intelligent ones.”
“You would, Professor,” teased Willow. Jenna was the only one of them not married and was a student, so Professor she became.
“Billy Eckstine for me.” said Mary Belkins. Mary was colored, and just getting used to them. She had twice the problems with the men at the Yard, with those who resented women working and with those who didn’t like that coloreds were getting better opportunities since the war started. Jenna remembered walking out with her after their shift one morning. A car full of jeering men drove close to them, the men throwing stones. “They got daaaaark meat now. Aren’t
the goddamn women enough?” Donna asked Mary to ride with them, and they made room in the car for her.
“How are things overseas?” asked Willow. There was a chorus of OK’s. “As far as we all know, right?” added Willow. “When I get to hear from Michael, he says he’s fine in Italy. He says that they love the Americans. I hope that means he’s safe.”
“Johnny’s ship is quiet right now, thank the Lord.” said Donna. But I don’t know where he is or where he is heading. It’s the not knowing and the waiting that drives me nuts. And Andy’s in the Philippines. I can’t imagine him there. Anything I know about the Philippines is from newsreels before the movies.”
“Peter’s still in Italy too. I keep hoping that working in a hospital will keep him safer.” A newly minted doctor, Rosa’s husband had just gotten his medical license when he was called up. Rosa’s plan to devote herself to making a home had been derailed when Peter was drafted, and since the Army did not pay what a doctor earned Rosa kept on working. “How’s your doctor, Jenna?”
Jenna’s fiancé was working in a hospital in Alsace, France. Like Donna’s son, William had gone to a place they had known mostly from movies and books, which were probably wildly inaccurate.
“He’s fine, as far as I can tell from letters with crossed out words. How about you, Mary?”
Mary’s husband was in the Navy. “Simon’s still a cook. No matter that he was a machinist before he was enlisted, they made him a cook. He never cooked before. The Army never thought of finding out what he was good at, just set him down where they wanted him. I wonder if they ever really saw him.”
Donna parked and the women walked to the entrance and punched in. They scattered to change into work clothes and to their workstations, but usually managed to take their meal break
together. All were welders on the third shift, 11 to 7. You started on the third shift. Evening and day shifts were privileges you earned. Jenna never got her sleep out. Her body clock never kept up with the time she was working or what she did on her days off. Noise from the family she rented her room from filtered in. At least blackout curtains kept the light out.
It helped that the men at the Yard were getting used to them. In the beginning everyone was uneasy, and a few of the men were mean. Women found dirt or worse in their lunch boxes. Before they learned that they needed to buy men’s work boots in the smallest size possible, men stepped on their toes in steel-capped boots. Men “accidentally” brushed against them in places that are hard to find” accidentally.” They moved women’s tools behind their backs and misled them when they asked questions. But things were settling down. Most men were respectful and helpful. They realized that they were all part of the cause. They were all one weapon, one more way to bring sons and brothers home.
Welding was not easy work. You were on your feet throughout your 10-hour shift. The protective gear you wore, helmet with face shield, apron, gloves and those steel-capped shoes, was heavy. Sometimes sparks got through anyhow, and you found small burn holes in your clothing at the end of the shift. Women traded skirts for pants, which drew odd looks if they wore them on the streets. The protective gear was suffocating in the summer.
But you took your salt tablets in the heat and carried on. You kept your head to your work. No matter how tired you were or how routine the work got, or what was on your mind, you kept to your work. Workers couldn’t allow themselves distractions. They had already seen that accidents on the line could be catastrophic.
At last, the lunch break. Time to sit down and grab something to drink. You were usually starving by this point. But for the women, lunch meant more than rest and food. Among
themselves, they could share their worries and be completely sure there were no remarks, no “accidental” touching or sly looks.
“Oof, my feet feel like I’ve been on them for 60 hours instead of 6,” said Donna as she sank into her chair. “At least wearing that gear all day is taking the weight off me.”
“I know what you mean. That helmet was made to give us all headaches. I know it,” Mary sighed as she rubbed her temples.
“Well, you don’t need to be losing weight, you little pixie. If you did there wouldn’t be anything left but your hair and your smile.” Donna shook her head, then tucked into her sandwich.
“Peanut butter and jelly again,” sighed Willow. “Anybody remember meat?”
“Vaguely,” said Rosa. “Meatballs at our house are now meat, breadcrumbs and wishes.”
“How about you, Professor?” asked Donna.
“Don’t ask me,” laughed Jenna. “I’ve been on cafeteria food for three years. I’m never sure what they put in the food.”
“Well, you’ll be an artist by this time next year.”
“I hope. I wonder if my painting is going to be done on my days off, like now. But with all the education credits I have, I know I can teach.” Finished with her sandwich, Jenna turned to the paper and pastels or charcoal she always carried with her. Jenna took every minute she had to sketch. She’d made pastels of all the women, and her caricatures of people in the Yard were lethally funny. More than once the women had to hide a wicked caricature they had been laughing over when the subject of the picture came into the break room.
Bathroom break before going back to work. Even going to the bathroom wasn’t easy at first. Bathrooms had to be set aside for the women, The urinals were still there, however.
Even though the shift was ¾ over, the last hours were the hardest. Even though you’d gotten used to the heavy protective gear, the noise and the long hours of standing and welding,
your muscles cramped, and fatigue made you light-headed. You started thinking about having a cool drink and lying down in a dark room. You forced your attention back to your job.
Finally, the shift ended. Dawn was breaking as the women filed back to Donna’s car, the sky streaking blue and pink with wispy clouds. There was less conversation as the tired women rode home.
And so, the days passed, every one much the same. Another day off came. Jenna stole a few hours from chores to paint. What should she do? What was speaking to her? She chose oil paints, even though paint and canvases were expensive. What she had in mind needed something stronger than pastels or charcoals. She sketched in the faces of the Rosies, preparing to paint them. Would she see them after this summer? Fate had put very different women together in the Yard, but would they drift apart as they returned to their different lives? She had a way to remember them. Now they started to emerge on the canvas, Donna, Mary, Willow, Rosa, and Jenna, in denim and bandannas, level, steady gazes in their pretty eyes.


Note: I used information from interviews with women who worked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard during the war to describe the experience of working there.
Corbett Cavouras, Krissa and Jennifer Egan, et. al. (2021, October 6). Borrowed. Season 4, episode 2 “Building Brooklyn: Women on the Waterfront.” [Text of podcast]. Brooklyn Public Library. https: www.bklynlibrary.org/podcasts/building-brooklyn-women.

---

Vaterland Rückreise

a satirical alternate conspiracy theory

by Gerald Arthur Winter


She was rotogravure, front cover quality, a feminine specimen that would make him
a proud papa. Disappointed that their first child was a girl, he was later joyous over the birth
of their son and proudly called him Junior. But when they returned to his wife Mary’s native
homeland for the first time at the close of World War Two, they made some new friends who’d
escaped from Germany during the collapse of the Third Reich.
Mary had grown up in the village called Tong on Lewis Island of the Scottish Hebrides.
She’d spoken fluent Gaelic all of her life. Her American husband, Fred, spoke some German,
but mostly the Queen’s English, i.e. Queens, NYC. There he and his mother were business
partners in cheap housing—a euphemism for slum lords. Using the age old business principal
of tearing a piece of cloth apart and using one half to sell for profit and the other half to buy
a larger, cheaper piece of cloth, they did the same with apartments in Queens and began to
make a fortune.
Fred told his mother, “I’ll buy ‘em, build ‘em, and forget ‘em as our income keeps
rolling in. If not, they’re out on the street! Eviction, Incorporated. I love it.”
Wealth was enough to suit Mary, but Fred disapproved of lowly elements trying to
rent his properties. Too much risk of income loss from evictions. He’d been arrested in NYC
ten years earlier after marching with the Klu Klux Klan in protest against Irish Catholic cops
having the right to tell any New York City WASP what to do. Fred believed anyone who
came to America after his own family was second rate, some less than human.
In his conversations with the German ex-patriots from the Fatherland they all agreed the world would be better off had Germany won . . . and the Führer was right
about the Jews. The Negroes? Fugetabowtem!
“I’ve got to deal with so many Jews in New York, and I keep the Sambos out of my
apartments. I’d rather have rat infestation than have those animals lowering the value of
my real estate. I’ve paid for cheap muscle to run them off. If they come back, they disappear.”
After several nights of late night conversation, mostly in German since Fred had
quickly picked it up again years after his parents’ daily conversations in German when he
was a boy, the three German men and one woman agreed to trust Fred with their secret.
Behind Mary’s back, Fred told the Germans that though he had a son at home in
America, he sensed a flaw in him, a weakness that would make him a poor businessman
and might ruin all he’d established in New York. He wished there were a way to assure
himself that he could have a son who’d be all he wanted him to be with the same political
ilk of being proud of his German bloodline.
“My next son will learn that he is surely superior to all others.”
The Germans went dead silent then suddenly burst into laughter. Then they told
Fred about their secret mission.
“We are scientists,” the man called Otto said.
“Chemical engineers and biologists,” Rudy clarified.
“But I am an M.D. and a surgeon,” Anna said proudly fluffing her blond shoulder-
length coif.
“What about you?” Fred asked the no-neck Karl built like a pot-bellied stove.
“I remove any obstacles to our plan,” he said with a threatening tone.
“Are you going to rob a bank?” Fred jested, but the others just stared at him in
silence, then suddenly broke out in raucous laughter.
“Nein. Not a bank, Fritz,” they tagged him casually.
Anna smirked playfully with Fred then whispered with pursed lips, “Vee vill
steal an entire country—our enemy the United States of mongrels.”
“How much would you charge me per acre, better yet, city block?” Fred asked.
“No joke,” Otto assured him. “If you join us, you vill start on the ground floor
but in forty years you could own it all.”
“How?”
Anna stood to make her proposal. “Let me impregnate your vife vit da new
method I’ve created to assure the perfection of your boy at birth. I have no name
for it yet, but it vorks on sheep, pigs, and cattle. It vill be our secret, and when your
son comes of age, vee vill see to it that he is nourished to becomes his best self as
the American president. Da vorld will be at his beck and call and he vill be loyal to
the certainty that only Arians can rule the vorld with perfection.”
“How is this possible?” Fred stammered, though his interest was piqued more
than any successful land grab that had made him rich. “Da Führer’s semen has been preserved and given to us in trust to complete
our mission to build a family bloodline vorthy of vorld domination,” Otto said.
“Preserved? How?”
“Now it remains in a vacuum contained in a gold capsule incased by dry ice,”
Rudy explained.
“What do you propose?”
Anna spoke up, “By a rare science, fifty years before its time, which vee call in vitro fertilization I will impregnate your vife with da Führer’s sperm vile she is here. Can you
convince her to agree?”
“There’s no convincing in my family,” Fred huffed. “What I say goes.”
“As it should be,” Anna agreed. “I must travel back to America with you as her nurse
and be the boy’s nanny until he is thirteen. Otto vill be your bodyguard, and later—the boy’s.”
“Good,” Fred said with a nod.
Otto said, “Then he vill attend a high ranking military school for discipline, and later
become a great businessman like you. Your vealth vill give him much power in the business
vorld.”
“But leave it to us to see that his power comes to fruition,” Rudy said.
“Who is us?” Fred asked.
“Vee are nameless . . . but everywhere,” Otto said.
“Vee vill protect your son,” Rudy promised.
“I vill be at your side through every step,” Anna said with an affectionate touch to
Fred’s shoulder.
“What if this in vitro science doesn’t work, or I’m not up to this?” Fred asked.
“You are,” Karl said gruffly. “Vee must not fail.”
* * *
Fred had to explain the plan to Mary in English later that night.
“They will set up their laboratory in your father’s barn,” Fred told her.
“I’m scared,” she admitted with a tremble.
“This is no time for doubts,” Fred said harshly. “The business world will be at our feet
in a purified America. Our children and grandchildren, and their great-grandchildren will have
all they ever want. Out life in New York will be perfect. Our son will be our legacy for America’s
future.”
* * *
Though Mary agreed after initial reluctance, she had to explain to her father why
Fred’s German friends were working in his barn.
Fred came back from the barn after the German’s had set up their laboratory there
to begin with Mary’s procedure in the morning. The Germans had gone back to the boarding
house where they’d stayed for months since their escape from Germany. Fred found Mary
with her parents at the dinner table. Her father, Malcolm, was in a bad mood, and Mary
seemed nervous. She and her father were speaking in Gaelic, which annoyed Fred.
“I’ve made a rich woman of your barefoot daughter. I have important business to
do in your barn tomorrow morning. Mary’s part of it, the most important part. So butt
out, old man! Here’s a token of my business associates’ appreciation. Five thousand
American dollars. Take it and keep your mouth shut. If you don’t, Mary will come back
to America with me on the weekend and you’ll never see her again. You play ball with
me, in a year from now I’ll build you a new house, one with more than goddamn dirt
floors!”
Mary’s father scowled at Fred, but a gentle nod from Mary’s mother regarding
a new house made the Scotsman take out a bottle of scotch and take two shots. Fred
was a teetotaler and simply shook his father-in-law’s hand with a forced smile.
* * *
Anna gave Mary a local anesthetic so she was conscious during the procedure.
Fred held her hand as he squinted a smile at her from behind his face mask. Watching
Otto and Rudy bring Anna the gold capsule from the box emitting vapor from the dry
ice, and the bubbling tubes all around the operating table, gave the scene the feeling
of a Frankenstein movie.
Sensing Anna’s tension and stress in that setting, he appealed to Anna’s religious
side with, “Wasn’t Jesus born in a barn, too?”
“Born—not conceived,” Mary said.
“Close enough. We’ll create a myth.”
She cracked a smile then closed her eyes prepared to accept whatever Fred
held dear. Today it was an heir to run the empire he envisioned. Their older daughter
was sharp, but who’d ever be fool enough to let a woman run a company? Junior was
too high strung, too prone to drinking alcohol. No way to run a business. But now his
golden boy would grow up to run the show—not just the family business—but the world’s
business as an American president. Fred hoped to live to see it. So did Otto, Rudy, and Anna
with Karl to stop anyone who tried to thwart their plan.
* * *
On June 14, 1946 their son was born in Jamaica Hospital in Queens. He was
a terrible two and by five unmanageable for his German nanny, Anna.
“Vee have failed,” Anna told Fred with Otto and Rudy at her side. Perhaps your
vife’s blood was not as pure as you thought,” Anna said with malice towards Mary.
“I’m no quitter,” Fred said. “His mother will take over for now, and when he
reaches thirteen, I’ll find a military school for his high school education. I know some
important people at the New York Military Academy. They owe me. That strict
regimentation will straighten him out. Today he’s just an obnoxious little prick, but
in years to come he’ll be a real estate magnate like me.”
* * *
By 1960 Fred‘s son was a terror, and he entered NYMA with much complaint,
but his alpha personality suited him for that competitive challenge. Though he often got
into fights with other boys, as he progressed, those students seemed to vanish from
the scene, which made the more timid boys surrender to his threats. The few who
wouldn’t coddle to young Donnie would face a confrontation with Karl, still the fixer
as he’d promised Fred years ago in Scotland. If the teenagers didn’t yield to his ward,
their parents would pay one way or another. If they didn’t take the bribe financed by
Fred for his golden boy, Karl would make bad things happen without exception.
Fred asked Karl to be subtle so as not to soil the family name before his son
came to power.
Karl laughed. “For us, gunfire is verboten, but faulty brakes or poison can be
subtle. I specialize in the overdose—of kindness—like an act of God.”
Fred was leery of Karl, but his henchman shrugged casually and said, “Not to
vorry Fritz, everyone has a price, bullion works better than blood.
* * *
Fred’s son went out for the baseball team and all he had to do was nod towards the
backstop during batting practice. The other boys saw Karl glaring at them until the pitcher
starter lobbing in 70 mph pitches to let Donnie hit the ball over the leftfield fence because
Fred pulled strings with the Yankees to get a scout to see Donnie hit.
“What pitch was that?” the coach called to the mound.
The pitcher hesitated, looked towards Karl then shouted, “My best curve!”
He had his teammates trained to do his bidding and grinned at the BP pitcher knowing
he had the votes from enough teammates to be chosen captain. All dissenters were benched
after Karl had a talk with the coach whose week in Key West every February kept him in line.
* * *
By his senior year, the eighteen-year-old swaggered his way around the diamond
like he owned it. Fred had Karl contact the small local paper The Evening News of Newburgh,
New York in Hudson Valley. When the sports editor wouldn’t bend to beef up the sports
stories making Donnie the hero of a win, Karl paid some locals to sabotage circulation. He
starting rumors about Communist editorials and made delivery trucks skid off the road.
Though coercing the media didn’t work, NYMA’s baseball coach got many perks from
Fred to keep his son in the starting lineup at first base. Despite his size and a strong throw,
Donnie was a mediocre player, a little better than par at fielding at first base, but he had
no better than a .100 batting average on varsity. He reached base mostly on errors by the
other teams and Karl took the umpire and score keeper aside with bribes to make the calls
hits rather than errors by the opposition.
Fred’s ten-thousand-dollar donation to the NYMA’s sports program in Donnie’s
senior year got him a Coach’s Award and Captain’s Award on plaques in the gymnasium’s
showcase. The two baseball coaches during those four years had objected, but the $10K
donation got them to shrug it off and look the other way when both got a week in Hawaii
from Fred.
* * *
When Donnie got his draft notice at nineteen, Fred pulled strings to get his favorite
son into Wharton and put an orthopedic surgeon on his off-the-books list for paid Caribbean
vacations just to keep a medical record of Donnie’s bone spurs in his heel from playing first
base at NYMA. A fake X-ray of that condition from a long diseased patient went into Donnie’s
file. Though his son was streetwise and had the shark-like alpha personality to succeed in the
real estate business, Donnie had poor reading comprehension, mostly because he never read
anything but gossip columns in the tabloids where he hoped to see his name.
“It doesn’t matter what they say about ya, Dad, as long as they’re talking about ya.
Free publicity. By the time I close a big real estate deal, everyone will already know my name.
I think they call it ‘branding’ and I’m creating my own brand because I need to be known for
more than just being your son. You’ll only be known for being my dad.”
Donnie’s self-assuredness made Fred wary. He’d always kept a low profile. He
wanted everyone to know he was rich enough to keep the rabble at a distance, but how
rich kept just between him and his CFO, a trusted friend he’d known since his first apartment
purchase. He was the only one, other than himself and God, who knew just how much he
was really worth.
* * *
Though it took many payoffs to get Donnie his degree in Business, including a
ringer taking his SATs for him, and bribes to some professors with untraceable assets,
Fred was concerned about the draft board and alerted his orthopedic bag man he’d need
those X-rays and his letter of diagnosis to keep his golden boy from hitting the swamps
of Vietnam with the niggers, spics, and other losers who’d become LBJ’s grist for the
mill.
Donnie’s 1-Y classification with the draft would keep him out of the military unless
the North Vietnamese attacked mainland U.S.A. Fred drew a breath of relief, but Donnie
more so. Free-white and 21, he was ready for the NYC highlife of beautiful women. Fred
tried to counter Donnie’s sexual urges by keeping his son busy in the family business all
day.
Donnie was taken under his father’s wing in his New York real estate empire, but
his son fancied himself a Don Juan and used his wealth to lure young women charmed
by his life of luxury. He had no close friends his own age, so his father encouraged him to
seek mentoring by men well-established in their fields from attorneys and politicians
to mobsters with syndicated police protection.
“You never know when you can do someone a financial favor,” Fred told him.
“What goes round, comes round.” But he warned him, “Stay away from booze, drugs,
and gold diggers. Never use your wealth when someone else will be glad to give you
theirs just for a small piece of what you have. But remember—keep away from Jews,
niggers, and spics or they’ll ruin your shiny shoes like dog shit. Better to avoid turds
than to have to scrape them off your heel.”
* * *
Following his father’s code, Donnie took Fred’s seven-figure gift on his twenty-
first birthday and began to establish his own prowess as a fledgling real estate mogul,
but rather than a sparrow, he was a hawk.
Befriending shyster lawyers and connecting with mob controlled unions helped
step up Donnie’s way to the top and get his foot in the door of prime Manhattan pro-
perties that were undervalued or, better yet, facing foreclosure. Even with his millions
from his father, he never used it to buy real estate, only to buy off people who got in
his way. When it came to the property purchases, he leveraged his risks by using
other people’s money, banks at first, then private lenders, mostly anonymous, with
the lenders keeping the books so there would be no paper trail to lead back to him
in case of a problem.
“Me? Problems?” Donnie responded to a reporter when he bought the skeletal
remains of a deserted skyscraper that was left incomplete due to a union strike that
stopped production three years earlier. “This will be prime real estate fully occupied
within two years. You can count on that. We’ve already got leases for sixty percent
of the suites. I don’t call that a problem. Do you?”
Though a complete lie without a single committed occupant’s signature on a
lease, he told his father, Fred, “One man’s lie can become a public truth if you keep
saying it again and again. The accepted belief makes it the truth, and soon it will be.
Just watch and see, Dad. I’ll make you proud. When the time comes, you’ll have to
stand aside and make me boss.”
And so he did, and the building was completed and fully occupied as promised,
but it took his private dealings with attorneys and union bosses with mob connections
to put some contractors into bankruptcy due to non-payment for their completed work.
Donnie’s counter lawsuits forced his adversaries to crumble then he shared his profits
by paying off his business debts early and borrowing even more for another undervalued
property with prime potential.
Fred slept well at night imagining the sound of Donnie tearing a piece of fine
clothe in half to buy four more pieces of clothe as he began to fill his wardrobe with
fine garments that made headlines and brought media attention worldwide to his
towering structures of elegance that etched the Manhattan skyline.
It seemed as if the plan devised so many years ago at the close of World War II
was coming towards fruition, but what his son’s conception had promised became
uncertain despite Donnie’s vow to his father never to partake of alcohol, drugs, or
tobacco. Though Donnie had the necessary drive of greed and a lust for power, his
lust for women hadn’t been considered by his father. Donnie’s abstinence from the
other vices seemed to charge his need for beautiful young women to confirm his
power and control.
“Don’t ruin this great plan I have for you by giving 
in to your animal urges,”


“I admire men of power and character like Ronald Reagan, Dad,” but I admire
Hugh Hefner even more. Reagan was a square. I want to be cool like Hefner.”
“You should get married and settle down with a family,” Fred urged.
“That can wait, Dad. I read on Page Six that I’m the most eligible bachelor in New
York City. I want to mix it up with young debutantes and starlets to brand my name.
Women like to kiss and tell, so I’ll feed them information I want them to spread about
me—all good. I’ll use my influence to create media stories that will give me power.”
There’s the son I planned to have, Fred thought. Those Germanic genes that
conceived him long ago, at last, are coming to the fore.
* * *
“A coon in the White House,” he said to his attorney mentor of notoriety. “He’s
probably saying to Putin—‘Ain’t nobody in here, but us chickens.’”
It was 2009 and Barack Obama was inaugurated President. Donnie’s father
had died ten years earlier after several years of diminished mental capacity from
Alzheimer’s, or so it was told by the family for anyone outside the family who heard
the old man in his 90s saying he’d known the most powerful men of his lifetime--
Il Duce, Adolf, Josef. “Hitler was my favorite, but Stalin was no textbook Commie,
Just a dictator who turned all of Hitler’s conquered territories into his own. Got to
admire that kind of reversal of power. Nostrovia!”
Without Fred to tighten his leash, Donnie spent those next ten years solidifying
his brand with product licensing, sports ownership, a book deal, and a highly successful
TV show, but politically, he hovered on the periphery of the Democratic Party when it
suited him best for financial advantage and influence. But his genetic ilk soon rose to
the surface as he made a secret pact with a group of GOP Senators and Representatives
of Congress.
“A goddamn nigger in the White House! Leave it to me and my people to stir the
pot of protest. None of you need be directly involved. Let it all fall on me when I accuse
him of being a Muslim and not an American citizen. My man Stone knows how to get it
done and I’ll be the voice. But in return I want the nomination of the Republican Party
for 2016. No more weathered old military losers and Mr. Clean Mormons. I’ll be nasty
and successful—I’m a winner who’ll get the White House back where it belongs, in
the grip of White Power. We’ll make America great again. Only I can do that.”
* * *
He bullied his way through the primaries and won the GOP candidacy. He used
his influence emboldened by a private meeting he’d had three years earlier with Vladimir
Putin at the 2013 Miss Universe Contest in Moscow.
With Putin’s interpreter they conversed:
“If you run in the next election, I can guarantee your win,” Putin said.
“I can guarantee my win without your help. I’ve got this in the palm of my hand.
They love me. They wanna be me. I let them think they can. You probably have a similar
Russian expression, but my election will be like shooting fish in a barrel.”
Smirking, Putin said, “If you don’t do this my way, it will be your turn in the barrel.
But for your enjoyment here in Moscow, I have a barrel full of beautiful Russian women
to do for you whatever you wish.”
Putin’s sources had briefed him on Donnie’s weaknesses.
Putin’s mole in America’s State Department told him, “Our Code Name Orange never
met a pussimskov he wouldn’t Tchaikovsky. Man’s a pig. The model we set him up with to
continue his bloodline is playing her role well.”
“Yes. The first wife we assigned to him was ideal with her fluent German, French,
Czech, Russian and English. She would have served well as his First Lady but his wandering
eye and lust provoked her to divorce him at high cost. He should have kept that fucking
hotel.”
“The first one was paid well enough to let him go, but then the bimbo took a while
to shake off and left us with another mouth to feed. A daughter yet.”
“Still, our time is ripe and her replacement is working out well. I knew her father
when he was a loyal member of The League of Communists of Slovenia. Her parents are
here now, so we have her where we need her as the next First Lady. Their son will carry the DNA of the Führer. Our moles in Congress will rise up to create the anarchy in the
Capitol that we need to make this work. As we well know, the only way to counter anarchy
is through the power of a dictator. I love the smell of autocracy in the morning.”
* * *
The cyberattack on the election outcome was successful in 2016 and Code Name
Orange was in the position required as America’s Head of State to fulfill Putin’s plan. In
order to become the autocrat needed to take over America, minions were required.
The chess game on the North American continent required pawns to block, support,
and sacrifice themselves for the greater cause of America’s Caucasian dominance.
Donnie shunned the term “White Supremacy.” Not that he didn’t support that
platform, but rather because he believed being white and Teutonic were synonymous
with supremacy—the top of Nature’s food chain.
What he and Putin hadn’t counted on was strong populace opposition to
his seedling autocracy. In a private meeting with Putin in Helsinki, they discussed
their options beginning with Putin advocating random poisonings, fake suicides,
and accidents to remove the possibility of a Blue wave against him in the mid-terms.
“I don’t like that public exposure by hitting prominent opposing politicians.
Let’s use our pawns, the police, the NRA, motorcycle gangs. Any excuse for a cop to
pull over anyone who’s against us, beginning of course with niggers and spics. We’ll
get the Asians last, payback for Vietnam. We can rid America of the Jews and Guineas
when we control everything from the Supreme Court to Congress with me at the helm.”
“My Russian underground in America will help with all that by terrorizing any
politician with threats that their families will disappear. We’ll make a few happen
with media coverage on Fox News so the others will know we’re serious.”
Donnie laughed, then said aside to Putin, “You know I had the most successful
TV show in America, but I should’ve gotten royalties for the popular show that was
actually about me—Game of Thrones. I thought of suing them for using a quote
from me.”
“What was that?”
“When I first stepped into the Oval Office as President, my beautiful daughter
asked me, ‘Who are our enemies, Daddy?’ I told her, anyone who’s not us.”
“My range is less inclusive,” Putin admitted with a handshake. “My enemy is
anyone who’s not me.”
They held their grips on each other’s hands too long to be friendly, but a pact had
been made for what both believed was the greater good.
Donnie leaned in closer to Putin and whispered, “Please kill Hillary. She’s on to us.”
“She’s only a woman. What could she ever do to us?”
“I want to know I can count on you for that option if needed.”
“Of course-s-s-s,” Putin hissed coming closer yet and glaring at him with serpent’s
eyes as his purple tongue fluttered with the taint of borsht.
* * *
Their plan worked for three and a half years with Donnie as President, but
then the same Law of Nature that Donnie had relied on to declare his racial and ethnic
supremacy went haywire in 2020 with a pandemic that would kill millions and shake
the financial stability of America. He and Putin conversed through back channels and
concluded there was only one to be blamed logically for this disaster—China.
“I put you in office, so you must win the election this year for another four years,”
Putin told him. “By then your power will have destroyed their institutions of democracy
and you can declared yourself President just as I have in Russia, for life.”
“I’ll do you one better, Vlad. I’ll make my daughter my vice president and declare
her as my lifetime successor to the presidency upon my passing. She’ll rule like a queen.
History will talk of her beauty and rule of America for millenniums like a modern day
Cleopatra.”
“Like Catherine the Great,” Putin said with a nod, but Donnie thought: She’s was a
skank compared to by darling daughter.
“They’ll never get me, but even if they do, ‘Ivanka the Great’ will rule the world
as my legacy to our Germanic/Slavic greatness.”
“Agh! A women can’t rule! They’re on earth for only one reason, to comfort men
between battles.”
“If my youngest son shows promise, his aunt will agree to give him the throne.
If not, she’ll be penniless because her offspring are unfit—only half Jews, but Jews all the
same.”
* * *
Similar to the chemical experiments as shown in 19th Century literature by H.G.
Wells and Robert Louis Stevenson whereby The Invisible Man and Dr. Jekyll both went
mad from drinking their potions, perhaps a genetic mutation from the primitive in vitro insemination of the Führer’s sploogunshuntz turned Donnie into a monster, but worse
than his real father’s sociopathic behavior, he used the stars and stripes like a swastika
and turned America’s great experiment of democracy into a lawless autocracy that
demanded loyalty at any cost.
Predicting fraudulent voting against him in 2020 prior to Election Day, when he
lost by eight million popular votes, he secretly contacted Putin.
“You guaranteed my victory!” Donnie shouted into his disposable burner phone.
“I did the same thing I did in 2016, but your FBI was on to me, and took precautions
against my fraudulent ballots. Even if I provided a few million more votes for you in key
states, eight million was too much to overcome. Biden would still have won by more than
ten million if I had done nothing. You’ve lost, but now I can help you stay in power as I have
for myself in Russia. We’ll find out who voted against you and terrorize them. I have a plan
which I’ve been discussing with my moles in the White House. If you assert yourself, the
Liberal weaklings will back down and you’ll hold power. You have the Supreme Court in
your favor now, though Roberts may have to go—too impartial. No room for that if you
pull off our coup d'état. No backing down now. Our people are in place—there will be
blood.”
“Blood? I love it. We’ll put all the democrats in cages at the border before we
hang them. Rhinos, too. No room for descent. We’ll make it happen on January sixth
when they try to certify the election for Biden. Guns, knives, bombs, whatever it takes
to keep me in office. They’ll all see what a great leader I am by my power over them.
I think there’s something in the Bible about a ruler for a thousand years. That’s me,
Vlad. The second coming.”
The mid-terms were a shock to both parties in 2022. Donnie’s demise in court
over his fraudulent accounting practices in business found him guilty. His conviction
under the RICO Act made the paper trail found by the FBI a solid verdict. Appealed all
the way to the Supreme Court where a 5-4 verdict found him guilty, it was ruled that
a former American President imprisoned was not a good image for the United States i
n history.
With none of the family’s assets spared, Donnie was sentenced to 15 years
under house arrest with an ankle bracelet monitored by the Secret Service. The
“house” referred to in the Superior Court’s judgment was Mar-a-Lago, held under
Trusteeship by the IRS until his passing.
These events led to an upheaval in 2024 that turned into civil war, but unlike
The War Between the States 1860-1865, it became The War Amongst the States with
no Mason-Dixon Line for clear delineation. America became a battlefield of terror
worse than anything described in Revelations or The Trilogy of the Ring, and to the
victors would belong the truth . . . or a reasonable alternate facsimile thereof.

THE BLACK CAT

By Edgar Allan Poe


For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not --and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified --have tortured --have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror --to many they will seem less terrible than baroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place --some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiar of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point --and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto --this was the cat's name --was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character --through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance --had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me --for what disease is like Alcohol! --and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish --even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.


When reason returned with the morning --when I had slept off the fumes of the night's debauch --I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart --one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself --to offer violence to its own nature --to do wrong for the wrong's sake only --that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; --hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; --hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; --hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin --a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it --if such a thing were possible --even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts --and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fAllan in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire --a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with every minute and eager attention. The words "strange!" "singular!" and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal's neck.

When I first beheld this apparition --for I could scarcely regard it as less --my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd --by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, had then with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact 'just detailed, it did not the less fall to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupefied, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat --a very large one --fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.

Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it --knew nothing of it --had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.

For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but I know not how or why it was --its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually --very gradually --I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly it at by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly --let me confess it at once --by absolute dread of the beast.

This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil-and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own --yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own --that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had y si destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees --degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful --it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name --and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared --it was now, I say, the image of a hideous --of a ghastly thing --of the GALLOWS! --oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime --of Agony and of Death!

And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast --whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed --a brute beast to work out for me --for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God --so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight --an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off --incumbent eternally upon my heart!

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates --the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard --about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar --as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.

For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the rest of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect anything suspicious.

And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster could not every poss be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself --"Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain."

My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night --and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a free-man. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted --but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

"Gentlemen," I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, "I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this --this is a very well constructed house." (In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.) --"I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls --are you going, gentlemen? --these walls are solidly put together"; and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! --by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman --a howl --a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were tolling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

Deep Freeze

By Gerald Arthur Winter


It seemed to have taken forever to finish wrapping the gifts. I’d circled December 25th
in red on the calendar last week, but my favorite day of any year has come and gone again.
Somehow a week has slipped by, yet it seems more like a lifetime. There are only two packages
under the tree, yet I’ve already forgotten whom they’re for, which doesn’t really matter since I
can’t recall what’s in them either. Didn’t I just wrap them a short while ago? Why am I so


forgetful now, yet I remember every detail of my life from so long ago as if it were yesterday . . .


Miss Brinker was my kindergarten teacher and her lavender scent made my nostrils
flare whenever she came close to gently pat me on the head and say, ”You must refrain from
guffawing in the classroom, dear. More self-control, please. You’re a good boy, and smart, so
I’m sure you’ll do well in school, but you must learn to pay attention.
“Don’t let that Mary Dendy from across the tracks distract you. She comes from a bad
seed, a rough lot with boys who drink, smoke, and carouse. My goodness, those Dendy girls.
The two older sisters, dear God, both in the family way by fifteen. I emphasize family. Celibacy
is a foreign word in that clan. From my observations, incest runs rampant in that scurrilous
abode. The Dendy’s are surely damned. Don’t mingle with those little tramps or they’ll drag
you down into their prurient pit of—dare I say it—hell . . .”


At age five my mind was a sponge for knowledge. Miss Brinker saturated my
head with such hatefulness. She tried to force her ideology on me—a defenseless child.
At least she was right about my doing well in school. I must’ve purged those negative
thoughts from my mind and moved on. Christmas is no time for bad memories and
regrets. It’s a special time for loving and giving without selfishness. Live and let live.
Fa-la-la-la-la-a-h! La-la-la-la-ah!
I see the door knob jiggling. Who could it be? I’ll unlock the door and see.
“Just a moment!” I call out in sing-song fashion.
Hmm. I’m sure I’ve been in a musical—at least once. Was it high school or college?
Maybe both. Good pipes, I was told. Something about shuffling off to Buffalo or was it—?
Hey, Officer Krupke, Krup you!
My heart flutters as I open the door and see her just as I’ve always remembered
her—my Darling Bonnie—not a day older than Prom Night. Her kisses still taste like


Dentyne gum as we embrace with lips pressed together. Then breaking our ardent clinch,
she glances at the Christmas tree where the two gift-wrapped packages reflect the
flames from the hearth with a kaleidoscope effect on the ceiling.
“Pour moi?” she asks excitedly rushing to the tree. She took French in high school
just to go on the senior Paris trip over Winter Break. She sent me postcards and cushy
love letters, but rumors were she’d done some frog and wore his purple beret the rest
of the supposedly chaperoned class trip.
“One of them is pour vous,” I tell her watching her eyes light up.
“Which one?”
“Your choice, Bonnie.”
“I want the lavender one,” she says excitedly, grabbing the package, tearing at the
wrapping paper, and ripping off the pink bow.
She holds its contents between her thumb and index finger and brings it close to
one squinting eye. “What the hell is this?”
“A key.”
“An effing key?”
“A special key as I recall.”
She bites the key like a dog with a bone. “It’s not even made of gold and has no
diamonds. Does it open something that has gold and diamonds?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then what good is it?”
Before I can answer, the door swings open. I’m sure I’d locked it behind Bonnie
after she came in. I’m not sure who it is.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Bonnie asks the woman standing in the
doorway and looking only at me, as if the crackling hearth, the Christmas tree, and the
one gift still wrapped beneath the tree aren’t there. She seems oblivious to Bonnie as if


I’m all she wants or cares to see.”
“Oh, my God! It’s really you,” the woman at the door says to me as she comes
closer and opens both her hands to cradle mine in hers.
Her hands feel smooth and soft, like a tender child’s. Yet her face has the radiance
of wisdom learned through many years of living. Ups and downs, problems solved, and
lessons learned.
A halo encircles her raven hair with ringlets draped over her bare shoulders. Not
practical in late December with a foot of fresh snow visible through the bay window.
I hear carolers in the distance singing “Joy to the World.” She must hear them,
too, as she turns towards the bay window as if Bonnie isn’t even here.
Bonnie frowns at her, then at me. She mimics gagging herself with a finger making
a fake puking wretch. She always was a cut-up.
Without acknowledgement of Bonnie’s antics, the brunette says, “I’ve come for--
that is—I was told there might be a key.”
Bonnie stomps her feet then goes nose to nose with her, but the woman brushes
Bonnie aside as if she were merely a cobweb in a dilapidated dwelling, just a momentary
nuisance that’s beginning to fade before my eyes.
“The key is mine!” Bonnie shrieks. “He gave it to me before you burst in here uninvited.”
“Thanks for the invitation,” the woman says to me, pulling out a scarlet envelope
containing an invitation adorned with white roses and pink hearts. Could I have sent it?
“Hey! Where’s my invitation?” Bonnie squawks.
“You didn’t need one,” I say with a huff. “You’ve always invited yourself into every
aspect of my life. That’s why I told you to choose the Christmas gift you want. You’ve made
your choice, Bonnie.”
“I want to be with you forever,” Bonnie proclaims.
“And so you will, but so will she.”


“I’m barely eighteen,” Bonnie says with confidence. “She must be forty, maybe more.”
“Age has no meaning here,” I tell her. “Neither gold nor diamonds have any worth here
—love is the only currency.”
“Then this dumb key must be worthless, too,” Bonnie sneers at it then tosses it to me.
“Are you sure you don’t want it?” I ask.
“Hey! Is this a gag? Does that key open a treasure chest? Are you holding out on me?”
“You can keep the key,” I tell her, offering it back to her. “Or you can take the other
gift instead. That’s up to you, Bonnie.”
She eyes the other package, drab compared to the one she opened before.
“Oh, I get it. Trying to trick me into keeping that worthless key. OK, I’ll take the
plain brown package. Bet it’s got the jewels in it. Too bad for you, lady, with your grey
roots under that cheap die job.”
The older woman stands tall with a statuesque poise, but seems only to see me,
as if Bonnie is merely a figment of my imagination.
“I’ve come for the key,” the woman says. “Only the key, nothing more.”
“The key might open up a can of worms,” I caution her.
She smiles broadly with dimples and light crows’ feet beneath her baby blues.
Her teeth sparkle like pearls and her musky essence makes me feel heady.
“I know what the key will open. That’s why I’ve waited so long to join you here
in this room forever, with the sweet scents of Christmas lingering and the promise of
a never-ending New Year together.”
“What about Bonnie?” I ask her.
“Who?” she asks with genuine confusion.
“YEAH! What about me?” Bonnie shouts, nearly foaming at the mouth.
“You can’t see or hear her, can you?” I ask the stranger.
“I see only you. We’ve come full circle. Fate had kept us apart. You going your way


and I going mine. You had a long life filled with great memories, while mine was cut short--
I can’t recall how, but I was in my forties and without a family when I took ill. There was no
pain, no lingering dread of a lonely end. I had only one lasting memory of a young boy who
was concerned about me enough to walk me home from school every chance he got. I never
got to see him again as I grew older. But with my last breath I felt as if I were reaching out for
a key that would open a new door for me. At first, I thought I’d need a key to open the door
to this timeless room, but you let me in when I turned the doorknob by opening it the from
inside. You made me feel welcome.”
Bonnie huffed where she sat on the floor beside the Christmas tree. “I bet this
small package inside the brown box contains diamonds. Must be a ring.”
She rips open the box, takes out a ring and puts it on her finger.
“Perfect fit!” she shouts, but vanishes in a puff of red smoke.
“Oow! What’s that burning smell?” the woman squints putting the back of her
hand to her face with a muffled cough.
“Do you still want this key?” I ask her as she recovers from coughing.
“The key is all I’ve ever wanted, but it’s always seemed out of reach.”
I handed the key to her.
She kisses the key then thrusts out her arm with the key still in hand. The key
is burning hot as it pierces my heart. She twists the key and I feel my heart open. I see
her for just a moment as I’d last seen her, five years old walking her home from school
which I’d promised my mom I’d never do.
“Those Dendy girls are just a bunch of trouble,” she’d often warned me.
I heard that so many times from friends and family, but that special week between
Christmas and New Year’s Eve, even in the hereafter, is made of missed chances recovered,
where truths are revealed to bring together all that dreams are made of by melting away the
deep freeze of mortality with the newborn possibilities of an everlasting life.


Should Old Acquaintance be forgot, and never thought upon; The flames of Love extinguished, and fully past and gone: Is thy sweet Heart now grown so cold, that loving Breast of thine; That thou canst never once reflect On old long syne.
_____________

The Samhain Show

By Edward Ahern



Brunstella sighed, wishing she had gone into dealing drugs. “I can’t move the cauldron.”
Griselda patted her sister’s shoulder. “Of course you can, dearie. Just use a spell.”
“I’ve only got magick left for one spell. I’m not blowing it on rolling a rusty iron pot out into the woods.”
“Then hire a troll.”
“With what? Nobody pays us for spells anymore, they’ve all got miracle cures from pharmacies.”
Griselda’s voice hardened. “It’s the Samhain sacrifice, sweetie, we swore to observe it.”
Brunstella grabbed her cane and stood up, joints creaking. “If we cut the baby into quarters we could just use a stew pot and freeze the left overs for next year.”
“You know better. It has to be a whole, live baby girl, unbaptized. Unbaptized is easy to find these days.”
“Yeah, but not so easy to boil. The last one puked in the pot and it took me three hours to clean it out.”
Griselda leaned forward to whisper in her sister’s ear. “Do be cautious, younger sister. You know who is listening.”
Brunstella’s laugh was harsh. “When’s the last time we saw her? Eighty years? I think she’s wagging her infernal booty elsewhere. We’re obsolete.”
Griselda slapped her, mottling the wrinkled skin of Brunstella’s cheek. “Never doubt the Mistress! Just do as she ordered us.”
Brunstella muttered but stiffly lowered herself back down to think. If magick was out she’d have to rely on cunning. I could have done better for myself, she thought, a shill or a prostitute, but look where I am.
Then an idea struck her and she got up with a groan and hobbled down a dirt track that lead away from their cottage, then forked left onto a gravel road for another half mile, eventually reaching a cabin. She walked up to the door and yelled inside.
“Tom, you sober enough to talk?”
“Get away from me, you miserable hag.”
“Don’t be like that. I need you and your tow truck.”
“The last thing I did for you gave me shingles. Go away.”
“No, seriously. I can give you erotic visions like a sultan never had.”
Tom snorted. “Get out of the dark ages. I’ve already got four bookmarked porn sites, all free.”
Brunstella wouldn’t be put off. “Okay, how’d you like to get wasted on the nectar of the gods?”
“Like you knew how to get it.” But his tone had changed, and Brunstella knew she had him interested.
“It’s an old family recipe. All you have to do is move something and I’ll give you enough divine booze to stay blasted for a week.”
The door cracked open, and a blotchy, bleary eyed face appeared. “Move what?”
“Just a big old stew pot. I need it to go into the woods, then a few weeks later to be lugged out.
“How big?”
Brunstella’s first instinct was to lie, but she knew he’d find out anyway. “Maybe four hundred pounds.”
“That’s not a pot, that’s a hot tub. Make it enough booze for two weeks.”
Brunstella didn’t hesitate. “Done! It’ll be ready for you day after tomorrow, when you come to move the cauldron.”
She hobbled back down the gravel road but stopped just before the turnoff onto the dirt track and went up to a one wide trailer that hadn’t moved or been improved for a quarter century. The makeshift wood steps up to the door were almost rotted through, and she stepped carefully, then knocked. “Craig! It’s Brunstella. I got a deal for you.”
“Get away from my door or I’ll be the one cursing you.”
“Now, now Craig, I think I can take that contaminated moonshine off your hands. Maybe even pay you a little.”
Craig, who considered himself an unappreciated cinematographic genius, cracked open the door and peeped at her. “It’s got turpentine spilled into it, you old biddy, nobody could abide the taste.”
Brunstella smiled. “Yes, well by the time I’ve added in herbs and hallucinogens it’ll taste like nectar. You still got it?”
“Yeah.” Craig opened the door all the way and let her in. “How would you move it?”
“I’ll come by later on with a wheelbarrow.” She looked around the room. Everything was gray, hidden under a half-decade of dust. Everything except a small desk with a lap top computer and sheets of paper. “Working on something?”
Craig’s shoulders sagged. “I got an in at a studio, producer named Harry Beerstein owes me a favor, but I need a concept for a TV show, and my mind is farting bad scenarios.”
That’s when Brunstella had her second great idea of the day. She stood still for several seconds, thinking it through.
“You’ve been living so bad you might as well have been cursed, Craig, but I’ve got your cure.”
“I doubt you’ve even got money for the booze.”
“Hear me out. Reality shows are what everybody’s watching right? We give ‘em the ultimate- intrigue, hatred, nudity, promiscuous sex, violence, even human sacrifice.”
“Hah?”
“The Samhain ritual, stupid. We do a bunch of episodes leading up to the sacrifice, shoot it all on your hand-held camera, hire our neighbors in for dirt wages- hell, some of them would do it for free- it’s got everything. You just need a watcha-callit- trunk line.
“Log line. Jesus, Brunstella, it just might work.”
“Don’t bring him into it. Of course it will. How’s this for a log line? ‘Hidden witches corrupt their town for devil worship.’
Craig had started pacing back and forth, stirring up dust. “Close. But you and Griselda are toad ugly. Nobody would watch you with or without clothes.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’d use some of our local sinners for the sex scenes and nude dancing. For the climax episode we’d rent an unwanted infant…”
Craig warmed to the idea. “Then shoot the parents getting remorse and showing up at the ceremony and getting beaten and cursed. All staged of course, but what reality show isn’t? Yeah, I like it.”
They talked excitedly for another hour, Craig tapping possibilities into his lap top. He was so worked up about the project he gave Brunstella the contaminated hooch for a hair restorative ointment.
Darkness was creeping in as Brunstella limped down the dirt track to their cottage. She knew she couldn’t tell Griselda, not yet anyway. Griselda was the conservative witchy equivalent of Opus Dei. As she entered the cottage, lit only by firelight and candles, Griselda was skinning a cat.
“Ritual?” Brunstella asked.
“Supper,” Griselda replied. “What about the cauldron?”
“Taken care of. You and I are going to Craig’s tomorrow with the wheelbarrow and picking up two cases of poisoned booze. I doctor the booze and give it to drunken Tom, who’ll use his tow truck to carry the cauldron into the woods.”
“We don’t have money for that, and you’ve got no powers right now. How’d you do it?”
“Grace and kindness. Don’t’ worry, it’s done.”
“Tom’s apt to die or go crazy.”
“Yup.”
“Okay. Supper’ll be ready in a half hour.”
Griselda and Brunstella picked up and doctored the moonshine the next morning and delivered it to Tom. Craig showed up at their cottage two days later. He was afraid to go up to the cottage door and called out from down the path. “Brunstella!”
She heard his third yell and came out, putting a finger to her lips, then walking with him into a shaded grove. “What news?”
“He liked the idea. Said it was fresh, edgy. But he doesn’t know you. Or trust you. He needs some footage to show what we can do.”
Brunstella nodded. She appreciated doubt and suspicion. “Your camera and mike working?”
“Sure. What are you thinking of?”
“Tom’s hauling a cauldron for me. You and I go with him into the woods, along with that skank girlfriend of his. You’re filming all the way through. I do some smoke and haze mumbo jumbo over a bottle of the booze and give it to them. They’ll start drinking, it’s what they do. Then you shoot whatever else they do, truck bed, hood, front seat, whatever. There’ll be enough Spanish fly in th bottle to kill the bull it was meant for.”
“What if they die on the hood?”
“Doubt it, those pickles left cucumber behind a long time ago. But just keep shooting. They’re apt to drool, so get close enough to show the spit bubbles. Then I step in, yell some nonsense, and administer an antidote.”
“Antidote?”
“Just an emetic, ilex vomitoria. But their spew should be good footage.”
“I can’t do that to Tom.”
“Tom does it to himself all the time. Besides, he probably won’t remember. And you’ve got the almost porn that could get us the show.”
“That’s pretty vile.”
“I know. Fun, isn’t it?”
And so it was scripted, and so it was done. And edited. Tom displayed remarkable staying power and inventiveness. Craig was just clever enough to put the footage on a website with one-time, protected access, so his close friend couldn’t shop the idea around and double cross him. Harry Beerstein called back two days later.
“Brilliant work, Craig, brilliant. But I need a copy so I can show it to the right people.”
“That’s great, Harry. But first things first. I need you to option the concept for say thirty grand. I’ve drafted and registered a little something I’ll send you. As soon as we’re in binding agreement I’ll be glad to send you a tape for circulation.”
Harry got peeved, yelling that Craig was grievously lacking in talent and that his ancestry was sub human. But once Harry saw that his bullying was having no effect he quieted down and agreed.
Craig went into town and bought a burner cell phone, then turned around and drove down the dirt track to Brunstella’s cottage.
She saw him coming and hobbled out. “Do I need to curse him with boils?”
“Nah, he’s sending the thirty thou, enough to get started. Look, here’s a cell phone. I’ll show you how to use it.”
“I can’t. We hold to the old ways.”
“And I’m not going to shag my ass down here every day just to talk with you. Considering how it’s used I’m pretty sure this is an invention of the devil.”
Brunstella had thought Craig through. So long as he was straining for ego gratification and money he’d be an adequately bad boy. But once he’d arrived as a movie maker Brunstella was going to have to short leash and muzzle him with a nice disfigurement curse. “So what’s next, Craig?”
“Beerstein will put together a promo piece using some of our edgier footage and shop it around to investors. He hopes to get the up-front money commitments a few weeks after that. You’re going to have to tell Griselda then.”
Brunstella spat yellow. “I know.” As they kept talking they walked in a circle out to Craig’s one wide and back. As they re-approached the witches’ cottage, Brunstella’s insides felt like they’d curdled into corpse rot. “Somethings wrong,” she told Craig. “Get out of here. Now. I’ll call you on that flapdoodle.”
She hobbled gingerly up to the cottage door and entered. Griselda faced her, both arms akimbo, broken into odd angles. Witches can’t cry, but Griselda’s sweaty skin and rheumy eyes told of great pain. “What did you do, you clapped out whore?” Griselda demanded.
Brunstella hobbled one step toward her sister, then stopped. Something was sitting in the chair next to the fireplace.
“Yes, Brunstella, what did you do?”
The greasy voice poured over Brunstella like burning oil. Which was okay, really, because she did the same thing recreationally. “Mistress.”
“I leave you two to quietly corrupt into dust and you cause trouble with my new projects.”
“Mistress?”
“That bulbous letch Beerstein is shopping around a Samhain concept for a reality show. That’s something just between us girls. I’ve devoted too much time corrupting this nation to have it interfered with by Amateur Hour.”
The mistress’ words were soft pitched and calm and coated in venom. Griselda had started to whimper. Brunstella’s mind churned desperately, and she pulled together fragments of what Craig had told her. “Mistress, you have been so busy damning the mainstreams that you haven’t had time for the tributaries.”
The hand on the arm of the chair turned into a claw, mostly blotchy blue. “Explain yourself.”
“Just market segmentation. Griselda and I are traditionalists, we understand the part of the viewing audience that still watches televangelists.”
“So?” The word dripped acid.
“The Samhain reality show will apparently condemn wanton, infernal behavior, but will show it in such an attractive way that the religious will be curious. If they’re curious they’re halfway to you, a large group you’re not reaching with your current programming.”
The thing in the chair smiled. It wasn’t pleasant.
“Brunstella, you wart plantation, you’re onto something. Needs work of course, some demonic script writers, ads in church bulletins, that sort of thing. But yes, maybe. You’re coming to Hollywood. But I can’t have anyone as ugly as you working for me or having a lead role. Hold on.”
Brunstella dropped to the floor writhing in pain. Everything, even her teeth hurt like heaven. When she stood up again she was thirty something with fully working, reasonably attractive parts. “Thank you, Mistress.”
The thing in the chair glanced at Griselda. “A theatrical career requires personal sacrifices Brunstella. I’ll need to shut down your little operation here. Are you willing to dump Craig and abandon Griselda?”
Brunstella considered the alternative. “No problem.”

Sonny
by
Gerald Arthur Winter


On the drive from New Jersey Anna told her boys they’d be making a brief stop
at friends’ on the way to their Aunt Jean’s for Easter dinner in Queens. In the backseat
of their ’54 Chevy, with that news, Bobby turned to Gerry with a roll of his big brown
eyes. Gerry concurred with a grimace and snorting smirk. Anna’s sons had already
learned to endure her need to keep both friends and family close. Though only nine
and six respectively, Bobby and Gerry had heard their mother’s tale of woe many times.
Anna was only three when her mother and baby brother had died in the Flu Epidemic.
Despite their first reaction to the planned detour, the boys followed their father’s
example by honoring their mother’s need to hold onto relationships, especially for
special holiday festivities like Easter. The boys had already made the family and friends
rounds for Thanksgiving and Christmas last year. Regardless, certain barriers had been
established when Anna was no more than Bobby’s age, lines not crossed, bridges left
burnt behind, and words forever unsaid.
Anna, was a practical woman, always making the best use of her time. She’d
dragged her sons to Sunday school earlier that morning for an Easter egg hunt hoping
to drain some mischief out of them by satisfying their urge to romp before visiting an
elderly couple who were long-time friends of their father’s mother from Germany.
Like their dad, the boys were already dressed in their new Easter suits which,
thanks to Ovaltine consumption, they would grow out of within six months. At least
Gerry would get to wear Bobby’s hand-me-down Easter outfit next year.
That morning their dad, Bruno, had taught both boys how to tie Windsor
knots in their neckties worn proudly with brass tie-clasps. Since the boys sparkled
in their Easter attire to see their grandparents, aunts and uncles, and three younger
cousins, Anna had suggested to Bruno, “The Britt’s live in Forest Hills near Jean and
Artie, so let’s call them and see if we can stop by on our way to my family’s Easter
dinner. The Britts will be amazed to see how much the boys have grown?”
“Sure, Honey,” Bruno replied with a nod. “I guess they haven’t seen our boys
since Gerry’s christening.”
“With all these streets, avenues, and roads with the same number, I get so
confused,” Anna said. “Do you remember how to get to the Britt’s apartment?”
“Of course,” Bruno said, firmly believing German men never get lost.
“Who are the Britts?” Gerry asked his mom.
“They’re Mimi’s friends from the old country.”
Bruno’s mother preferred to be called “Mimi” because tags like “Grandma”
or “Nana” made her feel old. Easter dinner was not with Bruno’s side of the family
because another aspect of Anna’s perspective was balance. They would visit Bruno’s
side of the family on alternate years, an unbroken system which Anna adhered to
judiciously as if established by The World Court. This year was Anna’s family’s turn
on Easter, but that didn’t keep her from squeezing in another stop with friends of
Bruno’s mother to save on gas consumption and check off another name on her list
of overdue visits.
Bobby and Gerry were impatient because they enjoyed visiting their Aunt
Jean, the setting for Easter dinner later that afternoon. Without children of her own,
Aunt Jean was much like a kid herself, telling the boys enchanting tales from her British
background about pixies who lived in the Gnarly Wood. Stopping to visit people they’d
never met, or were too young to remember, was a bore for the boys. They could hardly
wait to get it over with and get to the fun part of the day. Aunt Jean played the piano
and had taught her young nephews profane British shipping songs she’d heard on the
docks from her youth in Liverpool.
“You must never sing these songs when your mum’s around. She’d have my
bloody head if she knew I’d taught them to you.”
“What does friggin’ mean?” Gerry had asked her once, but she didn’t correct
Bobby when he told his ignorant little brother, “It means cold. You know like in a
refrigerator.”
The boys had their minds set on Uncle Artie’s basement with several tropical
fish tanks filled with Angel fish, black and orange mollies, and kissing gouramis. They
enjoyed watching a catfish with its mouth sucking the side of the fish tank.






Uncle Artie often let the boys feed the fish and play ping pong in the basement.
“Can’t we just go straight to Jean and Artie’s?” Bobby whined in the back seat.
“I don’t know these Britt people. Why are they so important to visit?”
“Yeah,” Gerry followed Bobby’s complaint with, “We wanna play ping pong.”
“Do as your mother asks!” Bruno scolded with his eyes squinting at them from
the rearview mirror. “Stop complaining or I’ll give you both a lickin’!”
The boys knew this wasn’t an idle threat. Both had been spanked with their
dad’s leather belt at the same time. The dual corporal punishment was part of their
mom’s perspective of balance—“Neither of you are innocent. You each had a part
in that broken window. Wait till you father come homes. You’re both gonna get it.”
“The Britts are a lovely old German couple,” Anna told her boys as Bruno
drove with his head cocked towards her. “They were friends who came from
Germany at the same time as Daddy’s parents in 1910. They had a son, Rudolph,
a baby born just before they left Berlin to come to America.”
“Is Rudolph old enough to play with us?” Gerry asked.
“If he were alive, he would be almost ten years older than your father.”
“What happened to him?” Bobby asked, always needing to know all the grim
details of any issue.
“He died from an accident when he was twenty-nine years old.”
“You mean like in a car crash on the Belt Parkway. We saw one last year,” Bobby
reminded Gerry.
“Not like that.” Anna said. “We’ll talk about that another time. Here we are.”
The boys got out of the car and squinted from the bright noon sun as they stared
up at the twelve-story, brick apartment complex on Queens Boulevard.
“Wow! That’s a tall apartment building,” Bobby said.
“I hope the Britts live on the top floor. Maybe we can see the Whitestone Bridge in
Flushing,” Gerry said. “That’s a neat bridge, Daddy. Can we cross it going home?”
“We’ll see,” Bruno said with a noncommittal shrug.
Anna carried a small package gift-wrapped in Easter mode for the Britts. The festive
paper was adorned with bunnies and baby chicks. Bruno carried a bottle of Liebfraumilch.
Anna taught her boys that they should never visit someone’s home without bringing something
for them, but in turn, they should never ask for anything from those they were visiting and
always say “No thank you” to anything offered—at least at first. But if their host insisted then
that would be OK.
The boys were thrilled to take the elevator as high as the eighth floor. There were
several stops on the way up with people getting on and off the elevator. At each stop the
boys deeply inhaled as the aromas from various apartments emitted into the hallways from
tenants preparing their Easter dinners. In the 1950s this was mostly a German-American
area of Queens.
“Mm,” Bruno made a yummy sound. “I smell Sauerbraten.”






Anna stroked Bruno’s arm and promised, “I’ll make that for you next weekend with red cabbage and Kartoffelklöße.”
Familiar with the potato dumplings their mom had learned how to make from
Mimi, the boys exchanged pained expressions of mutual hunger pangs.
When they stopped on the sixth floor, the elevator door opened, but no one
got on, and all the other passengers had already gotten off.
“Ugh! What’s that smell?” Bobby said holding his nose.
Anna turned around and frowned at the boys.
Gerry shrugged. “Sorry, Mom . . . excuse me.”
“See that you don’t do that in the Britt’s apartment, Gerry,” Anna warned.
Stop smirking, Bobby! Don’t you stop up the Britt’s toilet like you did at Aunt Lottie’s
last Christmas.”
Bobby tweaked Gerry’s ear and both boys began to giggle and squirm.
Bruno’s response was like pushing the button on a wind-up toy: “You boys want
a lickin’?”
Anna grabbed Bobby’s hand and Bruno grabbed Gerry’s, marching them down
the corridor to a door still decorated with a palm leaf from the previous Sunday. The
doorbell had a cheerful chime. The door opened abruptly before the last chime stopped
resounding in the boys’ ears. The fresh-baked aroma that wafted from the Britts’ apartment
made the boys grin with delight as their tummies growled.
The elderly couple belonged in a 19th Century Bavarian painting, perhaps Hansel
and Gretel’s grandparents. The Britts’ voices chimed even more musically than the
doorbell as they pinched the boys’ cheeks and warbled with soft German accents.
Stately, Mr. Britt stood erect for an old man and had the cheerful twinkle in his eyes
of a toymaker. He wore a bowtie and suspenders. Mrs. Britt, with white hair, had a
radiant face that reflected an ageless beauty. The boys found it difficult not to look
directly into her kind, limpid eyes as if she were about to cry joyfully over just seeing
them.
“I’ve baked a special treat for your boys.” With a hissing roll of her tongue on
the “r” she said, “Shtrrrooodel.”
“I haven’t learned to make strudel yet,” Anna said. “But it’s on my list.”
Bruno smiled because Anna always had a list of recipes she knew would please
him. She also had a long list of work she expected Bruno to do inside and outside their
home. Anna’s life was ruled by a balance sheet, quid quo pro.
“Come. We must sit at the table,” Mr. Britt said, gesturing for them to follow him
to a long dining room table with china closets all around the room. Antique German
figurines and Hummel plates from twenty years ago in the ‘30s filled the shelves. The
table was covered with fine white lace. So the boys could reach the food on the table,
each sat on a stack of pillows in two big dining room chairs with wooden arms. At the
end of each arm was a carved lion’s head, which the boys fiddled with as their eyes lit
up at the sight and aromas of the home-baked sweets including brownies, strawberry
short cake, Bavarian chocolate cake, and both apple and cherry strudel.
Overcome by the sweets, the boys barely noticed the photos on the walls and in
the china closets of a boy at various ages in progression to becoming a handsome young
man whose eyes beamed just as kindly as Mrs. Britt’s.
“What will it be for you, Gerard,” Mrs. Britt asked. “Apple or cherry shtr-r-o-o-o-del?”






Gerry scrunched up his nose, not over the food, but for being called “Gerard.”
Only his first-grade teacher called him that when Gerry was sent to the principal’s
office for some misdemeanor or in a note to his mother that said: “Your impetuous
son, Gerard, has no self-control.”
Gerry looked to his mom for approval and got the nod. “Cherry, please.”
“How about you, Robert?” Mrs. Britt asked.
Bobby seemed to like the formality of “Robert,” but was even more pleased
that Mrs. Britt called his little brother “Gerard.” Ever since they saw a boy by that
name with an affliction that didn’t allow him to keep his tongue from hanging out of
his mouth and drooling, Bobby often hung out his tongue and teased Gerry with,
“U-u-u-gh, Ge-RARD!”
“Strawberry shortcake, please,” Bobby said, turning his head aside to Gerry and
sticking out his tongue. “U-u-u-gh, Ger-RARD.”
Anna frowned at Bobby, but Bruno was enjoying his coffee and apple strudel
too much to notice. The Britts paid no attention to the mischievous boys’ asides as if
their own conversation was on script, performed so often on a stage that it flowed
naturally with little variation. Bruno seemed oblivious to the Britts’ behavior as if it
were a play he’d often seen. Anna was newer to the Britts’ cosplay since her marriage,
but Bruno had been a teenager when his mother had taken him to visit the Britts soon
after the untimely death of their son.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Britt said, reacting to Bobby’s aside to Gerry. “Vat dit you say,
R-r-robert?”
Bobby blushed then recovered with, “That was Gerard, not me.”
Mrs. Britt looked from one brother to the other then took a deep breath and
smiled. “It’s been so long since Sonny was their age. I’d nearly forgotten the fun of our
boy’s mischief underfoot.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna said. “They’ve been cooped up in the car for over an hour so
they’re restless.”
Mr. Britt nodded with a smile and looked fondly at the boys. “More coffee,
Bruno?”
“Just a half-cup, thanks. Maybe another small slice of strudel. Make it cherry
this time.” Bruno winked at Gerry.
“Have you boys hunted for Easter eggs this morning?” Mr. Britt asked.
“Yes. At Sunday school in the field behind our church,” Bobby said.
“Well, you know the Easter Bunny comes here, too,” Mrs. Britt said. “There
could be colored eggs anywhere in this room. I’m sure Gerard and Robert can find
them if they search hard enough.”
The boys looked at each other with excitement, not just because they loved
egg hunting on Easter as much as getting Christmas gifts from Santa, but their sugar
highs from the sweets made them ready to burst. The boys looked high and low but
found nothing until they came to the first china closet. Bobby nodded to Mrs. Britt
for permission to open the china closet where he saw through the glass a bright
lemon-yellow egg sparkling with glitter.
The old German woman nodded her approval. Bobby put the egg in the palm
of his hand and stroked the glitter’s rough texture with his thumb. From beneath the
table, Mrs. Britt pulled out a wicker Easter basket for him to put the egg into.
“I see a blue one over here,” Gerry said, waiting for permission to open
another china closet.
Getting the nod from Mrs. Britt was good, but he still waited for his mom’s
approval, and got it before proudly placing his egg next to Bobby’s nestled in the
green cellophane grass inside the basket.
“Oh, but you must keep looking,” Mrs. Britt chortled. “There are ten more to
be found, a dozen in all.”
Bobby gave his mom a nod towards a framed photo in another china closet, a
sepia print of a young boy in a park holding a soccer ball and smiling. His cheeks were
tinted rosy against the brownish tone of the sepia, a common tinted effect applied to
photographs at the time it had been taken.
The bottom of the gilded frame said: “Sonny - 1919.”
The pink egg rested behind the photo, so Bobby hesitated. “I don’t want to
break anything,” he said, being as tender as his younger brother was rambunctious.
“Ah! You’ve found the hardest one already,” Mr. Britt said, standing up to
hold the china closest door open with one hand and removing the egg with the other.
He handed the pink egg to Bobby then Mrs. Britt held out the basket for him to put
it with the yellow egg and the blue one.
Gerry stared at his mom as if he were about to jump out of his skin. He saw a
purple egg, his favorite color, but it was inside a glass globe with a ballerina standing
on one foot in a pirouette with her arms held in a heart shape above her head.
Mr. Britt chortled as he came to Gerry and patted him gently on the head and
opened the china closet. He took the music box in two hands then removed the glass
globe and handed Gerry the purple egg. He set the music box on the dining room table
and wound it with a key at its base. In a white tutu, the ballerina spun in a circle to the
music mesmerizing the boys while the adults swayed to the rhythm.
An inscription on the base of the music box read:
I will love you forever, Stefania
Happy 21st Birthday – Sonny
September 1, 1939
Gerry was already a good reader in first grade so he blurted, “Who is Stef-an-i-a?”
The room seemed to freeze in a still-life painting, but the music box continued its
plunking rhythm for almost a minute as Mr. Britt seemed to be holding his breath.
Anna broke the pained silence. “We should be going now,” Anna said softly,
gathering up the boys as Bruno shook Mr. Britt’s hand with a tight grip the way he’d
taught his sons. Anna put her gentle palm on top of Mrs. Britt’s surprisingly youthful
hand, void of typical wrinkles or liver spots of the elderly. “Thank you for having us and
being so generous to the boys. Happy Easter!”
Glassy-eyed, Mrs. Britt said, “Sonny always found the purple Easter egg no matter
where it was hidden. It was his favorite.”
As if in a trance, she remained seated at the table. Mr. Britt led their guests to
the door and handed Anna the Easter basket with the four dyed eggs the boys had
found. There were also two chocolate rabbits, many varicolored jelly beans scattered
throughout the basket, and two yellow chicks made of marshmallow. It had been well
worth the stop for the boys’ appetites before heading to Aunt Jean’s for Easter dinner,
no doubt lamb, the only meat, the boys heard Anna tell Bruno, her British sister-in-law
couldn’t possibly overcook.
They waved to Mr. Britt from the elevator door and descended to their car.
They rode toward Jewel Avenue for ten minutes without a word before Gerry broke
the silence.
“I’m sorry I upset Mrs.
ckin’ when we get home tonight?”
Bobby grinned at the thought, knowing he, at least, had been on his best behavior.
“No lickin’s,” Bruno said with authority and a smile aside to Anna. “It’s Easter.”
That was good enough for Gerry, pardoned by the Easter Bunny. But unlike his
little brother who seemed to relish being a child, Bobby longed to be an adult, to know
what his parents were talking about and all the dark, grownup details that always
seemed to be buzzing over his head.
Bobby blurted, “When will I be old enough to know how Sonny died?”
“Yeah, Mom, me too,” Gerry said.
“It’s too sad a story to tell children,” Anna said with certainty, having never learned
the grim details of her own mother’s passing. “You’ll have to wait until you’re grownups.”
And so they did . . .

When Women Search for Safety

By Angela Camack




Massachusetts in the 1880’s had its share of strange and gory legends. Salem, of course, and the ghosts of the men lost in the terrible Housac Tunnel mine explosion. Locals said they haunted the area near the tunnel. People carried tales of the Gloucester Harbor sea serpent and the Dogtown ghost town. The Boston Lighthouse in Cohasset had a history of drowned lighthouse keepers, said to be the work of the Hobomack Demon.
A small town near Boston had its own history of unexplained deaths. Sometimes separated by years, bodies were found in different places around the town, usually on summer mornings when people started on their daily paths early. They found torn bodies left on lurid display for the unfortunate to find, bodies so badly torn it was difficult to piece them together for identification. Each discovery sent the town into terror and shock. The town constables never made any progress finding the killers. Mothers kept children in their yards all day and people refused to leave their houses after dark. Eventually the fear abated, leaving an under base of uneasiness, late night stories and tales to scare children.
Sarah Crane came to the small town when she was 14. Her drunken parents had died when they ran their cart off the road after a night at the local tavern. As she had no other family, the town pastor notified her long estranged relatives, her Uncle Josiah, a banker, and Aunt Harriet Crane. The Cranes children were grown, and they had extra rooms in their house. They reluctantly took her in.
On her second day of residence, she sat on a stool in the house’s well-appointed parlor. The Cranes sat on the sofa across from her. Like many long-married couples, they had come to resemble each other; slender, pale, silver-haired, blue eyes. Rosy-cheeked Sarah, with her dark brown eyes and hair, felt like another species.
“Your father was a rotten apple from a good tree,” said Uncle Josiah. “It is our duty to take you in, but mark my words, we expect better from you. Our funds aren’t unlimited.” (Sarah tried not to look at the mahogany furniture, the flowing curtains and oriental carpet). You will get one new dress a year. You will maintain your clothing. You will have chores.
“Of course,” said Sarah. “I always had chores at home. (If she wanted regular meals or clean clothing,)
“You will go to church and be responsible,” Uncle Josiah continued. “You will remember your station. Don’t expect full membership in this family. Do you have any questions?”
“Where do I go to school?” Sarah asked.
“School for you,” snorted Aunt Harriet. “Better you learn practical things. You will go when you have time.”
The books Sarah carried from her old home had already earned her aunt’s derision, but her precious books, bought third hand or obtained through the village school, had been her companions and her comfort.
Sarah settled into her “chores,” meaning she was part of the household staff, helping the cook, housekeeper and laundress. The cook mentioned that a maid left a month ago. She was never replaced.
School was hit-or-miss, and Sarah had no time for friends. But she had always walked alone. People had a low opinion of the disreputable Cranes’ child.
Growing and working hard, she was always hungry. Sarah saw Aunt Harriet’s eyes travel from Sarah’s fork to her mouth with every bite she took, so she never asked for more than what her aunt put on her plate. Had Sarah a moment, she would have noticed that the weight loss had narrowed her waist and made her eyes look enormous in her small face. She would be a lovely woman.
When Sarah was 15 the murder struck again. The town minister found a farmer’s body across from the church, arms and legs horribly splayed, body hollowed, blood pooling. The fear returned. Townspeople locked their doors after supper and restricted their children to their yards again.
Talk buzzed around the town. People noticed that the dead had something in common. The townspeople were horrified by the murders, but the dead were not mourned. They were scoundrels, like the man who battered his wife and children. One was an “investor” who cheated elderly people of their savings, another was suspected of burning down a rival’s business and so on. Was the murderer an evil force or an avenging spirit?
And life went on again. Sarah kept on. Her aunt sometimes loaned her out to other housewives, and Sarah hoarded the money they gave her. She also saved the small birthday and Christmas gifts she received. She made a tiny slit in her mattress to hide her money, so even if the mattress was turned by the household staff it would not be discovered. She saved to get away, away from a loveless house and a town where she had no future.
Now she was 16. She noticed that her uncle’s behavior toward her was warming by degrees, inquiring after her health and her studies, giving her small sums to “buy something nice for yourself.” She was cheered at first but grew wary when he began to stroke her hand when he talked to her, to stand too close for comfort, to “accidentally” bump into her. His touches became more
overt. Sarah began hooking a chair under the doorknob in her room, just in time, as on the second night after placing the chair she heard the doorknob rattle. Aunt Harriet grew colder and looked at her with suspicion.
Sarah remembered half-heard conversations between the household staff. “Another one gone, not even a reference. It isn’t fair.” “Old as he is, you think he’d stay away from them.” “Doesn’t she know?” “She must not, taking in that young girl.” “Should we tell Sarah?” “Not if you want your job. Just let it be.” Of course. That’s why the maid left so suddenly. And there had been others.
One night Aunt Harriet sent Sarah to a sick neighbor with stew and a loaf of fresh bread. She dropped off the food and returned to the house though the dark and chilly evening, nearly running into a figure on the path in front of her. The figure, an eerie apparition, was heavily cloaked, tall and ashen pale. The face had black eyes, deep set in their sockets and a thin-lipped mouth. Sarah couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
“Hello, Ssarah.” the whispery voice reminded Sarah of snakes, and she felt colder.
“How do you know me?” Sarah asked.
“Everyone in the village knowss everyone. Of coursse I know of Ssarah. A lovely sstrong name for a lovely sstrong girl.”
“I have to get back to the house.”
“Back to the housse, not back home? I don’t think sso, girl. Do you have troublesss?
“All of us have troubles.” Sarah answered.
“Yess. A lovely sstrong girl. Good evening, Ssaarah.” The figure moved to the side, almost gliding, and Sarah moved past. She was shaken by the meeting. What had she just talked to? But she had more pressing problems.
Sarah wanted to leave, to go to Boston, but her savings were still small. What could she look forward to but another servant’s job, with no chance for anything different or better paying, especially without a reference?
She knew there would be trouble when Aunt Harriet left for a few days to visit an old friend. And there was. She found her uncle in her room when she came back from one of her school days. She smelled alcohol in the room.
“It’s time for you to pay me back, Sarah. You’ve had a roof over your head, and your keep.”
“I’ve worked. I’ve worked hard.”
“You’re not a girl anymore. It’s time.” He rushed toward her, grabbing her around the waist and pressing her lips to hers. Sarah fought hard, scratching and hitting.”
“Damn you, stop it!” he said. “You’re making it harder!”
Sarah screamed, and he put a hand over her mouth. This made it easier to move away, but he pushed her on her bed and put his thigh over her body. Sarah was sickened by fear, by the smell of liquor and sweat. She kept fighting. Finally, her knee connected with his groin.
“You little bitch!” he snarled. “I will get back at you, and it’s going to be harder for you the next time.” He limped out of the room.
Aunt Harriet returned the next day. What would her uncle tell her? Would he say anything? No matter what, something bad was coming.
She plead illness the next day, staying in bed. “Don’t indulge yourself too long, Sarah.” said her aunt from the door of her room. Her behavior showed no change, yet.
Sarah spent a fearful day, wondering what her next step would be, thinking furiously, staying in bed through lunch and dinner, until her aunt and uncle retired for the night. The inactivity and suspense became too much, so she dressed and left the house for fresh air.
She wasn’t far from the house when the apparition she had met once on the path was in front of her again. Where did it come from?
“Troubless, little Ssarah?”
“What do you want?” Sarah stammered
“What do you want? Do you want to be free of your uncle? Do you want to be away from danger?”
“How do you know?”
The apparition laughed. “I alwayss know. I’m quite good at finding evil. Forcing himself on the innocent. A horror. He sshould be halted dead, right? Evil musst be contained. There are people who do not merit life. Who go on doing evil. And the police here are a joke, not a real power.”
Sarah suddenly understood. “It’s you. You did those murders.” Shaken, she suddenly sank to the damp ground. “Leave me alone or I’ll go to the police.”
The apparition laughed again. “To them? And who would believe you? I got rid of evil men. Evil musst be contained, right? It musst be paid back. They got paid back, all right, paid in full by blood. By their wicked bodies. You want your uncle to sstop. You want him to pay.”
“Not like that. Not like that.” Sarah began to cry.
“You don’t have a lot of choice, girl.”
“No! Not like that!”
“Think of the otherss, girl.”
The maids. The ones in the past and the ones who would come after Sarah left. The apparition knew how to get to her.
“You don’t have a lot of time. Be here tomorrow night, thiss time, if you want my help.” The apparition glided away.
Sarah returned to the house. If the apparition helped her, she would be safe, as would any young woman who came after her. But at what price? But knowing this, how could she not act to help the other girls?
No, she decided. She’d heard what had happened to the bodies of the murdered people. Evil or not, they died horribly, in fear and pain. She remembered the apparition’s glee as it talked of payment in blood and flesh. Was it fighting evil or feeding an appetite of its own?
She went back to the house. It was still quiet. Packing took almost no time, even with her precious books. She removed her savings from her mattress. She crept quietly to the jar in the kitchen where Aunt Harriet kept household money and took ten dollars. An evil, she knew, smaller but still evil. But her aunt and uncle had worked her hard and saved the salary of a maid. She kept the ten dollars. Feeling reckless and seeing her uncle’s jacket draped over a chair, she took another ten.
Sarah would go to Boston. She would find a job. She knew there were charitable organizations that helped women in need that she could turn to. She could train for something. Women trained as nurses to work in hospitals or went to normal school to learn to teach. She would be good at that kind of work.
It wasn’t until she found her way to the train station and waited for it to open that she wondered what she was running to. To another servant’s job where the head of the household
might expect the same thing that her uncle expected of her? Should she stay with the devil she knew?
No, better to be a moving target. She would make something of herself and make herself safe. She could even try to find Aunt Harriet’s other betrayed maids and see if they could face the police together and stop Uncle Josiah. She tugged her coat more closely around her as the sky lightened and the time of the station’s opening neared.

The Hoochatassa Horror


🎃


by Gerald Arthur Winter


“Don’t yuz be up to no good, Tommy,” his mom warned. “Those two older boys get ideas could getcha in trouble. My life’s had ‘nough troubles without ya causin’ me more. You just go trick-o-treatin’ with them kids yer own age. Don’t let Andy and Ricky let ya disobey yer mama. Don’t forgit—I’m the one that feeds ya since Paw disappeared.”
“Sure, Ma. Maybe I’ll be a pirate this year.”
“That’s m’boy. Good choice.”
* * *
The three boys ranged from thirteen to fifteen, but all were in the same eighth grade class in south Florida. It was 1958 before any “No one Left Behind” or Civil Rights amendments were even considered and, if it took a village, that would be to hang a Nubian, the Klan’s coded “N” word, without the authorities knowing a thing about it.
No problem for the locals in the redneck swamp burg of Hoochatassa where Tommy, Andy, and Ricky spent that late October weekend camping and catfishing in The Glades.
Tommy was the youngest of the trio and said he wanted to go trick-o-treating, but Ricky, the fourteen-year-old, said, “That just for little kids. Were too old for that kids stuff.”
“Nothin’ scary about those silly store-bought costumes,” Andy said with slow drag on a Lucky Strike cigarette. He’d been left back twice and got his driver’s permit before high school.
“I was gonna be a Pirate,” Tommy admitted. “Just to scare those little kids.”
“You want to see something really scary?”
“Sure,” Tommy and Ricky said in harmony.
“Then we got a spend the night on Cottonmouth Island where The Hoochatassa
Horror drags its kill on Halloween night and eats it alive.”
“Kill?” Ricky gulped. “That’s just a rumor, right?”
“Uh-uh,” Tommy said with eyes wide as two poached eggs. “My mom said that
monster killed one of her classmates when she was a kid. Never found the body cause that Hoochatassa Horror ate her and tossed her bones into quicksand—no trace ever found.”
“Nah! She probably just told ya that so you wouldn’t go to Cottonmouth Island,”
Ricky said. “Kind a creepy for her to make that up though.”
“Come on,” Andy huffed. “We got the whole weekend to camp and fish and Halloween’s tomorrow night. Let’s do it. Double-dog dare yuzz!”
The challenge was on. Not accepting the dare meant admitting you were still a scared little kid, but if they survived Halloween night on Cottonmouth Island, the monster’s lair, they’d be envied by every classmate and the girls might even offer them a kiss. They could wear that badge of honor starting high school next year.
“OK, I’m in,” Ricky offered.
Hesitant, Tommy said, “My Mom wouldn’t kid me about some girl in her class being eaten by the monster. I can’t let her know I’m going with you. You both gotta cover for me. If she asks, tell her I went trick-o-treating with some other kids you don’t know ”
“We gotcha covered,” Andy said and Ricky nodded as the threesome joined hands to seal their pact.
* * *
The full moon reflected on the swamp that Halloween night and the red glow of gator eyes surrounded their little boat. Tommy turned the outboard motor off as Andy rowed, Ricky kept a lookout for gators, and Tommy watched for a safe landing on Cottonmouth Island.
It was the first chill night of Autumn with a breeze coming off the Gulf. They hoped the cooler night air would send the gators to the muddy bottom till sunrise and keep the snakes calm and sluggish in their dens.
“I shoulda brought a windbreaker,” Tommy said standing at the bow. “At least the chill cuts down the skeeter bites.”
“We’ll find a dry campsite and start a fire that will last till daybreak,” Andy said.
“Are monsters afraid of fire?” Ricky asked.
Tommy offered, “Probably not afraid of anything, least of all three boys in a boat looking for trouble.”
“I ain’t lookin’ for no trouble,” Ricky said. “I’m just along for the ride.”
Andy grumbled under his breath, “Jeez. What pussies.”
* * *
After their quick, uneventful landing they set camp and gathered in their sleeping bags around the crackling campfire giving their spooky faces an orange glow.
“This sure beats trick-o-treating,” Ricky said. “Only thing missin’ is the candy.”
“I thought a that,” Andy said, sitting up in his sleeping bag. “You guys owe me.”
He tossed Hersey bars to Ricky and Tommy and opened his own. They spent the next few minutes chomping and slurping their treats. Then they thought they heard a boat rowing towards the nearby shore.
“Wha wuzzat?” Ricky said with panic.
“Maybe a gator,” Andy offered.
“A big one for sure,” Tommy said with his eyes aglow. “Better put more wood on the fire.”
“What if it’s the monster?” Ricky said with a tremor. “He’ll see it. Maybe we should put it out.”
“Stop freakin’ out, Ricky!” Andy cautioned. “I’m bettin’ this Hoochatassa Horror don’t like flames, just like Frankenstein.”
“Seems logical,” Tommy shrugged.
Then they heard rustling through the nearby mangroves.
“That ain’t no gator,” Andy whispered.
“Jeez, someone docked a boat like us,” Ricky said.
“Competition,” Tommy surmised. “Maybe some other boys want to steal our prize, diminish our claim. We gotta scare ’em off.”
The three boys nodded and got out of their sleeping bags. Crawling through the island foliage in single file they stopped when a hooded cloaked figure in black shown a flashlight and carried a burlap sack over one shoulder.
Andy whispered, “Ain’t the Klan. They wear white.”
“Looks like a bury-a-body kind of outfit, so no one can see him in the dark,”
Ricky offered what seemed obvious to Andy and Tommy.
“Think it’s that Hoochatassa Horror?” Tommy asked nervously.
“Let’s see where he’s goin’ with that sack,” Andy said. “Maybe it’s a body.”
“That’s it. I’m goin’ home,” Ricky stammered.
“You can’t row worth shit,” Andy hissed. “Besides, we agreed to stick together till dawn before goin’ home. No time to quit now.”
Grumbling, Ricky and Tommy agreed.
“If we see where the body gets buried, we can tell the sheriff. Maybe there will be a reward,” Andy offered.
The other two agreed and, like Andy, followed him on hands and knees. The flashlight’s glow was just ten yards ahead and easy to see and follow in the dark, though the boys were cautious about snakes. They figured someone must have named the island “Cottonmouth” for a good reason.
The beam ahead came to a stop then the cloaked figure hoisted the sack off its shoulder onto the ground with a heavy clump followed by a moan from inside the sack.
“Jeez,” Ricky blurted, which made the cloaked figure turn the flashlight on them,
just like three deer in the headlights.
“Up with the three of yuzz!” a hoarse hiss came from the head concealed within the black hood.
Shaking, they stood, feeling naked in the light surrounded by so much darkness in the swamp.
“Please don’t hurt us,” Andy pleaded. “We won’t tell anyone we saw ya. We promise. Right, fellas?”
Their knees quivered as they nodded their heads like bobble-head dolls.
“Too late for that,” the voice rasped. “You two can dig a hole for me. Not the younger one, just you two older boys cause yer bigger and stronger than the runt. Make it deep and wide enough for three.”
“Three?” Andy and Ricky chimed in duo while Tommy remained silent with his head hung so low his chin touched his chest.
“Ya gonna kill us?” Ricky asked with a shudder.
“Shut up and dig!” the voice commanded.
* * *
Almost an hour later it was midnight and the boys were exhausted from their digging. Looking up to the night sky they saw black clouds cutting across the full moon and the night breeze made them shiver.
“You three will make a nice midnight snack to celebrate Halloween,” the voice said. “First, I’m gonna give my fresh kill to the youngin’,” Ricky and Andy leaned on their spades and turned to Tommy, still with his head bent down.
The cloaked figure tossed the sack landing at Tommy’s feet. Ricky and Andy heard Tommy sniffling, the crybaby they assumed he was. But the sniffling turned to snorting, then growling, and into a sudden roar as Tommy lifted his head with bared fangs with a black canine nose, wet and glistening in the moonlight. His eyes glowed green like a thousand fireflies caught in a jar.
“Tommy takes after me, not his Paw who’s buried yonder.” With a jerk of the hood, the massive head of an alpha she-wolf emerged with incisors five inches long. The voice that had sounded faint, almost brittle before, now made the earth shake beneath Ricky’s and Andy’s feet.
The sound of tearing flesh and bloodcurdling screams echoed across The Glades sending the gators even deeper to the muddy bottom in fear of

The Hoochatassa Horror.

The Consubstantial Man

By Edward Ahern
 
Frankie Witt crawled out of a stupor and into a hangover. The crust inside his mouth crumpled like a wasp's nest as he puckered.
Aghh. Again. Head feels like it's oozing pus.  You stumble bum, just die and be done with it.   
Frankie shambled into the bathroom, drank a glass of off-color water and weaved into the kitchen area of his one-wide trailer. The sink and counter top were overgrown with dirty dishes and food remnants. Eat or drink? His churning stomach kept time with the agony in his head. Both.
 Where's the blender? Frankie's eyes crawled over the mess. Aha! He grabbed the blender, and sloshed water into it, brightening the Margarita scabs inside it.
Put the vodka in last. He tossed in a vintage pizza slice, two dried-out hot dogs, and mildewed strawberries, topping up with a slug of the brownish water and a half pint of vodka.
The blender complained, sparking, but ground out a dung-colored mix. Frankie ignored the bubbles forming in the slush and swallowed a mouthful from the blender. Ouph! Damn that's nasty. Alum and mold.
His sinuses reflated like they'd been stented, and Frankie felt snot slithering down toward his throat. He was blowing his nose on a stained paper towel when his guts and muscles cramped and he dropped to the floor.

Frank Witt Dossier, NSA interim report: The well water is contaminated with animal fecal matter, microorganisms and lead from the piping. Unfortunately none of the biological contents of the blender remain for analysis, the blender having baked inside the uncooled trailer. Analysis of the residue revealed traces of arsenic, gold and mercury in addition to the expected levels of lead, iron, and calcium. Twenty seven unclassified microorganisms were discovered on the food remains in the trailer kitchen, as well as two previously unknown species of fly.

Frankie came to three hours later. He winced out of habit, then realized that nothing hurt. Why do I feel so good? My mind, it's like I hadn't had a drink in days. He stood up without staggering, walked to the sink and drank from the faucet. I'm starving, Wait, take care of the concoction first.
He began rinsing out a tequila bottle. The back of his right hand swung into a rusty steak knife, the blade penetrating almost through his palm. Frankie cursed at the pain, pulled his hand away, and stared as the wound stopped bleeding and closed back up. In three seconds there was nothing on his hand but a faint pink mark. Sweet Jesus Murphy! Must be DT's.
Frankie pulled the steak knife out from the dish pile and stared at it. The blade showed smears of his blood. I wonder. He took the knife by its handle and jabbed it into and out of his left palm. Blood welled out for a second and then the skin healed over. It hurt, I must be awake.
He poured the contents of the blender into the tequila bottle and recapped it. Then he put on pants, tee shirt and shoes, and walked through the trailer park and across the road to Bernice's Oasis, a bar masquerading as a diner.
Two all-day drinkers perched at the far end of the bar. Bernice Stanton stood at the other end, shifting her attention between her cell phone and a shopping channel on the television. "I didn't think you'd make it this time, Frankie."
"Bernice, I'm starving. Please, a burger and fries?"
"And you don't have any money."
"Please, Bernice."
"You already owe me two hundred." She sighed. "Hell, all right. Better food than booze. Save your liver from the freak show."
Frankie set the tequila bottle on the bar, the gelatinous contents quivering. "Okay, I do owe you. I'll give you a shot of this stuff. It's incredible what it'll do for you. Once you see how good you feel you'll wipe out the two hundred."
"Two-o-five counting the burger.  Get that slimy looking filth off my bar, I'm not drinking it."
Frankie looked her over fondly. Bernice was zaftig, hard to budge in body or opinion.  But she's wrong. This stuff is the water of life. I should be charging $2,000 a pop, not $200.
"Okay, Bernice, you win. But I want to show you something before you cook up that burger."
Frankie took a folding knife out of his pocket and, without hesitating, sliced a line down his right forearm.
"You rotted-out alkie! You've lost it."
He said nothing, holding the arm over the bar so Bernice could watch the wound close.
"Well, jack up my sagging tits!"
Frankie glanced at the day drunks and pushed the bottle toward her. "Please, Bernice, you'll feel better than you have for a long time. Better sit down first, though."
"Not a chance, Frankie. You'll probably be running form both ends in a couple minutes."
Ten minutes later, Bernice delivered a burger, fries and beer to his table and sat quietly with him, working things out. "That brown slime does seem to work on your shakes, Frankie."
"Yeah. I've been thinking. There's maybe three quarters of a quart in the bottle. If I'm stingy, that's twenty shots. I should be able to get five, maybe ten grand a shot, easy. Problem is, I don't know people who've got that kind of spending money."
She patted his arm, avoiding the mark left by the knife. "You know I do, from before, but consider, Frankie. If that stuff works, your golden goose will squat out twenty eggs and then you're got no income."
Frankie could sense relays clicking in his mind, amazed that he could again think more than two steps ahead. "Yeah, and if I get the government to believe me, they'll confiscate the bottle, lock me up as a lab rat, and bleed me every so often." He exhaled slowly, calculating.
Bernice went behind the bar, poured a triple shot of cheap scotch, and brought it back. "Here, your hangover must be pushing your eyes out onto your cheeks."
"Thanks. It's weird, but this is the first morning in months that I haven't felt like a bad death." Frankie downed the drink in four swigs and frowned. "There's no pop, no jolt. It's like the stuff is neutralized as it's running down my gullet."
"You want another?"
"Don't think it'll do any good. Look, Bernice, I need someone like you to front for me, to be a cutout from the buyer. Here's the deal. You become like my agent, ten percent for helping set things up."
Her smile stretched almost to her jaw line. "Crap. Fifty percent or no deal."
"Sugar, don't rely on our two-backed beast act, this is business."
"Look, Frankie, I've got almost no money and you've got none. You're going to need cash to get rolling, that means selling a shot or two cheap. But the people I know, first thing, they see this works, they'll want to muscle in, maybe take the bottle. You've got to be smart to play on their turf. Got to sell this stuff like a street drug. You only know booze."
"Okay, fifteen percent."
"Twenty five."
"Twenty, and you'll still have the option to get a shot."
"Done."
They didn't bother to shake the hands that'd previously explored each other.
"Run my tab up a little further?"
"What the hell."
"Bottle of Cuervo to take home. And a mini bottle of anything. Need to figure out how to stash the mixture."
Bernice pulled the bottles from behind the bar and handed them to Frankie, then watched him walk away. Two Cuervo bottles. Is he smart enough to work a switch? Not Frankie. Oops, not the old Frankie. This guy knows when to change his underwear.
Frankie surprised himself by setting the real tequila bottle down unopened. Don't think I can get smashed anymore, and that's all I know how to do. Think, you drunk, how are you going to handle this stuff?
He went into the bathroom and knelt on the floor next to the toilet. Opening his knife, he pried up a floor tile. The tile had been glued to a same-sized section of cut-out plywood flooring underneath it. Below the opening the toilet drain pipe ran down through two feet of air and into the ground. Next to it was the length of PVC piping Frankie had stuck in the ground.
He pressed his cheek against the base of the toilet bowl and reached down through the hole, knife in hand. He scraped off an inch of dirt and animal droppings, then pulled his arm back out of the hole and dropped the knife. He stuck his arm back down and grabbed the screw cap of the five inch diameter tube. Frankie wiggled the tube back and forth to enlarge its hole, then pulled the tube up through the floor hole.
Sweat dripped down his body, moisturizing a five-day accumulation of drinker's funk. He unscrewed the PVC cap, dropped the Cuervo bottle into the tube, and screwed the cap back on. Frankie shoved the PVC tube back into its hole, and scraped debris back over the tube cap. He looked pensively at the result, then grabbed a paper cup, scooped water from the toilet, and sprinkled water over the disturbed dirt until he couldn't tell any difference from its moldy surroundings. Time to celebrate. He took a small nip from the remaining bottle. I thought so, doesn't have any more kick.
Frankie found some soap and showered and shaved. The rusty razor blade nicked him several times before he was done. He chuckled as the cuts snapped shut.
His clothes were all soiled. He wrapped everything in a sheet and walked outside and over to the laundry room trailer, then paced back and forth naked until the machines were finished and he could put on clean pants and shirt.
Once back in his trailer Frankie's body commanded him to take a nap. It's like the install needs to be completed, he thought, drifting off. The banging on his door woke him up. "Frankie, get your skinny ass out of bed."
Frankie opened the door to see Bernice, sweating in the desert heat. "Jesus, Frankie, its eleven in the morning. I got news. Come over to the diner."
The diner's air conditioning whacked Frankie as he entered. Goose bumps started popping, but within two seconds they disappeared and he felt comfortable. Man, I got a professional grade thermostat now.
"Talk to me, Bernice."
"Okay, I made some calls while you were passed out. Nobody believed me, but one guy, Harry Crispen, owes me a favor and says we can seem him at three. Then I fired up the lap top and put in some search words. Frankie, you wouldn't believe how many thousands of flaky web sites there are. But I asked some questions on a couple sites that looked sane."
"You didn't tell them where we are did you?"
"Come on, I'm the smart one, remember? I just lurked. Well, maybe a hint or two. We gotta go if we're going to make the meeting on time."
"Where'd you set it up?"
"A little restaurant I know. Crispen should be there."
Frank Witt Dossier, DEA excerpt: None of the interrogated adult males reputed to be part of Mr. Harry Crispen's crime organization admitted to knowing Ms. Stanton and Mr. Witt, nor of any involvement in drug trafficking. In sum, they admitted nothing at all.
 
The restaurant was little, with only nine tables. At three p.m. the only people in the restaurant were a waiter and two large, seated men. Frankie focused in on them. Late thirties, fat packed on muscle. Shirts hanging out over their pot bellies. Careless, they're not checking to see if anybody else is around.
Bernice and Frankie sat down wordlessly.
"You Bernice?"
"Yeah. Where's Harry?"
The talker of the pair tapped back half a glassful."Harry sent us, says you gotta convince us before  he'll talk to you. Where's the weird drink? And who's the drunk?"
"He's Frankie. And it's real. We got a drink makes you feel like you're screwing a seventeen year old cheerleader. And not only that. Show em Frankie."
"Hello." Frankie said. "Watch this." He reached in his pants pocket and pulled out the folding knife. Both men moved their right hands under their drooping shirts and belly flab.
Bernice let out a strained laugh. "No, no, relax. This is a demonstration."
Frankie slowly opened the knife and sliced a one inch cut in his forearm. He turned the forearm so both men had a good view. They watched as, in less than three seconds, the bleeding stopped and the wound closed. "We think it's permanent," Bernice said. "One drink and you're set. I knew Harry would doubt me, so I told him he could down the shot and pay me five large when he sees that it works."
Two burly necks twisted as they glanced at each other. The talker answered. "Harry says different. He says you give us the shot of this stuff for free. He likes it, he talks to you about how much you get when you give him the rest."
Bernice kept his eyes on the two men, but she could feel Frankie's smoldering presence. "That's not what he said. I'll call Harry again and explain things. Don't take it the wrong way, but no deal."
The talker leaned forward and backhanded Bernice across the face, splitting her lip. "Look bitch, we're doing it our way, or you're going to take a beating you won't be able to heal from."
Frankie leaned forward, taking the mini bottle out of his pocket and showing it. "Look guys, let's just talk." As he was saying this, he grabbed a plate from the table top and slammed it into the talker's mouth. The plate snapped in half and Frankie swung the jagged edge across the mute's throat.
"Holy frig!" Bernice yelled, jumping backwards.
The two obese men fell out of their chairs and hit the floor. Frankie grabbed his own chair and bounced it off the two men's heads. "This didn't work out so well, Bernice." He unscrewed the mini and drank it. "Not for you, suckers."
The waiter had run back into the kitchen. The two fat men on the floor weren't moving. Bernice's eyes swung back and forth "Are they dead? Harry's gonna kill us both."
"Don't think they are. We've got a few minutes before the cops come. Go through their pockets."
"Huh?"
"Chances are they brought the money just in case."
 
Bernice dropped to her knees, rolled the fat mute guy over and found his back-pocket wallet. "Must be three, four large here."
"Great. What about our other buddy?"
She crawled over to the other man, trying to ignore his splintered teeth, and reached down into his front pockets. "Got it. Exactly five grand. And they're both breathing."
"Check the back pockets too. He'll have money on his ass."
She found the wallet. "Yeah, another couple thousand. Here's all the money."
"Peel two grand off the top. That's for you. Okay, we gotta go." He took the rest of the money, then helped Bernice up, taking her arm as they walked to the car. "I'll drive."
Ten minutes into the drive Frankie glanced over at her. "Harry's people will be at your diner in a few hours. Repack your trousseau into the hope chest, we need to leave before they get there."
"They'll trash the place."
"You insured?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."
As Frankie began to crest the last hill before the diner and trailer park he spotted two SUVs parked in front of the closed diner, and three men in suits standing near the door. "You expecting anybody?"
"Nope."
"Suits in the desert. It's looking like Uncle Sam wants me. You must have gone True Confession on the web sites. I'll stay hid up here and watch you walk down like a beauty contestant."
"You abandoning me?"
"No way. But you can find out what they want. Go ahead and tell them the truth, except for the part about robbing Crispen's men. I’ll figure some way to get the car back to you."
The four suits circled Bernice as she approached her diner.
"Bernice Stanton?"
"Yeah?"
"We need to ask you some questions about your web search last night. The product you described falls under national security guidelines."
"And who the hell are you?"
The three men flashed identity cards.
"They look different from each other."
"Joint task force, NSA, FBI, DEA, agents Withersi, Haunchez and Greune. How did you get here?"
"My chauffeur just quit."
The men exchanged glances, but knew they had no real chance of finding a driver in an unknown car. The shortest guy spoke. "Shall we talk inside?"
Twenty minutes after the questioning had begun, the diner's wall phone rang."
"Okay if I answer that? Might be important."
"Okay."
Bernice got up, walked behind the bar, and picked up the phone. It was Frankie.
"Hi sweetie. Put one of them on, please."
"She turned to them."It's for you."
The FBI man in the middle got up, walked over, and took the phone from her. "Hello?"
"I'm the guy who drank the stuff. I'll do something for you, but you've got to do something for me."
"Keep talking."
"In maybe a half hour, a car full of large men will pull in and begin to threaten Bernice. If you hide in the kitchen with no lights on you'll be able to see and hear their threats, so you can arrest them for assault. They work for Harry Crispen. I'll give you what you want, but you make very sure that Harry knows to lay off. She gets hurt, you get nothing."
"And you're jerking me around. Come back here so we can talk."
"You looked sweet in that dark suit, but I don't think you're my type."
"Where's the substance? What's your name?"
"I'll call back in a couple hours. If Bernice tells me you took care of the posse, I'll tell her where you should look.  Put Bernice back on, please."
"Frankie?"
"Sweetie listen. Tell these guys everything you know. Everything. Chances are they'll eventually drug you and get the answers anyway. They're supposed to take care of Crispen's goons for you. I'll call back in a couple hours and make sure they did. Then I'll tell you where I put the Cuervo bottle.  I called a TV station and tipped them that federal agents were arresting perps at your bar. They'll maybe get there before I call. Busy, busy, gotta run. Later."
"Frankie? Frankie?" She dropped the phone back onto its hook.
"Okay," she said, "here's the whole story, no crap."
Forty five minutes later a silver gray Escalade pulled into the lot. Four men got out and walked into the diner. Twenty minutes later the four same men were escorted out in handcuffs and put, two apiece, into back seats. The TV crew had just arrived, and, with no access to the diner and no real idea was going on, began filming the squirming men in handcuffs.
When the phone rang the DEA agent picked it up.
"Hello?"
"Is this Hello of Hello and Company? Aren't you  supposed to announce yourself as Agent Sterling of the Incorruptible Agency?"
"Don't try and goad me, we've still got your girlfriend."
"Oh, yeah, her. Put Bernice on, please."
The agent balked. "Where is it?"
"Ah, so something's checked out for you. In good time, once I've talked with her. It won't take long."
The agent waved Bernice over and held the phone away from her ear so he could listen in.
"Frankie?"
"Are Crispen's thugs taken care of?"
"Yeah."
"Is agent man breathing heavily on your cheek?"
"Yeah, but he's an Altoids addict."
"Good, a conference call. Okay Mr. Fed, the TV lice have been given Bernice's name, and warned that you'll try and kidnap her. I've retained a lawyer who'll be calling Ms. Stanton shortly to make sure that her civil rights aren't being violated.
"Really, Frankie?"
"Yeah, Johnny Beckdahl, that the bail bondsmen use. Okay, a deal's a deal. You guys agree with the lawyer that Bernice is free to resume her normal activities. He tells me you've agreed, in writing, Bernice will tell you where the slimy salvation is."
"Look, Mr. Witt, don't make it hard. Turn yourself in, it'll go easier on you and her."
"Do they still teach you guys to say that? I don't think I've committed a crime. Thank you for your help with the heavies, now please back away from the phone.
"Bernice, is he out of ear shot?"
She pressed the phone more tightly to her ear. "Yeah."
"I buried the Cuervo bottle in a tube next to the drain pipe under my trailer. The lawyer will hopefully keep you from being drugged. Keep 'em dancing for a couple weeks if you can."
"Sure. The young guy reeks of stud, should be pleasant."
Bernice hung up, smiling, and turned to the agents. "I'm going to go talk to the TV crew now. If you stop me I'll scream—thin walls, they'll hear me fine. Don't worry, I'm just going to praise you for collaring the four guys. If the phone rings it'll be my lawyer. Just ask him to hang on a minute till I get back in."

Frank Witt Dossier, FBI excerpt: On day three of the investigation Mr. Witt's trailer and its contents were deconstructed into small pieces. The ground underneath was excavated to a depth of five feet. A full bottle was discovered next to the drain pipe, but was revealed to contain only alcohol.

Four months later, Bernice was briefing her bartender and wait staff when the bar phone rang. The bartender made a move for the phone, but Bernice waved him off.
"Bernice's."
"Are you just as nicely packed as ever?"
"You son of a bitch! Abandoning me like that!"
"I hear the diner cash register wore out."
"Yeah, we've been full ever since the arrest, mob groupies and weirdos, and they pay, not like you."
"Sweetie, listen. The Feds will have this line tapped, so I'm not going to tell them anything they don't already know. Did you ever get it on with the young stud?"
"Nah, he was too married. You owe me a shot of the good stuff."
"Something else I'm going to have to welsh on. They'll pinch me if I try and see you, so we'll have to have phone sex." Frankie cleared his throat.
"I thought it out, Bernice. You were right. Giving away the tonic would have not only amputated my future income, it would've created competition. I drank it all. It's done—things—to me, mostly good, some not."
"You okay, you liar?"
"Yeah, thanks. I've got to finish under their trace time, so listen up. I found a corporate protector that treats me like a medical superhero, uses my flesh and fluids for research and treatment. I'm a self-healing golden goose, providing the company with heaps of money. They also sell bits of me to the government, which keeps the feds less unhappy."
"So you guzzled down my shot."
"Yeah, sorry. But look under the rubber mat for serving drinks. There's an envelope for you."
"Wait a sec…. Damn, Frankie, that's really my account?"
"It's twenty percent, like we said. Deposits every month from an offshore account." His voice changed. "And if you Feds dick with it I'll cut off your supply of me." His voice softened. "I miss you sweetie, but some of the weirdos post pictures of you on line, so I can see you're doing okay."
"Frankie?"
"I know."

Frank Witt Dossier, Joint Task Force excerpt: Bernice Stanton had been kept under tight surveillance for seven months when she eluded operatives and disappeared for two weeks. She returned with a deep total body tan and a cheerful demeanor but no explanation to friends, staff or federal informers as to where she had been. No trace of the liquid or Mr. Witt has thus far been found.

Good Company

By Ed Ahern



Frank retreated from the house into the back yard, his eyes wet. I should’ve told her, “Ashley, I’m not lazy or weak, quit picking at me. It only hurts me, and doesn’t help you.” But instead, I backed off. She’s carving pieces off me every time we argue.
He bagged up hedge cuttings and grass clippings and stuffed the bags into the back of their vintage SUV. The drive to the town dump took fifteen minutes, most of which Frank spent staring towards a visualized Ashley. She’d been slender when they married, but with the hint of coming fullness. Instead, she’d puckered and soured into a caricature.
He dumped off the clippings, being careful to remove every trace of plant and dirt. Ashley would inspect the car later that day.
The access road to the dump went past the town dog pound, which in over thirty visits Frank had barely noticed. But this day he pulled into the small parking lot and went in. The man behind the desk was comfortably frumpy. “Looking for a pet?”
Ashley hated the idea of an animal making a mess of her house, and had refused to consider getting one. “Yeah, maybe. Could I look at the dogs?”
The attendant opened a counter-weighted metal door, pointing Frank onto a gangway with ten cages on each side. The yapping and howling made talking impossible, and the man just waved for him to go down the line of cages.
The dog in cage eleven didn’t bark, just padded slowly toward Frank and stared at him. The dark brown eyes were calm, the body posture loose. They studied each other as if it were a first date. He walked back out through intensified barking and baying.
“What can you tell me about cage eleven?”
“Which one is that?”
“Wolfy-looking black and gray shepherd.”
He went to a card file. The desk top computer apparently was there for show. “Yeah, we’d been trying to trap that one for months. Wily devil, kept eluding the guys. Unaltered male, maybe 85 pounds, maybe three years old. Nobody has gone for him, and he’s scheduled to be put down at the end of the week. You want him, you have to sign that you’ll get him his shots and remove his testicles, plus pay us twenty-three dollars.”
“Let me think about it.”
Frank knew he couldn’t get a dog; he already had too many problems. Big dog, big food bill, die by the time he’s ten or eleven. Looks like a shedder. No collar or tags when they trapped him, could be wild. Ashley will rip me up. Bad idea, Frank.
He broached the possibility that evening. “Honey, I’m thinking about our getting a dog.”
Ashley flipped open her verbal knives. “You’re an idiot. We don’t have the money to repair my car and you want to get a dog. And who would take care of it- me, probably, because you don’t take care of anything on a regular basis, not the yard, not fixing things around the house, for sure not me. Once you get a job and make enough money to feed us you can talk to me about getting a dog.”
Her cuts stung and Frank shut up. But the next day he drove back to the dog pound. “Can I go in his cage and see how the dog and I get along?”
“No, but I’ll put a choke leash on him and you can walk him around the exercise cage.”
The animal was densely furred, with a thick mane. It moved with feral grace and not a dog’s self-consciousness. It neither recoiled from Frank nor fawned on him, but took his pats and stroking calmly, as if its due, as if it knew that Frank gained as much as it did.
The dog held eye contact with Frank like few people had done in his life, his father perhaps a few times, a boyhood friend now gone away. Frank slipped the leash off its neck and the dog held its position at his side. “When is it being put down?”
“Day after tomorrow.”
Bad idea, walk away. “I’ll take it.”
Ashley was at work when Frank brought the dog home. He expected it to sniff through every open room, but it held its position next to him, pacing with him from living room to kitchen to Frank’s cubbyhole office, where it lay at his feet.
Both man and dog were watching television when Ashley returned home. Frank noticed clumps of gray fur on the egg shell carpeting, and hoped Ashley wouldn’t.
“Frank! How could you? Get that goddamn dog out of my house!”
Frank had jumped, but the shepherd merely raised its head. “He’s a good dog, Ashley, he’ll protect us.”
“Bullshit. I told you not to get it. Take it back. If you don’t, I’ll call the police and have them take it back.”
Frank felt like he’d waded into an ebbing surf, with the sand running out from under his feet. He glanced over at the shepherd and felt the bottom firm. “I don’t think so, Ashley. The neighbors would see the cops come and I’d make sure to tell them all about it.” He started speaking faster, forcing his ideas to be heard before Ashley shredded them.
“Let’s give it a couple weeks before we decide, it’ll be companionship for me while you’re at work, look at it, it’ll make a good watch dog…”
“No pets! We agreed. Keep to your word for a change. You’ll just get to love it and it’ll die. You take it back first thing tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, stick it in the basement.” She stood breathing heavily, arms still waving, as if she’d semaphored her orders.
Frank realized that his shoulders slumped and straightened up. “I’m not going to argue with you, Ashley, but I want to keep it. I’ll sleep in the living room tonight, along with the dog.”
The skin was stretched tautly over Ashley’s facial bones. “You soft-dicked little parasite, you can’t even afford the dog food. If it wasn’t so much trouble I’d of dumped you years ago. But it’s not too late.”
The dog had remained crouched next to Frank, its hackles unraised. Apparently arguments between humans were of no concern. Ashley prepared her own supper, as did Frank after she’d left the kitchen. Without speaking again, it was understood that the upstairs was hers, and Frank could only briefly visit to retrieve clean clothing and brush his teeth.
Frank sat back down and pointed his eyes at the television. The words were drowned by the roar in his ears, and the images flickered without comprehension.
Shortly before midnight he realized that the dog needed to go out. The dog sensed Frank’s purpose almost before he reached for the leash, and put its head next to his leg. The night was overcast and dark, the dog a well camouflaged blur at the end of the line.
It held close to Frank, putting no strain at all on the leash, following his lead like a dance partner. Maybe Ashley is right. I can’t even buy this dog a bed. It was wild before, maybe I could just let it go, and say the collar was too loose. It’ll probably run away, but if it stays it’s meant to be.
He stepped over to the dog, reached down and unsnapped the collar. “Your call, buddy. You stay with me, I keep you. You run off, we’re both back where we were.”
The dog looked intently at Frank, but didn’t move. Then it loped off to sniff a neighbor’s yard. That’s that, it’s gone. But as Frank turned to walk away it bounded back over to him, and paced with him down the sidewalk.
The animal strode with a grace that stumpy-legged humans lack, and ran like God or nature meant running to be, the paws invisible, the muscles beautifully flexed. Frank realized that he’d brought the dog back into its element, into the night when it hunted. He realized that while the dog was with him, he need fear nothing, for it would frighten away any coyote or robber.
They moved together for two hours, the animal disappearing into darkness and reappearing like a second shadow. That’s it, I’ll call you Shadow. “Time to go back, Shadow” He repeated the name all the way back to the house, but the dog had seemed to recognize its title from the first utterance.
Frank set an alarm early enough to make peace-offering coffee for Ashley, but she came downstairs already dressed for the office, and blew through the living room and out the front door while slinging barbs. “That animal stinks. You take it back or get out of my house, both of you. You’re actually gone beyond useless to harmful…”
He walked the dog in the post-dawn sunshine on a leash so it wouldn’t frighten the neighbors. He drank three cups of coffee, his increasingly caffeinated nerves clamoring that he prepare for what seemed inevitable, that Ashley would throw him out. Frank made a telephone call.
“Collin? Frank. Yeah, listen, things aren’t going so good here, and I need to get some work. Are you still looking for people for your landscaping crews?.. I know it’s minimum wage, but I’ve got to earn some cash… Thanks Collin. Oh, and I’m going to need a cheap place to stay, one that takes pets…. That much, huh? What do you know about the shelter at Operation Hope?.. No pets?…. Thanks Collin, it would only be until I got on my feet, and I’d be glad to pay you something.”
Frank was scared but focused, like a parachutist must feel right after he’d jumped from a plane. He carried his clean clothes downstairs and stacked them in unusually neat piles, then stuffed his dirty clothes into a plastic trash bag. He made a few more phone calls, and then took Shadow into wooded acreage near their house.
Frank slipped the leash, and Shadow immediately caught the scent of something and loped off. It glided without a snag through the brambled underbrush and disappeared. Frank stood still in awe. How wasted its grace is on flat lawns and sidewalks.
He waited ten minutes before beginning to worry, and was about to call the dog when the underbrush rustled to his left, the opposite direction from which Shadow had disappeared. A spike horn deer burst out of the thicket, almost running into Frank in its panicked flight. Shadow streamed behind it, blurred and almost soundless, and was gone again. The two animals had transited past him in under three seconds.
Frank waited five more minutes and started calling Shadow. He’d yelled the name a dozen times before Shadow loped back into sight, panting almost uncontrollably. There was no blood on his muzzle, so presumably the deer had escaped. But Shadow seemed content. He’d
committed every muscle fiber, every nerve twitch possible to the chase, and had lost his prey. But there seemed to be no disappointment, no chagrin, only an exhausted satisfaction with the effort. Frank snapped the leash back on and they walked slowly home.
Ashley burst into the house at five thirty, glaring at them both. Shadow made no move toward her, seeming to sense that anything it did would be misinterpreted. Just like me, Frank thought.
Her voice was ominously calm. “I talked to a lawyer today. You’ve finally broken my patience. You’ve moving out, right now. This is my house, my car, I make the payments on both of them. You get nothing, and good riddance.
Frank surprised himself. He was resigned to the probable doom of his marriage, emotionally distancing himself far enough that Ashley’s knives could barely touch him. “Ashley, I’ve checked with some guys who’ve gotten divorced. This is a community property state. Fifty-fifty. Plus you’ll have to provide support while I find a job. I won’t even have to argue much about it.”
Shadow sidled nearer to him as he spoke. Ashley stared at the two males, then the piles of clothes. She began to silently cry, then angrily wiped off the tears. Frank couldn’t recall ever having seen her cry.
“Get out of my house or I’ll call the police!”
Frank squeezed his lips together in a hard smile. “Good luck with that. I haven’t abused you and am not a drunk. The cops will be men with a few marital issues of their own. I’ll have their sympathy.”
Ashley’s arms flailed while she searched for the words that would rebind Frank to her. None came. “Don’t come near me, you or that insect-riddled beast. If you can’t behave like my husband, I want you out of my house, my life.”
For just a second Frank saw Ashley as he’d hoped for when they got married. But the vision withered back into caricature. Frank glanced at the laying dog and with a jolt realized that Ashley was staring at caricatures as well, of an ineffectual and parasitic mate and a dangerous looking animal that violated the purity of her house. His voice softened.
“Ashley, there’s no point anymore in hurting each other. Let’s just kill the marriage and divide up the carcass. I won’t be gluttonous. I’ll move out as soon as I can.”
They stood three feet apart, sparring distance. It’d been three months since Frank had touched Ashley with suggestive affection. He’d been rebuffed then, and was sure she would reject him again.
They cohabitated for another two weeks as the marital glue slowly leaked out of the house. Frank moved out when Ashley was at work, leaving a note- ‘I’ll Call If I’ve Forgotten Anything. F.’
Collin was already divorced and sympathetic, although he’d been ditched because of serial philandering. “Frank, I know a couple of divorced women I can put you in touch with.”
Frank realized that he was being offered Collin’s culls. “No thanks, Coll, I’m not ready for dating, besides, I’m still married.”
“Who’s talking about dating? You really are out of touch. Take an example from that dog of yours- he’d hump any bitch in heat.”
Collin had that part wrong. Despite the vet’s encouragement and his signed commtment, Frank had left Shadow unaltered. But even though genitally intact, Shadow hadn’t expressed sexual interest in other dogs, male or female. Two celibates abstaining without understanding why. Or maybe I understand too well.
The landscaping work suited Frank, who had an eye for garden layouts. He began taking side jobs, and then started up his own business, buying a used truck and equipment in installment payments.
Shadow usually came with him on a job. He would lay unleashed next to Frank and move back and forth with him. The dog made human and animal friends easily, and Frank was convinced that he was given at least some of his work because customers trusted a man that a dog trusted.
Ashley called one evening. It was the last married conversation they had without lawyers present. “Frank, you’re being crazy. All this expense and work. Just get rid of the dog and we can try to put thing back the way they were.”
The way things were. When did the absence of pain become a pleasure? “Ashley, I wish, I wish we’d done thing differently. But we contorted ourselves into something unsustainable. Let’s just let the process grind.”



After the divorce, Frank moved from Collin’s house to a rooming house that accepted pets, then to a larger apartment that he furnished mostly with customer cast offs. Five years slid past without seeing Ashley.
Until the post-funeral luncheon for a former neighbor. They came face to face in the swirling body surge of the reception.
“Hello, Frank. I see you still fit into the same suit. How’s the landscaping business?”
“Ashley. You look good, a little more filled out than when we were together.”
“It’s because I don’t worry as much.”
“I heard you got remarried. Did he come?”
Ashley waved her arm. “He’s over there, trying to sell insurance.”
Frank could see former neighbors watching them, waiting for the fireworks. “I, I think you did the right thing to divorce me.”
“Cost me enough.”
“I wonder sometimes if we’d had survived by having a honeymoon yelling and screaming argument and then wrestling down onto the couch. Or if you’d have just had me arrested.”
Ashley was silent for a few seconds. “I still get mad at you sometimes. I assumed you sat around without a job just to piss me off. I hear you live together with that dog better than you did with me. How is the hair ball?”


“You were right, he died young. Lung cancer. I had him put down a month ago.” His lips pursed in a sad smile. “I wouldn’t let them handle Shadow after he was injected. Picked him up and carried him out to the truck myself. Then drove it into the woods and buried him in a hidden grave. He would have liked that.”
“So what now, another dog? A trophy wife? Guess you can afford her now.”
“Don’t think so. One wife, one dog. Figure that’s enough bittersweet leavening. Nice seeing you, Ashley.”

Rothschild's Fiddle

By Anton Chekhov

It was a tiny town, worse than a village, inhabited chiefly by old people who so seldom died that it was really vexatious. Very few coffins were needed for the hospital and the jail; in a word, business was bad. If Yakov Ivanov had been a maker of coffins in the county town, he would probably have owned a house of his own by now, and would have been called Mr. Ivanov, but here in this little place he was simply called Yakov, and for some reason his nickname was Bronze. He lived as poorly as any common peasant in a little old hut of one room, in which he and Martha, and the stove, and a double bed, and the coffins, and his joiner's bench, and all the necessities of housekeeping were stowed away.
The coffins made by Yakov were serviceable and strong. For the peasants and townsfolk he made them to fit himself and never went wrong, for, although he was seventy years old, there was no man, not even in the prison, any taller or stouter than he was. For the gentry and for women he made them to measure, using an iron yardstick for the purpose. He was always very reluctant to take orders for children's coffins, and made them contemptuously without taking any measurements at all, always saying when he was paid for them:
"The fact is, I don't like to be bothered with trifles."
Beside what he received for his work as a joiner, he added a little to his income by playing the violin. There was a Jewish orchestra in the town that played for weddings, led by the tinsmith Moses Shakess, who took more than half of its earnings for himself. As Yakov played the fiddle extremely well, especially Russian songs, Shakess used sometimes to invite him to play in his orchestra for the sum of fifty kopeks a day, not including the presents he might receive from the guests. Whenever Bronze took his seat in the orchestra, the first thing that happened to him was that his face grew red, and the perspiration streamed from it, for the air was always hot, and reeking of garlic to the point of suffocation. Then his fiddle would begin to moan, and a double bass would croak hoarsely into his right ear, and a flute would weep into his left. This flute was played by a gaunt, red-bearded Jew with a network of red and blue veins on his face, who bore the name of a famous rich man, Rothschild. This confounded Jew always contrived to play even the merriest tunes sadly. For no obvious reason Yakov little by little began to conceive a feeling of hatred and contempt for all Jews, and especially for Rothschild. He quarrelled with him and abused him in ugly language, and once even tried to beat him, but Rothschild took offense at this, and cried with a fierce look:
"If I had not always respected you for your music, I should have thrown you out of the window long ago!"
Then he burst into tears. So after that Bronze was not often invited to play in the orchestra, and was only called upon in cases of dire necessity, when one of the Jews was missing.
Yakov was never in a good humor, because he always had to endure the most terrible losses. For instance, it was a sin to work on a Sunday or a holiday, and Monday was always a bad day, so in that way there were about two hundred days a year in which he was compelled to sit with his hands folded in his lap. That was a great loss to him. If any one in town had a wedding without music, or if Shakess did not ask him to play, there was another loss. The police inspector had lain ill with consumption for two years while Yakov impatiently waited for him to die, and then had gone to take a cure in the city and had died there, which of course had meant another loss of at least ten rubles, as the coffin would have been an expensive one lined with brocade.
The thought of his losses worried Yakov at night more than at any other time, so he used to lay his fiddle at his side on the bed, and when those worries came trooping into his brain he would touch the strings, and the fiddle would give out a sound in the darkness, and Yakov's heart would feel lighter.
Last year on the sixth of May, Martha suddenly fell ill. The old woman breathed with difficulty, staggered in her walk, and felt terribly thirsty. Nevertheless, she got up that morning, lit the stove, and even went for the water. When evening came she went to bed. Yakov played his fiddle all day. When it grew quite dark, because he had nothing better to do, he took the book in which he kept an account of his losses, and began adding up the total for the year. They amounted to more than a thousand rubles. He was so shaken by this discovery that he threw the counting board on the floor and trampled in under foot. Then he picked it up again and rattled it once more for a long time, heaving as he did so sighs both deep and long. His face grew purple, and perspiration dripped from his brow. He was thinking that if those thousand rubles he had lost had been in the bank then, he would have had at least forty rubles interest by the end of the year. So those forty rubles were still another loss! In a word, wherever he turned he found losses and nothing but losses.
"Yakov!" cried Martha unexpectedly, "I am dying!"
He looked round at his wife. Her face was flushed with fever and looked unusually joyful and bright. Bronze was troubled, for he had been accustomed to seeing her pale and timid and unhappy. It seemed to him that she was actually dead, and glad to have left this hut, and the coffins, and Yakov at last. She was staring at the ceiling, with her lips moving as if she saw her deliverer Death approaching and were whispering with him.
The dawn was just breaking and the eastern sky was glowing with a faint radiance. As he stared at the old woman it somehow seemed to Yakov that he had never once spoken a tender word to her or pitied her; that he had never thought of buying her a kerchief or of bringing her back some sweets from a wedding. On the contrary, he had shouted at her and abused her for his losses, and had shaken his fist at her. It was true he had never beaten her, but he had frightened her no less, and she had been paralyzed with fear every time he had scolded her. Yes, and he had not allowed her to drink tea because his losses were heavy enough as it was, so she had had to be content with hot water. Now he understood why her face looked so strangely happy, and horror overwhelmed him.
As soon as it was light he borrowed a horse from a neighbor and took Martha to the hospital. As there were not many patients, he had not to wait very long--only about three hours. To his great satisfaction it was not the doctor who was receiving the sick that day, but his assistant, Maxim Nikolaich, an old man of whom it was said that although he quarreled and drank, he knew more than the doctor did.
"Good morning, Your Honor," said Yakov leading his old woman into the office. "Excuse us for intruding upon you with our trifling affairs. As you see, this subject has fallen ill. My life's friend, if you will allow me to use the expression----"
Knitting his gray eyebrows and stroking his whiskers, the doctor's assistant fixed his eyes on the old woman. She was sitting all in a heap on a low stool, and with her thin, long-nosed face and her open mouth, she looked like a thirsty bird.
"Well, well-yes--" said the doctor slowly, heaving a sigh. "This is a case of influenza and possibly fever; there is typhoid in town. What's to be done? The old woman has lived her span of years, thank God. How old is she?"
"She lacks one year of being seventy, Your Honor."
"Well, well, she has lived long. There must come an end to everything."
"You are certainly right, Your Honor," said Yakov, smiling out of politeness. "And we thank you sincerely for your kindness, but allow me to suggest to you that even an insect dislikes to die!"
"Never mind if it does!" answered the doctor, as if the life or death of the old woman lay in his hands. "I'll tell you what you must do, my good man. Put a cold bandage around her head, and give her two of these powders a day. Now then, good-bye! Bonjour!"
Yakov saw by the expression on the doctor's face that it was too late now for powders. He realized clearly that Martha must die very soon, if not today, then tomorrow. He touched the doctor's elbow gently, blinked, and whispered:
"She ought to be cupped, doctor!"
"I haven't time, I haven't time, my good man. Take your old woman and go, in God's name. Good-bye."
"Please, please, cup her, doctor!" begged Yakov. "You know yourself that if she had a pain in her stomach, powders and drops would do her good, but she has a cold! The first thing to do when one catches cold is to let some blood, doctor!"
But the doctor had already sent for the next patient, and a woman leading a little boy came into the room.


"Go along, go along!" he cried to Yakov, frowning. "It's no use making a fuss!"
"Then at least put some leeches on her! Let me pray to God for you for the rest of my life!"
The doctor's temper flared up and he shouted:
"Don't say another word to me, blockhead!"
Yakov lost his temper, too, and flushed hotly, but he said nothing and, silently taking Martha's arm, led her out of the office. Only when they were once more seated in their wagon did he look fiercely and mockingly at the hospital and say:
"They're a pretty lot in there, they are! That doctor would have cupped a rich man, but he even begrudged a poor one a leech. The pig!"
When they returned to the hut, Martha stood for nearly ten minutes supporting herself by the stove. She felt that if she lay down Yakov would begin to talk to her about his losses, and would scold her for lying down and not wanting to work. Yakov contemplated her sadly, thinking that tomorrow was St. John the Baptist's day, and day after tomorrow was St. Nicholas the Wonder-Worker's day, and that the following day would be Sunday, and the day after that would be Monday, a bad day for work. So he would not be able to work for four days, and as Martha would probably die on one of these days, the coffin would have to be made at once. He took his iron yardstick in hand, went up to the old woman, and measured her. Then she lay down, and he crossed himself and went to work on the coffin.
When the task was completed Bronze put on his spectacles and wrote in his book:
"For 1 coffin for Martha Ivanov--2 rubles, 40 kopeks."
He sighed. All day the old woman lay silent with closed eyes, but toward evening, when the daylight began to fade, she suddenly called the old man to her side.
"Do you remember, Yakov?" she asked. "Do you remember how fifty years ago God gave us a little baby with curly golden hair? Do you remember how you and I used to sit on the bank of the river and sing songs under the willow tree?" Then with a bitter smile she added: "The baby died."
Yakov racked his brains, but for the life of him he could not recall the child or the willow tree.
"You are dreaming," he said.
The priest came and administered the Sacrament and Extreme Unction. Then Martha began muttering unintelligibly, and toward morning she died.
The neighboring old women washed her and dressed her, and laid her in her coffin. To avoid paying the deacon, Yakov read the psalms over her himself, and her grave cost him nothing as the watchman of the cemetery was his cousin. Four peasants carried the coffin to the grave, not for money but for love. The old women, the beggars, and two village idiots followed the body, and the people whom they passed on the way crossed themselves devoutly. Yakov was very glad that everything had passed off so nicely and decently and cheaply, without giving offense to any one. As he said farewell to Martha for the last time he touched the coffin with his hand and thought:
"That's a fine job!"
But walking homeward from the cemetery he was seized with great distress. He felt ill, his breath was burning hot, his legs grew weak, and he longed for a drink. Beside this, a thousand thoughts came crowding into his head. He remembered again that he had never once pitied Martha or said a tender word to her. The fifty years of their life together lay stretched far, far behind him, and somehow, during all that time, he had never once thought about her at all or noticed her more than if she had been a dog or a cat. And vet she had lit the stove every day, and had cooked and baked and fetched water and chopped wood, and when he had come home drunk from a wedding she had hung his fiddle reverently on a nail each time, and had silently put him to bed with a timid, anxious look on her face.
But here came Rothschild toward him, bowing and scraping and smiling.
"I have been looking for you, uncle!" he said. "Moses Shakess presents his compliments and wants you to go to him at once."
Yakov did not feel in a mood to do anything. He wanted to crv.
"Leave me alone!" he exclaimed, and walked on.
"Oh, how can you say that?" cried Rothschild, running beside him in alarm. "Moses will be very angry. He wants you to come at once!"
Yakov was disgusted by the panting of the Jew, by his blinking eves, and by the quantities of reddish freckles on his face. He looked with aversion at his long green coat and at the whole of his frail, delicate figure.
"What do you mean by pestering me, garlic?" he shouted. "Get away!"
The Jew grew angry and shouted back:
"Don't yell at me like that or I'll send you flying over that fence!"
"Get out of my sight!" bellowed Yakov, shaking his fist at him. "There's no living in the same town with mangy curs like you!"
Rothschild was petrified with terror. He sank to the ground and waved his hands over his head as if to protect himself from falling blows; then he jumped up and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him. As he ran he leaped and waved his arms, and his long, gaunt back could be seen quivering. The little boys were delighted at what had happened, and ran after him screaming: "Jew, Jew!" The dogs also joined barking in the chase. Somebody laughed and then whistled, at which the dogs barked louder and more vigorously than ever.
Then one of them must have bitten Rothschild, for a piteous, despairing scream rent the air.
Yakov walked across the common to the edge of the town without knowing where he was going, and the little boys shouted after him. "There goes old man Bronze! There goes old man Bronze!" He found himself by the river where the snipe were darting about with shrill cries, and the ducks were quacking and swimming to and fro. The sun was shining fiercely and the water was sparkling so brightly that it was painful to look at. Yakov struck into a path that led along the riverbank. lIe came to a stout, red-checked woman just leaving a bath-house. "Aha, you otter, you!" he thought. Not far from the bath-house some little boys were fishing for crabs with pieces of meat. When they saw Yakov they shouted mischievously: "Old man Bronze! Old man Bronze!" But there before him stood an ancient, spreading willow tree with a massive trunk, and a crow's nest among its branches. Suddenly there flashed across Yakov's memory with all the vividness of life a little child with golden curls, and the willow of which Martha had spoken. Yes, this was the same tree, so green and peaceful and sad. How old it had grown, poor thing!
He sat down at its foot and thought of the past. On the opposite shore, where that meadow now was, there had stood in those days a wood of tall birch-trees, and that bare hill on the horizon yonder had been covered with the blue bloom of an ancient pine forest. And sailboats had plied the river then, but now all lay smooth and still, and only one little birch-tree was left on the opposite bank, a graceful young thing, like a girl, while on the river there swam only ducks and geese. It was hard to believe that boats had once sailed there. It even seemed to him that there were fewer geese now than there had been. Yakov shut his eyes, and one by one white geese came flying toward him, an endless flock.
He was puzzled to know why he had never once been down to the river during the last forty or fifty years of his life, or, if he had been there, why he had never paid any attention to it. The stream was fine and large; he might have fished in it and sold the fish to the merchants and the government officials and the restaurant-keeper at the station, and put the money in the bank. He might have rowed in a boat from farm to farm and played on his fiddle. People of every rank would have paid him money to hear him. He might have tried to run a boat on the river, that would have been better than making coffins. Finally, he might have raised geese, and killed them, and sent them to Moscow in the winter. Why, the down alone would have brought him ten rubles a year! But he had missed all these chances and had done nothing. What losses were here! Ah, what terrible losses! And, oh, if he had only done all these things at the same time! If he had only fished, and played the fiddle, and sailed a boat, and raised geese, what capital he would have had by now! But he had not even dreamed of doing all this; his life had gone by without profit or pleasure. It had been lost for nothing, not even a trifle. Nothing was left ahead; behind lay only losses, and such terrible losses that he shuddered to think of them. But why shouldn't men live so as to avoid all this waste and these losses? Why, oh why, should those birch and pine forests have been felled? Why should those meadows be lying so deserted? Why did people always do exactly what they ought not to do? Why had Yakov scolded and growled and clenched his fists and hurt his wife's feelings all his life? Why, oh why, had he frightened and insulted that Jew just now? Why did people in general always interfere with one another? What losses resulted from this! What terrible losses! If it were not for envy and anger they would get great profit from one another.
All that evening and night Yakov dreamed of the child, of the willow tree, of the fish and the geese, of Martha with her profile like a thirsty bird, and of Rothschild's pale, piteous mien. Queer faces seemed to be moving toward him from all sides, muttering to him about his losses. He tossed from side to side, and got up five times during the night to play his fiddle.
He rose with difficulty next morning, and walked to the hospital. The same doctor's assistant ordered him to put cold bandages on his head, and gave him little powders to take; by his expression and the tone of his voice Yakov knew that the state of affairs was bad, and that no powders could save him now. As he walked home he reflected that one good thing would result from his death: he would no longer have to eat and drink and pay taxes, neither would he offend people anymore, and, as a man lies in his grave for hundreds of thousands of years, the sum of his profits would be immense. So, life to a man was a loss--death, a gain. Of course this reasoning was correct, but it was also distressingly sad. Why should the world be so strangely arranged that a man's life, which was only given to him once, must pass without profit?
He was not sorry then that he was going to die, but when he reached home, and saw his fiddle, his heart ached, and he regretted it deeply. He would not be able to take his fiddle with him into the grave, and now it would be left an orphan, and its fate would be that of the birch grove and the pine forest. Everything in the world had been lost, and would always be lost for ever. Yakov went out and sat on the threshold of his hut, clasping his fiddle to his breast. And as he thought of his life so full of waste and losses he began playing without knowing how piteous and touching his music was, and the tears streamed down his cheeks. And the more he thought the more sorrowfully sang his violin.
The latch clicked and Rothschild came in through the garden gate, and walked boldly halfway across the garden. Then he suddenly stopped, crouched down, and, probably from fear, began making signs with his hands as if he were trying to show on his fingers what time it was.
"Come on, don't be afraid!" said Yakov gently, beckoning him to advance. "Come on!"
With many mistrustful and fearful glances Rothschild went slowly up to Yakov, and stopped about two yards away.
"Please don't beat me!" he said with a ducking bow. "Moses Shakess has sent me to you again. 'Don't be afraid,' he said, 'go to Yakov,' says he, 'and say that we can't possibly manage without him.' There is a wedding next Thursday. Ye-es sir. Mr. Shapovalov is marrying his daughter to a very fine man. It will be an expensive wedding, ai, ai!" added the Jew with a wink.
"I can't go" said Yakov breathing hard. "I'm ill, brother."
And he began to play again, and the tears gushed out of his eyes over his fiddle. Rothschild listened intently with his head turned away and his arms folded on his breast. The startled, irresolute look on his face gradually gave way to one of suffering and grief. He cast up his eyes as if in an ecstasy of agony and murmured: "Okh-okh!" And the tears began to trickle slowly down his cheeks, and to drip over his green coat.
All day Yakov lay and suffered. When the priest came in the evening to administer the Sacrament he asked him if he could not think of any particular sin.
Struggling with his fading memories, Yakov recalled once more Martha's sad face, and the despairing cry of the Jew when the dog had bitten him. He murmured almost inaudibly:
"Give my fiddle to Rothschild."
''It shall be done," answered the priest.
So it happened that everyone in the little town began asking:
"Where did Rothschild get that good fiddle? Did he buy it or steal it or get it out of a pawnshop?"
Rothschild has long since abandoned his flute, and now only plays on the violin. The same mournful notes flow from under his bow that used to come from his flute, and when he tries to repeat what Yakov played as he sat on the threshold of his hut, the result is an air so plaintive and sad that everyone who hears him weeps, and he himself at last raises his eyes and murmurs: "Okh-okh!" And this new song has so delighted the town that the merchants and government officials vie with each other in getting Rothschild to come to their houses, and sometimes make him play it ten times in succession.

All I Want Is Kissing You and Music, Music, Music


by Gerald Arthur Winter




It was a rainy, windswept afternoon in Queens, just a hop, skip, and jump across the


Belt Parkway median to Idlewild Airport from the bar where Mack sipped his beer in a dark


corner. He planned to walk over for his flight, but hadn’t counted on such inclement weather.


It was four o’clock, so the bar was scarce of patrons, mostly a blue-collar lot who worked


locally. There were only a couple of airplane hangars at Idelwild back then. Commercial air


flight was a rare privilege only for the rich ‘n’ famous—whoever they were. Mack was neither.


Having come home unscathed after serving four years in World War Two he’d decided


to reenlist and join the fight in a faraway place called Korea. He didn’t know what the fight was


all about, only that President Truman—“Give’m Hell Harry”—said Mack was needed in another


American fight for freedom. Others called it merely “a police action.”


Truman said the buck stopped in an Asian city where American Troops, joined by


United Nations forces, had to protect the “Pusan Perimeter” against the Communist forces


of the North backed by Red China. The world had become a complicated place in the past


decade of the Forties, but at least most folks understood that the Germans, Italians, and


Japs had been the bad guys, dictatorships that had to be stopped. But in the Fifties it was


no longer about one nation against another. It was about something less tangible, which


Mack could only vaguely comprehend called an “ideology.”


With Hitler, Mussolini, and Hirohito out of the picture, the Chinese under Mao


Zedong and the Soviet’s under Stalin were advocating this dangerous ideology called


“Communism.” They were using their dictatorships to force simple folks like Mack all


over the world to become Communist whether they wanted to or not.


Though merely a concept written in a book a German named Karl Marx had written


called a “manifesto,” none of these Commies had ever attained the worker’s Utopian society


proclaimed by Marx. Instead, they’d convinced their own people that a dictatorship was the


best means to achieve that future end. The workers were promised their perfect society was


at hand in a matter of time. Only a dictator could truly make it happen.


Bull shit! Mack thought listening to the wind howl and sheets of rain pounding


against the front window of Barney’s Bar ‘n’ Grill next to the LIRR tracks. During rush hour


the LIRR express went from Penn Station out to Long Island, but only as far as Massapequa.


Beyond Levitt Town, was considered “the boonies.”


Mack wasn’t one for ideologies and he didn’t like the idea of war, but he no longer


a had place to call come home in America. Sally, the teenager he’d been engaged to in 1942,


had stopped waiting for him to come home from Europe. She married another man, a decent


guy, and they already had two young kids. They’d asked Mack to be their kids’ godfather.


What else could he do? He was always a swell guy in a pinch.


Mack had come home from France all in one piece in 1946—accept maybe for


his mind. He’d put his whole heart into the idea of coming home alive to marry Sally


Thorton and having a station wagon full of kids, girls as pretty as Sally and hardworking


boys like him. A sexist outlook by today’s standards, but that’s just the way it was seventy


years ago. Sally and their life together was all he’d thought about under German gunfire


and American bombs on German cities he’d helped take over for Uncle Sam.


After VE Day he stayed in Paris for over a year until his honorable discharge. Despite


the allure of les jeunes filles de Paris looking for GIs to marry their way into America, Mack had


remained true to Sally and to what he thought, all through life-threatening battles around him,


was their shared dream for the future.


He ordered under nickel beer, a cheap satisfying quench in small glass that took


only three swallows. Then the bar’s front door swung open with a crash against a hat rack,


knocking it to the floor. The wind and rain flushed a petite figure into the bar. Her umbrella


was blown inside out and her lemon-yellow raincoat created a spray toward Mack at the


bar. She spun all the way into his arms where he sat. Her floppy yellow rain hat was soaked.


Breathless, she removed her hat and shook her shoulder-length, auburn coif, spraying Mack’s


face and carrying to his flared nostrils an intriguing wildflower scent.


“Nice entrance,” Mack said with a shy nod, but the feel of her small figure within


his tight grasp embarrassed him as he released her to stand freely on her own, no more


than five-two in heels. Her auburn hair reminded him of Claudette Colbert in some of her


most vamping roles on screen. No vamp, this young woman seemed more shy than Mack.


“I’m sorry if I got you all wet,” she said through her turned-up freckled nose with


a mid-western twang.


“You got a towel back there?” Mack asked with a wave to the bartender, a bald,


burly man who glared at them with a nod to the sign posted near the front door:


No Unescorted Women May Enter This Establishment


“The weather must’ve delayed your bus . . . Sis. How’s Mom ‘n’ Dad?” Mike asked


her with a wink.


The bartender shook his head with displeasure and tossed him a towel that was


already damp and smelled yeasty like his beer—a slop rag to swab the bar top.


“This ain’t no joint for family reunions,” he warned them. “When my reg’lars


show up after five, I’ll want those bar stools empty. Got it, soldier boy?”


She took a deep breath and exhaled. “Whew! That’s a real derecho out there, just


like home.”


“Where’s home?”


“Toledo. Ya know, in A-high-ya.”


“O-hi-o?”


“That’s what I said—A-high-ya.”


“So you did. Are you taking shelter from the squall or is someone meeting you


here?” he asked.


“Both”


“Boyfriend?”


“Business.”


The bartender coughed at the end of the bar.


“What kind a business?” Mack asked, staring down the bartender and feeling sure


his instincts were right about this young woman, just an out-of-towner naïve about the


evil ways of big city life.


“Music.”


“No kiddin’! What do ya play.”


The bartender smacked down The Daily News he was reading, probably thinking


these two were speaking in some kind of code to hook up for the night. With his thumbs


tucked into his waistline, he ambled with his potbelly towards them.


“Is this young lady gonna order somethin’ or are you gonna order it for her?”


“My treat, Sis. What’ll it be.”


“You’re so kind, brother dear. Just a Coke please.”


“Hmm. Figures,” the bartender huffed and brought her a Coke and Mack another


beer.


“Thank you, brother,” she said as they clicked their glasses together. “Cheers. My


name is Teresa, but my friends call me Terri.”


“Here’s to you and your music, Terri. Call me, Mack.”


“Thank you, Mack. What can we give cheers to you for all dressed up in your


Army uniform? Are you coming home or going overseas?”


“I’ve been home a while since the end of the war, but there’s nothing to keep me


here anymore, so I’ve reenlisted and I’m flying out in a couple of hours from Idlewild.”


“Where to?”


“Coupla stops along the way, final destination is the place that’s been in the news


called Ko-re-a.”


“Oh, dear, Mack. Won’t that be dangerous?”


“I guess. Doesn’t matter. Soldiering is all I know. I thought I was comin’ home to


my high school sweetheart to get married as we’d planned and have a bunch a kids. She


married another guy while I was over there in Germany. Said she got tired of waitin’ for me.”


“I’m so sorry, Mack.”


“Thanks. But say, you didn’t tell me what you play. I’ve gotten rusty from carrying


my M-1 rifle instead of my geetar.”


“My instrument is my voice, Mack. I’m a singer.”


“No kiddin’. They pay ya money for that?”


“Not a whole lot yet. But I’m told I’ve got something special.”


“Wow! That’s swell, Terri. Ya carryin’ any sheet music in that pocket book?”


“Yeah, but that’s just for my accompaniment. I can’t read music. I just sing by ear.


Ya know, I just get a feel for it and let ’er rip.”


“Sounds like you’ve got style, Terri. Hey! There’s a jukebox over there in the corner.


If I pay for a record, would you sing along with it. I’d just love to hear ya let ‘er rip.”


“It’s busted!” the bartender shouted from the other end of the bar. “Hasn’t played


in over a year! Why don’t you two take it outside?”


“Aw, come on, barkeep! Give the girl a break.” Mack shouted back. “Can ya sing


a cappella?”


“In here?”


“Sure. I’ll buy ya another Coke, even a sandwich. Are ya hungry? Lemme hear ya


sing, Terri. I’ll carry your song in my heart all the way to Pusan.”


“What’s that?”


“Some city in Ko-re-a needs protectin.’”


“All right, Mack. Only because you’ve been such a kind gentleman.”


“Oh, brother!” the bartender groaned burying his face in the newspaper.


“Tap your foot along with me so I can keep the beat,” she said. “Ready? One-two-


three. Put another nickel in, in the Nickelodeon. All I want is having you and music, music,


music. I’d do anything for you, anything you’d want me to. All I want is kissing you and


music, music, music.”


Terri went on singing for several minutes, which brought the surly bartender to his


feet and with a boyish grin he danced towards them with the lithe footwork of a hoofer


that reminded Mack of ballerina hippos in Disney’s Fantasia. Mack grabbed a couple of


butter knives from the counter and started to drum on the bar top.


Mack and Terri quickly learned the bartender’s name was Al, and he danced with


Terri as she sang several more stanzas of the song she’d memorized for her meeting.


Out of breath, Al checked his watch and it was five o’clock.


“Gee, Terri. That was really swell. I sure hope your audition goes well,” Al said.


“I’ve already got the record deal, Al, but that song is only the B-side. No one


thinks that tune will go anywhere, but I just love singing it.”


“I can tell you do, Terri,” Mack said. “Thanks, for the send-off.”


“You stay safe over there, Mack. I’ll bet you’re gonna find a sweet girl to love


you real soon. I can feel it.”


“The rain’s finally stopped. I can walk over to Idlewild now. I hope your record


tops the charts, Terri!” Mack shouted from the doorway as he was leaving, but a short,


no-neck man bumped into him. “Sorry, Mister,” Mack said, always polite.


The man just nodded with his collar turned up and his fedora shielding his face,


but Mack heard a voice that would become so familiar to many for decades on TV:


“Hellooo, Miss Brewer. This Sunday we’re going to have a really, really big sheeew.”


Mack returned from the war four years later with his Korean wife. He told her


all about the last night he’d spent in America before arriving in Pusan. He introduced


Jung Soo to Al, and they reminisced about that rainy night in Queens.


“Wait’ll ya hear this, Mack,” Al said, going to the jukebox. “Finally got it fixed.


Here’s Terri’s latest.”


Mack looked into Jung Soo’s loving eyes as they swayed and tapped their feet to the


perky voice singing: “I don’t want a ricochet romance, I don’t want a ricochet love. No, no, not


me. If you’re cheatin’ with your kisses, find another turtle dove . . . “


rFile:Music Music Music - T.Brewer - 1950 London.ogg - Wikipedia *




*
Fair use rationale
Use of this audio sample in the article is fair use because: historical interest. Shows differences with other versions. Shows style and melody of verse properly. Quality is much reduced. It is not sufficient to threaten the full recording, but helps promote it as background for a fictional story




_________________

The Magic Blue of the Sapphire Hotel

By Kristin Neubauer
 
 
Six-year-old Sannie Johnson knew she wasn’t special. Her mother told her. Her sisters told her. Her uncle told her. The hundreds of people who streamed by the tattered “Homeless” signs she and her mother held everyday told her.
 
That’s why Sannie didn’t think she’d done anything special the day she noticed a dollar bill fall from the purse of a woman wearing a fur coat with a high collar outside the Sapphire Hotel. The woman swept through the hotel entrance, failing to notice the little girl who scurried from the shadows of the alley and plucked the bill from the murk of a sewer puddle. Her eyes widened as she studied the “1-0-0.”
 
Sannie darted through the entrance, so intent on returning the money that she didn’t hear the doorman behind her shouting, “Hey you! Come back here!”
 
But the instant she stepped into the lobby, she stopped. The murmur of jazz from a grand piano floated around her. Sprays of tropical flowers adorned the tables. Rings glinted off women’s fingers as they clinked glasses with men who sported silk ties and cufflinks. A grand staircase opened into the lobby. It was something else though that halted the child and left her staring, mouth agape.
 
Outside, it had been a cold winter day with a sky so blue and sun so bright that Sannie had to squint. But inside, all color had faded to a world of grey. Everything and everyone were bathed in flat, colorless hues that reminded Sannie of a black-and-white TV show she’d once watched through a store window.
 
Everything, that is, except for a chandelier dripping with thousands of sapphires, speckling the room with cobalt shimmer. Sannie stared up at it until her neck was sore. When she lowered her head, she caught other flashes of glimmering blue – a single rose, water flowing down a fountain, an antique frame surrounding a mirror.
 
Sannie couldn’t take her eyes off her reflection. In her world, mirrors were rare and she hadn’t seen herself - not like this - for years. She tried to pat down her braids like she’d seen her sister once do and scrubbed at a smudge on her forehead. Her hands disappeared inside the sleeves of her oversized coat – a man’s corduroy jacket a shelter volunteer had once given her.
 
She opened her mouth and stretched it with her fingers, giggling at the funny face reflected back. She waved her arms in the air and twirled around, staring at the mirror the whole time.
 
“Taxi!” she shouted to her reflection in a deep voice, imitating a man she’d seen leave the hotel earlier.
 
As she peered more closely, Sannie noticed other people in the mirror. She turned around and realized a crowd had gathered around her, whispering and staring.
 
“My dear, are you well?” a heavyset woman asked, squinting over her glasses.
 
“Someone dropped this money,” Sannie said, waving the $100 bill. Her voice faltered. The coat sleeve fell back as she raised her hand and her right arm sparkled with the same blue glimmering in the chandelier, the rose, the frame and the water. She pulled back the other sleeve and saw that her left arm, too, shimmered. Sannie looked at the pale faces around her and heard snatches: “Her face”…”those eyes”….”even her hair.”
 
She peeked at the mirror again but saw nothing unusual in her reflection. Just the same little girl with flyaway hair and a coat three sizes too big for her. As flat and grey as everyone else around her.
 
She held her hand in front of her face, looking directly at it and not at her reflection - sure enough, shimmering like a Caribbean Sea.
 
An elderly man leaning on a cane, broke through the crowd and tottered to Sannie. He was smiling so warmly, that she couldn’t help but smile back.

“My dear, dear child,” the man said. “I am the owner of this hotel. This truly is a most extraordinary day.”
 
“Why am I blue?” Sannie asked.
 
“My dear, this building holds a deep magic that people come from all over the world to see. It selects only the most beautiful and precious things to imbue with its divine blue. Never –“ He turned to the crowd. “Never has this hotel found a human being worthy. Until today.”
 
The crowd murmured. He turned back to Sannie, face solemn.
 
“Child, what’s your name?”
 
“Sannie Johnson.”
 
“An extraordinary name for an extraordinary child. This is truly an extraordinary day,” he repeated. He tilted his head upward, looking toward the chandelier, and spoke to no one Sannie could see.
 
“What do we do? She is but a child.”
 
A cloud of blue shimmer dropped from the chandelier and floated to the front desk.
 
The old man turned to Sannie.
 
“Come, there is something we must look at together.”
 
Sannie followed him to the front desk. He huffed as he reached below and struggled to lift the sapphire book, fiery blue against the lobby’s grey tones. Sannie stood on tiptoe to help steady the book which looked very nearly about to crash to the floor. With a final grunt, the elderly man heaved it onto the desk. Sannie climbed onto a stool he indicated with his cane and bent over pages that smelled of ocean breezes.
 
The hotelier muttered to himself as he turned pages. Finally, he stopped, and turned to
 
Sannie.
 
“Now, read that for yourself child.”
 
Sannie looked at the mass of lines and felt a rush of heat in her face.

“I can’t read,” she whispered.
 
“No matter,” the man said. “All in good time, all in good time, child. Listen carefully.” And he read:
 
“Article 72, Section III: The Sapphire Hotel possesses the right to judge all visitors who enter the lobby. The Sapphire Hotel has the sole authority to deem them extraordinary or ordinary. Those who qualify as extraordinary will be invited to enter the hotel’s training program which, upon completion, will secure them a lifetime position as a Sapphire agent among the 22 hotel realms (see Article 6, Section V). Those deemed ordinary will be required to pay their bill and exit the premises.”
 
The elderly man sighed and turned his face upwards, addressing the empty air. “But she’s so young. She has a family.”
 
A puff of blue sparkles erupted from the book and the hotelier nodded.
 
“Very well.”
 
He removed his glasses and turned to Sannie.
 
“Do you understand?”
 
Sannie was poking her forearm with her finger, transfixed by the blue hues that swirled and glittered on her skin.
 
The man cleared his throat.
 
“Sannie Johnson!”
 
She looked up.
 
“The Sapphire Hotel has deemed you extraordinary. As such, the hotel is asking you to join the corps of Sapphire Agents and lead missions throughout its universe.”
 
“Ex...tror….din -what?” Sannie stumbled as she tried to sound out the word she did not understand.

“Extraordinary. That means you are a special child - the most special to ever walk through these doors. Mission leaders have been discovered at other hotels, but never this one, and never – NEVER,” he looked to the chandelier, speaking loudly, “– so young.”
 
Sannie kept poking her arm as the hotelier continued.
 
“Now, these missions that you will lead are missions for Good. You will become like fire and like light. You will lead teams in this world and others to bring Light to Darkness, Good to Evil, and Hope to Despair.”
 
Sannie looked up at him.
 
“Will I fly?”
 
The man smiled.
 
“Why yes, you will. However, Sannie Johnson, you have to understand that once you come with us, you cannot return to this.”
 
He waved his arm around the room.
 
“This room?”
 
“No. No, child. This life. Your friends, your family. That is the sacrifice required of the Sapphire Hotel – a commitment to your missions, to move ever forward, no turning back. Forever.”
 
“Forever,” Sannie repeated. “Forever” was a word she understood.
 
“Forever” was the word her sister used when their father left. “Forever” was the word her mother sobbed the last time they were kicked out of a shelter. “Forever” was what the social worker said when Sannie threw the “Learn to Read” book at her. “Forever” meant always and never.
 
She jumped off the stool.
 
“Be right right back!” she shouted as she ran through the lobby and out the hotel’s entrance, blue sparkles streaking behind her.

 
She paused for a moment, blinking against the glare. After the greys of the hotel's interior, the colors of the city street hurt her eyes. She looked at her hands, and her shoulders sank as she saw the ordinary, everyday skin she had lived in for six years.
 
Sannie sprinted to the doorway of the abandoned theater next door, where her mother lay huddled under a grey blank.
 
“Mama!” She shook her shoulder. “Mama!”
 
Her mother forced open one bloodshot eye. “Eh?”
 
“Mama! I’m going on a trip!” Yet, even as she said it, Sannie felt a strange sensation in her stomach, as though it had turned upside down and then dropped through the ground. She felt tears in her eyes and threw her arms around her mother. Right then, she changed her mind. The magic blue and the elderly man felt strange and unfamiliar - far away. Too far away, like a dream.
 
Her mother squirmed and pushed her. “Go away, girl,” she mumbled, turning to face the building and pulling the blanket up tighter around her shoulders.
 
Sannie sat back on her heels, stared at the mound in front of her and stuck her thumb in her mouth.
 
She heard a noise behind her and turned to see the hotelier leaning on his cane, a cloud of the hotel’s blue sparkles shimmering and swirling around him.
 
“You will stay, then, Sannie Johnson?” he asked.
 
She removed her thumb and looked up at him. The funny feeling had left her stomach.
 
She looked directly into his eyes, shimmering with the sapphire blue.
 
“No. I want to go.”
 
He extended his hand and she grabbed it. In an instant, they were gone, leaving behind a wisp of blue that sparkled in the sun.

 Return
​
by K. A. Williams

based on characters created by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor


Introduction - In the "Red Dwarf" TV series, at the beginning of Season 6, the crew had been in suspended animation for two hundred years after their mothership Red Dwarf was stolen while they were exploring in Starbug. Chronologically, this story is set after the last episode of Season 6.

***

Rimmer had saved the day by destroying the time machine but since the timeline was altered no one remembered,
which was a shame because it was the only truly heroic thing he had ever done.
Rimmer, Lister, Kryten and the Cat were still aboard Starbug and still searching for Red Dwarf when the Cat's hands tightened on the controls.
"What is it, Cat?" Lister asked.
"My nostril hairs are tingling like bungee jumpers."
"I've got nothing on the scanners." Rimmer was now in his soft-light form because of the power drain on Starbug.
"Switching to long range scanners," said Kryten.
"It's big! Something big!" The Cat was excited.
"Could it be Red Dwarf?" Lister hardly dared to hope again, after so long.
"I'm getting a picture now." Kryten looked at the image forming on the screen. 
The Red Dwarf's computer appeared. "What took you so long?"

"Holly! Where you been?" Lister asked.
"Red Dwarf was hijacked. I tried to shut them out of the Drive Room but they cracked the door code." 
"Who stole the ship?" Rimmer wanted to know.
"You're not going to believe it."
"What I don't believe is how you let them do it.
There are supposed to be safeguards preventing unauthorized ships
from entering the landing bay," Rimmer said.
"Well, that's just it. There was no unauthorized entry. They were already here."
Holly switched the picture to the Drive Room where several strange beings sat around the console.
"What on Io are they?" Rimmer snapped his fingers in excitement. "Aliens!"
"No," Holly corrected. "Fleas."
"Come again." Rimmer frowned. "I thought you said fleas."
"I did. These fleas bred and evolved from the fleas which were on Lister's cat Frankenstein.
They lived on the bottom levels for three million years until a plague deleted their population.
Those they didn't die evolved into the higher life forms you see here."
"Higher life forms?!" exclaimed the Cat. "With those clothes?"
Holly continued. "Two hundred years ago after the plague, the survivors found their way up here and took over this ship while you were away on Starbug. Their descendants contracted a mutant virus last year and mostly all that's left now is the female population.
Red Dwarf is currently stationary and awaiting your return."
Starbug homed in on Red Dwarf's location, landed safely, and the crew disembarked.
"A representative of their people is supposed to meet us here," Kryten explained.
The squat humanoid hopped into the landing bay and said something that sounded like a combination of a cough and a sneeze together.
Kryten translated. "Come with us. We have prepared food for you." 
They followed the flea to the canteen where a dozen of the strange creatures stood around a table covered with plates of various food.
Holly appeared on the monitor when the Red Dwarf crew entered.
Rimmer assumed his most authoritative manner.
"Ask them if they know the penalty for stealing a Jupiter Mining Corporation ship.
Let's throw them all off into space."
"Rimmer, you're such a smeghead," Lister said.
"Sirs," Kryten interrupted. "The least you can do is enjoy the feast they've prepared."
"Do you think the food is safe?" the Cat asked.
Lister thought about it. "What would they gain from poisoning us?"
"Our clothes, for one thing. Look at what they're wearing. Everything is gray."
One of the creatures circled around Rimmer and cooed to another. "Kryten, what are they saying?"
"It seems she'd like to mate with you, Mr. Rimmer, sir."
"I'm glad to be a hologram, at the moment." The creature's hand passed through Rimmer and she looked startled.
Rimmer smiled and pointed at the Cat and Lister. "Try them. I'm sure they would love to help you repopulate."
Lister and the Cat backed slowly away from the fleas. Rimmer laughed, then turned to Kryten. "We can just set them off on the first planet we come to." 
"But sir, they seem to be perfectly harmless."
"They're unauthorized personnel, Kryten. Must I remind you of Space Corps directive 326."
"I didn't think you wanted to marry the Chief's daughter and be sacrificed in a volcano."
"I meant 325."
"But this isn't a luau and you're not wearing a grass skirt."
"Forget it," Rimmer said. He knew what he was talking about, but could never keep those numbers straight. 
The Cat and Lister still hung back from the table because of the female fleas. Rimmer beckoned.
"Come on, Listy. I'm sure your offspring couldn't look any worse than you do." 
"Shut up, Rimmer." Lister turned to the Cat. "I don't see any chicken vindaloo, do you?"
The Cat walked up to the table and sampled some food. "C'mon buddy, this is good."
He cringed when one of the female fleas patted him, then grabbed some food and ran from the room.
Lister took another look at the food. "I'm going to a vending machine and get a vindaloo." He headed toward the door.
"What should we do sir?" Kryten called after Lister.
"Maybe Rimmer's right this time. Let's find them a planet they can live on and leave them."

"So, you're finally admitting that I am the best man to be in charge. That I am a born leader, right up there with Napoleon and Caesar." 
"No, I just don't fancy making love to a flea."
Rimmer ignored Lister's last comment. "Holly, take Red Dwarf to the nearest planet that can sustain life.
Kryten, tell them that we have found them a new world. A world filled with prospective mates."
"Yes, Arnold," Holly said.
"But sir!" Kryten protested.
"Say another word, Kryten, and I'll set you off with them."
Then Rimmer told Holly about his hard-light drive and proceeded to the hologrammatic projection chamber while the flea population busily packed up its belongings. When Red Dwarf reached the destination, Kryten shuttled the fleas to the planet via Starbug.
Rimmer, now in his hard-light form, went along to supervise.
On the last trip, one of the female fleas asked a question.
"She wants to know if we are landing near the male population," Kryten translated.
Rimmer smiled. "Tell her to be patient and the males will come to them."
Kryten told Rimmer's lie to the creature.
When the last flea had departed from Starbug, Kryten asked, "Doesn't it bother you that they will wait and no one will come?"
"Nope." Rimmer gloated. "Serves them right for stealing the ship. Take us back, Kryten." He gazed fondly at Red Dwarf through the view screen.
"Home sweet home." 

The End

Previously published in Badlands in 1997.

Painting above: Willem Johannes Martens - Angel's Kiss


"AND MY MAMA CRIED..."
By Marcella S. Meeks


It was the end of the school year of 1962. Summer had just arrived and school was out. We lived in a small East Texas town way out in the boondocks. The nearest neighbor was seven or eight miles away.
Daddy worked at the post mill in town. He was known as the town drunk and he never came home till late in the evenings because he'd stop off at one of the bars with his buddies, if he came home at all. He wasn't a kind man in at all, but mama never complained. She always said, "Your Daddy is a hard worker, Clara May.".
She, on the other hand, was a quiet woman and stayed home to look after me, and my older brother Eddie Wayne and the seven-year-old twins Emmet and Alice Jane. Mama had her hands full taking care of the house and I had to tend
to the kids everyday when we weren't in school. She ironed clothes for several rich ladies from town to make extra money to make ends meet.
"Clara! Clara!" mama hollered out the back door one evening. "Bring the kids and y'all come eat supper. Hurry now, your daddy will be here soon."
What mama meant was 'hurry up, feed the kids, bathe them and get them out of the way before he comes in.' My daddy, well, he was a strange man. He hated us for some reason. When he was around, mama was a totally different person. Why did they have us kids anyway if they didn't really want us?
I gathered up the kids and we scrambled inside before mama started yellin' again. If I didn't, she'd come out the door with daddy's leather belt and whip me for not mindin'. Mama didn't tolerate sassy kids.
After we all had our baths and ate supper we had to hurry off to bed. Why couldn't we stay up late once in awhile? It didn't matter anyway. When Daddy came home we couldn't play or speak or anything or we'd get a beltin'.
One evening, I helped mama bathe the twins. Eddie Wayne was getting dressed. "Hurry up, Clara. You know daddy likes peace and quiet when he comes in," she said.
"Okay," I said. "Mama, why does Daddy hate us so much? Do you hate us, too?" She popped the twin on his backside and said, "Now run along to bed, Emmet."
She pushed back her hair, wiping the sweat off her brow and before I knew it, she slapped me as hard as she could up side my face. "Now don't you go talking
like that Clara May Dickerson. You're only fifteen. Be a good girl now and go to bed."
That night I cried, remembering the way mama hit me. I touched my cheek. Mama rarely ever spanked me or hit me hard but she'd make a fuss and threaten to whip me. But tonight was different. I knew she was upset over my words.
It was too hot to sleep, and as I lay there, I heard mama and daddy arguing in their room down the hall. I heard daddy hitting mama and I could hear her crying for a long time. Daddy was mean to her and she'd have bruises on her face and arms occasionally. Once she had a black eye but she'd never to talk to me about it. Mama tried to hard the bruises but I saw them. I knew my entire life that Daddy Dickerson was mean and hateful. I heard him hitting mama yet she'd never talked to me or tell me why.
One Friday evening daddy came in from work early and told mama to pack our clothes. He apparently had been drinking pretty heavy. He was taking us on a little vacation or so he said. Mama packed as many clothes as she could in several old suit cases she had brought down from the attic. "Clara May and Eddie Wayne, put these suit cases on the back of yur daddy's truck," she said. I saw her wiping tears out of her eyes as she turned to packing boxes of food.
"Mama, are you coming with us?" I asked.
"No, Clara May. I have tons of ironing. Your daddy knows what's best. Go along and look after the twins. Listen to your daddy now." She went back to filling the boxes so I knew the conversation was over. We climbed in the back of the truck and mama stood waving at us from the
porch. "Clara May, watch them twins." And that was the last time I saw mama for many years.
We rode for several hours. When we finally reached Shreveport, Louisiana, it was amazing to see tall buildings and people walking up and down the street. Being from the country you didn't get to see the city very often. A couple hours later, daddy turned off a country road and later onto an old dirt road. There was an old house at the end of the lane and we pulled up in front of it.
"Eddie Wayne, you and yur sister get that stuff unloaded," Daddy yelled at us.
"Who lives here?" asked Emmet.
"This was my granddaddy's old home place. No one has lived here for years. Clara May, you and the kids gonna be stayin' here for the summer. I reckon you better get to unpacking. There's some mattresses in the living room - that's all y'all gonna need to sleep on." Daddy took a drink of whiskey. "Clara May, you take care of them kids while y'all stay here. There is plenty of wood left in the wood shed to build a fire in the cook stove. And there's a well on the side of the house. I'm gonna leave you kids here now, and you better not go wandering off. Stay away from the farm house across the field. The neighbors don't have time for you yungins. I will be back on Friday to bring y'all another box of food. Enjoy your summer vacation."
I stood looking at him, afraid to say anything. The old house was run down, the porch was falling in and the screen door was hanging on one hinge.
"Daddy, are you leaving us?" Eddie Wayne asked.
"Yur mama needs a break from y'all kids," he muttered sluggishly.
"Daddy, you can't leave us here!" I wailed at him.
"Don't you go gettin' all sassy with me, Clara May or you'll get a beltin' before I leave."
He jumped in the truck, cranked it up, and just like that, he was driving down the dirt road and away, leaving me and my sister and brothers all alone. "Some vacation this turned out to be!" I screamed to the trail of dust. "I hate you, Daddy! I hate you!"
Eddie Wayne and I carried our suit cases inside the old house. There wasn't any furniture except a few broken pieces in the living room floor and a wood burning cook stove in the little kitchen off to the back of the house. Every other room was empty. The wood floors were dusty and cobwebs hung from the ceilings, evidence that no one had lived in this house in a long time.
"What we gonna do, Clara?" Eddie Wayne asked.
"We'll figure out something," I said, trying not to scare my little brother any more than he already was. "First, we'll clean up some."
The twins came running in the front door. "Look, Bubba. Look, Sissy. Look who lives here!" they exclaimed excitedly, carrying a big orange fluffy cat. "It's a kitty-cat," Alice Jane said, holding the cat out for everyone to see.
"Look twins, we don't need no ole' cat hangin' 'round," said Eddie Wayne. "If Daddy Dickerson comes back, you know he's gonna do nothing but kill the darn thang."
"We can hide it when he comes," said Alice Jane. "Please, Bubba, Sissy. Can we keep it?"
"He said he want be back 'fore Friday so I s'pose it wouldn't hurt to keep the cat," Eddie said, looking at me.
We hadn't eat since breakfast so I searched through the box of food and found a can of mackerel and crackers. "Eddie Wayne, go look in the kitchen and find something to open this can of fish with. A can opener or knife." I went around to the side of the house and found the well. I lowered the bucket and brought out fresh drinking water. "I can't believe mama let him bring us here and leave us like this," I muttered, wiping away angry tears. "This ain't no vacation at all! They dumped us is all!"
We had fish and crackers and drank the fresh water out of the dipper. Emmet
fed the cat scraps of canned fish. "Look Sissy, the cat likes the fish," Alice Jane said. "Can we name him Mr. Fisher?"
Later in the week, Mr. Fisher had four little baby kittens during the night on the bed we had made for him. The twins were excited and decided that Mr. Fisher was now Mrs. Fisher.
At night, the old house was dark and creepy. We were afraid at night being in the old house all alone, and it was dark and creepy with no electricity. I hugged the twins as close to me as I could and Eddie slept on the outside of the bed. I knew he was as afraid as we all were but he was eleven and wanted to act brave. He had found a big stick out back and brought it in and put it beside our bed.
Friday morning, I got up before the other kids and made a fire in the wood stove. I made powdered milk to drink and made a pot of oatmeal for us to eat. There wasn't much sugar but we eat what we had.
We weren't expecting daddy to come so early in the morning but I was out back getting wood for the stove when he pulled up. I heard the commotion inside and ran in the back door. The first thing he did when he walked in was see Mrs. Fisher and her kittens. He slung all four of her babies against the wall and hit her across her back with an old stick, as hard as he could. Screeching, and frightened she ran out the door and off into the woods. Her babies were dead. Emmet and Alice Jane was holding the dead kittens with tears in their eyes.
"Daddy, stop!' I screamed at him.
Eddie Wane looked at me and didn't say a word.
"Where'd you get that cat, Clara May? Answer me," he hollered in a drunken voice.
"It showed up, Daddy. We don't know where it came from," I said, hugging Alice Jane to me.
"Eddie Wayne, go get them boxes of food your mama sent. It's a good thing I brought y'all here. Your mama is expecting another baby soon and she can't handle taking care of y'all four yungins any more. That cat better be long gone when I come back next Friday or it will be a dead cat!"
Eddie unloaded the three boxes of food and daddy stumbled to the truck and drove off down the road leaving a trail of dust behind him a mile long.
Mrs. Fisher eventually came back that morning only to find that all her little babies were dead. Eddie and I dug four little graves out back and we had a little funeral for them. Emmet and Alice Jane cried off and on all that day. "I hate Daddy," Emmet cried.
One day before the summer ended, we were sitting out on the front porch when we saw several vehicles driving up. A sheriff's car pulled up almost to the front step. "Hi kids. Where's your mama and papa?" he asked.
"They don't live here," I said. "They live in Gilmer... you know, Gilmer, Texas," I answered as bravely as I could.
"Well then, I reckon you kids need to come with us beings there no grown ups living here with you."
"What about our cat, Mrs. Fisher?" Alice Jane asked.
"We'll send someone after her when we pick up your things," the sheriff said. "Don't worry sweet heart, we'll bring her to you as soon as we can." That was the last time we ever saw Mrs. Fisher. We never got our belongings from the old house either.
That was also the day we went to live with Mrs. Johnson, a real nice lady from foster care. She took good care of us and eventually adopted us. She helped us all with our schoolin' and I helped her with the twins, just like I did for mama.
Several years later, mama sent me a letter saying that daddy had died of a stroke that fall and she never wrote to me again. She never mentioned if she had another child or not and I really didn't care.


Many years have passed since then, and me, my brothers and sister grew up and went separate ways. Mrs. Johnson who we called Mama stayed in contact with us long after we each were married and she'd send cards and letters every chance she got. My brothers and sister and I kept in touch and they come to visit once or twice a year.
One evening Eddie Wayne called. "Hey, Clara, how you doing? Just called to tell you that Mama Dickerson is in the hospital and they said she was asking for you. She's in the hospital over in Shreveport. Just wanted to let you know she's asking for you."
Later that evening, I told my husband Peter about Mama Dickerson and he said, "You need to go see her, Clara. You need to forgive her and give it closure. It's time to forgive and forget."
After what seemed like hours, I decided to go see mama. Peter and I got off the elevator on the 3rd floor and went to the nurse's station. "We're looking for Erma Dickerson," I told the receptionist.
"Room 306 - down the hall on the right."
We walked slowly and I could hear Mama Dickerson calling my name. "Clara!" Clara!"
Our eyes met. Though she hadn't seen me in many years she knew who I was. "I am sorry, Clara May. Will you please forgive me for all the pain and suffering I put you through?"
Standing there with tears in my eyes, I looked at my husband and said, "This isn't my mama. This is the woman who abandoned us like we were nothing." And
I walked out of that room and never looked back just she did to us many years ago. Several days later, Eddie Wayne called and said Mama Dickerson died.


Even now, I can still hear the haunting of her voice calling my name. "Clara! Clara!"

Fortissimo

By Don Noel

Loud music filled the theater. Stentorian music, reverberating, with no bodies, suits or coats in the audience to absorb any of the sound. Standing in the back, waiting his turn to rehearse, Jonathan was afraid that his oboe would be swallowed up by a permanent maelstrom of sound: It seemed suddenly as puny as a tin whistle.
The orchestra’s sound — harmonic, gorgeous, but overwhelming — did more than fill the hall. It filled his head, driving out Richard Strauss.
Make it stop! Which was silly, he knew. If you were a 15-year-old woodwind prodigy invited to play with the state symphony orchestra, it was hard to imagine the din’s ceasing just for little old you.
There was a brief lull, and then the brass and timpani came thundering in, along with all three soloists and the full chorus: HALLELUJAH UNTO GOD’S ALMIGHTY SON— but in German, of course.
It was deafeningly Beethoven. The oratorio, “Christ on the Mount of Olives”, was one that Jonathan might never have known if he hadn’t been programmed to appear as a kind of warm-up act.
He scowled, furrowing his brow as he tried to hear in his head the Strauss oboe concerto he would soon be rehearsing with this orchestra.
His mind refused to summon up even the opening cadenza.
A humiliating lapse. He glanced at the glass door he’d just come through, wondering if Gretchen would arrive to witness his failure. There he was, mirrored in the door, a tall skinny kid with buzz-cut blond hair, horn rimmed glasses and a prominent Adam’s apple. She, on the other hand, was as pretty and well-built as one would expect of the school’s most popular cheerleader. He wondered what she saw in him.
Never mind that: He had to get the reverberating Gospels—DEM ERHAB’NEN GOTTESSOHN, the chorus was fairly shouting— out of his head. He tried to summon Strauss. Nothing came.
He should have brought the sheet music; foolish pride to think he had flawlessly and unforgettably memorized a 25-minute piece.
It wouldn’t be exactly silent out in the hallway, but he pushed the door and stepped out. Beethoven diminished ever so slightly as it swung shut. He opened the case to take out his gossamer instrument, slender black with silver keys. He tongued the reeds to moisten them, and played a scale in D-major, the key in which the concerto opened.
All right! The bright, scintillating notes of the oboe floated in the empty hallway, a delicate tessitura over the muffled oratorio.
He paused, waiting for Richard Strauss to come back.
It ought to be easy. Each movement had a pretty, almost filmy melody, with little of the dissonance of some Strauss works. In learning the piece, he had listened to a recording: The oboe was echoed by two flutes and two clarinets. He remembered imagining overripe dandelions being blown, the fluff exploding into bright sunshine, with a darker echo in bassoons and cellos and a low-voiced woodwind, a rarely-used cor anglais, whose notes seemed like the heavier dandelion seeds falling to the ground.
Beautiful — ethereal — which was why he had loved memorizing the work.
But he still couldn’t hear the tune; brawny Beethoven was blocking the way to his brain. The gauzy chiffon of Strauss’ melodies wasn’t coming through.
He felt cold sweat in his armpits. Great: Can’t remember the music, and, to boot, smell like a gym class locker room. He walked purposefully down the hall, the orchestral tumult diminishing behind him, and paused just inside the outer door, bringing his oboe to his lips again, trying to remember the opening notes.
And then, suddenly, here came Gretchen, escorting Mom and Dad. “Oh, Jonathan, you haven’t played your piece yet, I hope!” Mom gave him a hug, and Dad gave him a manly thump on the back.
“No, not yet. I was just going to practice a bit, and my mind has gone blank.”
“What do you mean, gone blank?” Mom asked.
“Can’t remember the score.”
“You see?” Gretchen said. “I told you we should bring the music, just in case!” She reached into the Go Central High canvas bag slung over one shoulder.
“You have it?”
She started to hand it to him, then instead opened up the first pages and held them up across her chest, hands at her shoulders.
“At last!” He brought the oboe to his lips again, peering at the music, and began. He hadn’t played two bars when it all came back; he closed his eyes and played on.
Played so intently, in fact, the notes tumbling into the air, that he didn’t notice when the now-distant Beethoven came to an end.
“That other music has stopped, son.” Dad’s voice broke into his consciousness. “Does that mean they’re ready for you?”
“Oh, dear Jonathan!” Gretchen said. “You didn’t really need the music. You’re a musical genius!” And right there, in front of Mom and Dad, she leaned over and planted a moist kiss right on his cheek.
It was almost enough to drive Richard Strauss right out of his head again. Feeling himself warm, he closed his eyes and made the notes appear again.
“Come on,” he said. “I feel a concerto coming on.”
Dad was reaching into his pocket. “Let me give you a Kleenex, son. You don’t want them to think you’re blushing.”

DANCING WITH GHOSTS

By

Bill Vernon


The first 90 minutes of dancing, Frank Hendricks didn't mind the evening's visitor.
She arrived late, just as the first song began playing, and was motioned into the line of dancers so there was none of the usually awkward chit-chat with her. Even better, that first dance showed that she was well versed in the art. Therefore, the program would not have to omit or simplify good dances so that she could participate.
Except for the way she was dressed, she fit in.
Frank relaxed and tried to lose himself in the dancing.
He did that pretty well, his mood shifting with the music from different cultures and ages. That is until Dolores Jones who was playing the music announced on the loudspeaker, "'Royal Empress Tango' is next so grab a partner." That's when this woman said loudly, as if her feelings were everyone's business, "Oh, I love to tango!" She looked around at the club members on the floor, caught Frank's eye and said, "Shall we? Want to do it with me?"
Frank jabbed his chest with a thumb. "Me?"
She smiled, marched over to him, extended her right hand, and said, making it rhyme, "Hello, I'm Marcia SUE, and yes I asked YOU."
True, women boldly asking men to dance, to date, or do whatever was not unusual in the world today, and that reality he accepted, but a stranger like this one, singling him out like that, had never happened before in his life. Her looks made him suspicious. He'd never ever met a woman as attractive as she was.
He shook her hand by habit and croaked, "I'm Frank."
When she dropped his hand—hers had been hot and moist—she kept her eyes glued to his and said, "Don't worry. Folk dancing's new to me, but I do a mean tango."
Frank was briefly incapable of understanding. "A mean tango?"
She laughed. "I mean I'll be able to follow your lead. You do know the dance, don't you?"
"Sure. It's not a hard dance." Knowing dances was a matter of pride to Frank.
"Good," she said. "That makes it easier for both of us."
His attention slid off her eyes. Up close like this, a few inches higher than her eyes, his naturally focused down onto the ample swelling at her cleavage.
"Let's get into position," she said, her right hand rising again, demanding attention.
He took it in his left and cautiously let his right touch her waist in back just above her hip.
She said, "Shouldn't we be closer together?" and stepped forward so they bumped.
He pulled away awkwardly, saw her eyebrows twitch in surprise, and said, "Oh, sorry. This dance is done in a circle and starts with the man facing counterclockwise and the lady facing clockwise so I was just trying to swing us around into proper position."
"Just tell me what you want, Frank, and I'll do it."


*****

Because it wouldn't last long, Frank could live with being up against her though no other couples would be dancing so close together. The closed ballroom position would quickly transition into open ballroom position and remain there until the dance ended. He spoke down toward her right ear just below his mouth and ignored the sweet aroma of perfume rising from it. “Let's practice the start. I'll step forward on my left foot so you start back on your right. Then your left back. Now come forward right-left. Then going backwards, zig-zag to your right, then left, stepping right-together-right, left-together-left and face center. Now go into the circle right, left, quick-quick-slow, turn, face back and do opposite footwork back to the line of dance.”
Without the music she did the whole start perfectly. "Very good, Marcia. You got it. That's about a third of the dance."
She leaned forward with a tiny hug. "You're a good teacher, Frank."
Her touch almost made him miss the beginning as the music's intro began. "Oops, here we go. Ready and—step, step, come back, back."
The music was dramatic and slow enough to call each movement before doing it, and she was so smart, she understood what he said as well as the guidance he exerted on their joined hands and on her waist, his little pushes and pulls. She was also good at matching the slightest turn of his body and steps. At the end, coming back into the start's closed ballroom position, he said, "That's the whole dance. Now we repeat it three more times."
She leaned so close he felt her warm breath on his neck. "That was fun, Frank."
He grinned and said, "If you know all the steps, we can work on finesse."
And they did. To be precise, though he started the stiffening at the end of each phrase, she took charge after that particularly at turns, and he mimicked her. Thus they both abruptly paused, stretched the moment assuming straight backs, hands, arms, neck, legs, feet and head, turning, then moving on. Frank had never done that so dramatically, never so stylized. Posing was the word for it. They resembled models posing for an artist to snap a picture or paint their embrace. Frank sensed other members of the club watching them, yet he didn't feel self-conscious because Marcia did it so well. Her behavior let him, a mediocre dancer, create what he thought of as a sophisticated, sensual look he'd never had before. He almost felt as pretty as she was.
In the silence following the last amplified note of the song, she said, “Thank you.”
And Frank bowed, a habit he'd picked up from the 17th and 18th century English country dances they sometimes did. “Thank YOU! You are a very good dancer.”
She smiled. “Frank, when I’m good I’m not bad. But when I’m bad I’m very good.”
“Really!?” He regretted this response immediately.
“It's a line from Mae West. I saw her in a movie last night on cable.”
Frank thought he'd sounded like a stuffy old fart whose brain had atrophied.


*****


From a distance the rest of the evening, Frank admired how she stood out among the others, adding color and movement to a gray background. If she returned to future dance sessions, the other women would advise her how to dress. None of them wore tight clingy things with cleavage like she had on. Some of them even refused to do the "Royal Empress Tango" because it was too suggestive. Frank liked the group. The members had standards of behavior. They had become his friends by joking around, dancing together, touching hands, shoulders, or waists as dances required, but intrusions into the privacy of others seldom happened. They grew to know each other from passing remarks that accumulated gradually, over time. He thought she'd make an ideal member once she learned the ropes.
Frank was sweeping the dance floor when, buttoning a black leather, fur-fringed coat, she said, “Excuse me,” passing him.
He said, “Come back and dance with us again, Marcia.”
“Thanks, Frank,” she said.
Cold air swirled inside past her through the front door as she went out.
A few minutes later, she came rushing back inside shivering. “My car won’t start!”
She seemed about to sob.
“Is it the battery. The forecast calls for below zero tonight.”
Tears were glistening in her eyes.
“It’s not a disaster,” Frank said. “You’ll be all right.”
She shook her head. “My life is jinxed. I get one hassle after another!”
He couldn't just abandon her. As a gentleman, he'd help the little lady. “Let me turn off the lights and close up. Then I’ll check your car. Okay?”
Only their two cars remained in the lifeless parking lot, where plowed-up snow hid the curbs. Turning the key in her ignition stimulated nothing. Frank said, “It’s dead all right.”
She sighed. “If it won't get towed, I'll leave it here overnight, then get it fixed tomorrow."
"It'd be all right here," he said.
She dug in her purse. "I'll phone for a taxi.”
“Let’s get into my car first where there’s heat. You can wait for the cab there. Come on.”
Maybe the sweetness of her perfume filling his car inspired him. Maybe a simple desire to help. He'd have to wait there with her for a cab anyway. When she mentioned where she lived to the cab company, he offered her a ride home.
"Just a minute," she said to her cell. "Oh, Frank, I can't let you go to all that trouble."
He said. "I know Buckhorn Street. It's not very far away. It won't take long."
"Isn't someone expecting you now?"
"Oh, no. I'm alone. I lost my wife eight years ago."
"Well I'm sorry to hear that, Frank. I hope she didn't suffer." And she cancelled her taxi.
Frank shifted out of park. "No, Karen didn't suffer, and by now I'm used to her absence."
All the way to Marcia's address, he controlled the old impulse to complain about Karen, about how she'd divorced him and run off with a man he'd known and trusted his entire life. His shrink had helped him stop those excursions into denial, guilt, hatred, and anger. Part of the helpful therapy was joining the folk dancing group. "Mixing with other people is a breakthrough," Jason had said when he did it.
Frank did mention to Marcia Sue that losing Karen had happened when he'd retired from his accounting work. "Two big hurdles to get over at the same time," he said. "Two big adjustments, but that's water under the bridge by now."
He didn't ask about her family life, but she said, "I understand. I'm all alone myself now."


*****
​
​
As Frank parked in the slot assigned to her apartment, Marcia said, “Come in. I'll make you some hot cocoa. It'll warm us up and let me thank you." She touched his forearm." Please.”
The dashboard clock said 11:17. Well, he was in no hurry and he was curious about her accommodations. This new horseshoe-shaped complex had replaced Holy Angels church and school, which he'd attended. He'd not recognized the address when Marcia mentioned it on the phone. He'd not known that the church and school were now not only defunct but also gone.
He washed up in her bathroom while she heated their drinks. He sat where she directed, on the end of a couch near a fireplace where gas flames licked three fake logs.
“Cheers,” she said, clinking her cup against the mug she handed him.
Frank only wet his lips with the cocoa—if he drank it, the caffeine would keep him awake all night. But he also said, "Ah, tastes good."
Continuing to stand, she said, "Great. I feel so comfortable in here out of the cold. Thanks again for bringing me home. I hope it's actually not too far out of your way.”
“No problem. It was my pleasure," he said and pretended to sip more cocoa.
She left the room and several minutes later he heard soft music. It was a nice, slow orchestral waltz that he couldn't name, and it seemed to emanate from the walls. Frank looked around for speakers and noticed on a coffee table a black tube as wide as a handful and about six inches long. He went over to the table, bent toward the tube, and heard music streaming from it.
"Bluetooth," Marcia said behind him.
Whatever that referred to.
He turned to face her. She was in a doorway, and light behind her silhouetted the outline of her body through the filmy, knee-length white negligee she now wore.
"There's another speaker in my bedroom." She shifted sideways and pointing at another dark tube standing upright on a chest of drawers. "Want to come in here and look it over?"
Her voice droned on, but he couldn't understand the words. He did understand what she was implying. She was offering herself to him. But she herself in the flesh was an apparition. The light behind her made her glow. It spread around her like an aura. He could see everything, and she was so beautiful, his respiration and heart raced as they hadn't in years.
No argument surged through his mind, no awareness of desires, urges, moral precepts or imperatives, judgments, feelings, memories, nothing contradictory complicated his thoughts. There was only appreciation.
Still framed in the doorway, she said, "Are you all right?"
He nodded. "Sure." But he was staring, almost adoring her.
She left the doorway and floated toward him. Her diaphanous wrap billowed at her sides. She stopped short and reached for him with her right hand. "C'mon," she said, curling her fingers, nodding toward the room she'd been in. Her fingertips touched his left hand.
Frank took her hand in both of his, but did nothing but stare.
Marcia pulled his hand toward the couch. "Maybe we better sit here for a minute. On the couch. Okay?" When he didn't move, she said, "Relax, Frank. Breathe in and out. Sit with me, please. Don't be sick, please."
Her tone prompted him. “I'm, okay, Marcia. Don't worry."
They sat, turning toward each other so their knees touched. Close like this, Frank saw her eyes. Beautiful blue. Wrinkles he hadn't noticed until now gathered at her eyes.
Marcia said, "You don't have to do anything. You've been so good to me this evening I just meant to...."
“Marcia Sue, I'm so glad you let me bring you home. I'm so glad to experience your goodness. The way you're willing to try to make me happy. Of course I'm way too old for you, but that doesn't detract from your kindness."
She shook her head. "I didn't want to shock you."
Frank smiled. "See how you're so concerned for me."
"I don't want you to have a breakdown."
She was upset. "Honey, my shrink would call this a breakthrough. Thank you so much."
"But Frank...."
He squeezed her hands. "I'll go in a minute but I want to be honest with you first. Meeting you was a happy affair, but coming here feels like it was meant to be."
He told her about going to church and grade school here and how he'd lost track and forgotten the place. He also said, "I've misled you. It'll just take a minute to explain." And he told her the truth about Karen, but there was no bitterness or anger, just a recitation of the facts.
To finish, he told her how her dancing had affected him. "What I noticed was that you brought us alive. We were ghosts dancing as if we were doing a tedious job. Your energy and enjoyment made us come alive."
She said, "You're a very good dancer, Frank. You taught me."
"You taught me more," he said, standing. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, found an old business card, gave it to her, and said, "Don't feel obligated, but there's my name,
number and address. I just want to say that I'd be happy to pick you up and take you to dancing next Thursday or any week you want to go. You were a godsend this evening, and I know our group would all be happy whenever you could make it."
"Oh, Frank, I don't know. This was just a one-night stand."
He laughed. "I know we're a bunch of old fogies. But if you change your mind and want a ride, you know where to get it." At the door, putting his coat on, he faced her. "You know dancing is an ancient way to be social and celebrate life. You're good at it. If you want to dance some more, call. Okay? Or just show up like you did today. About your car, I'd be happy to take you back to the pavilion tomorrow. I have nothing better to do. Honest."
Marcia said, "Thanks. I'll call if I need a ride," and draped herself from head to knees in the light blue blanket that had been on the couch. That was the image of her he carried downstairs and out to his car. It told the whole story. It completed the picture he'd had of her. She was made in the image and likeness of the life-size statue that used to stand by the altar in Holy Angels Church. The resemblance was too uncanny to be accidental.
Marcia, Mary. Marcia was Mary, but was she Mary the mother or the other Mary? He couldn't remember who the statue supposedly depicted. Then again, it really didn't matter.

On New York Time


by
​

Teresa Ann Frazee



The music was loud and aggressively differed from anything that came before. Unyielding vibrations assaulted and challenged my youthful auditory range. Amplifiers emitted a steady roar, as the base pounded in my chest, navigating to an unmapped place in a fictive anatomy, where a rebellious soul would reside. This boisterous rhythm was a stripped down incarnation of rock- and- roll, embodying a freedom that could not be tamed, while the energy of its anti-authoritarian echo resonated inside me.
With deliberate speed, we were directly responsible for the validation of defining the identity of a decade about to seize its rightful place in history. From within the inner circle, you could hear our prophetic call. With open arms and a do-or-die scream, we unleashed a thunderous cry loose upon the world, which only the bohemian born could relate. Together, with a certain comradery that belonged to us and only us, we sought a haven in the shadows of the outskirts of night. In a terrain inhabited by a new breed of denizens, we the pale renegades of our time, had found a direction in a corner of a disrupted Eden. Youth’s misplaced Adam and Eve beyond number, there in the era of fringe and leather, we were sheltered in the habitat of nameless forms. So at ease, running headlong into the lawless pace of the insistent drumbeat of my generation. What was born in me, could never be stilled. It was clear, I was where I was supposed to be. So were we all.
Being post Aquarian Age, after we finally laid the Sixties to rest, this was the Seventies in New York City, long after the "Battle of the Bands" was the best thing to happen to a Saturday night. A graffiti adorned door of passage awaited us. At the entrance, amid the spectrally lit darkness, we were greeted by a gaunt, spiky haired, androgynous figure, whose bare arms illuminated illustrations, that burrowed beneath his skin. Like a rag doll, striving mightily to remain upright, he leaned against an abraded old wall, which seemed to have been plastered by hand so many years ago and was now defaced with an illegible collage, of torn, overlapping posters of the latest bands. A cloud of smoke from his cigarette rose toward an indeterminate high-ceiling dominated by an enormous chandelier, the last remnant of a ballroom style, Polish dance hall. Without making eye contact, one-by-one, my peers and I offered our hand to him and in a fugitive moment snatched by starkness, we felt it get stamped with a smudged ink blotch, already starting to fade. This painless branding was a symbol, our dues had surely been paid.
Like a mirage in heat, I could barely see my friend Ann Marie sitting at the bar next to a “Dead Boy”, the bass player, in a punk band with irreverent notoriety. Ann Marie was a together, no-nonsense girl of slight stature, with a teased Shag hairstyle, the color of burnt sienna straight out of the tube. A dedicated leader of fashion, numerous chains hung around her neck. Her fingers long and slender usually held a pastel colored, Nat Sherman cigarette. During the time I had known her, which was since college, I never actually saw her take a drag. Always wardrobe ready, the cigarette was more of an accessory to her all black outfit, than a nasty habit. I worked my way through the cultural darkness, toward Ann Marie. I could hear the whoosh of hair whipping, devoted dancers, glide like urban phantoms, spinning fast in homeward flight. Uninhibited whirling dervishes, defying gravity, belittling nature’s law. I accidentally, brushed up against two Neo Keely Smith look alikes in rhythmic motion, who twisted their contoured postures in spontaneous choreography to the B-52's, “Dance This Mess Around.” As I approached Ann Marie, she was sipping a bottle of Heineken beer, angrily tapping the bar.
"So Ann Marie, what's happening with you? You’re uptight,” I said, just loud enough over the music.
"Oh hi,” Ann Marie muttered with feigned enthusiasm. Her thoughts were presently elsewhere. She shook her head and said, “I mean my mother, she rang me up yesterday. She's still hoping to marry me off; always in my face about it. I told her, geez, I’m only twenty one, besides, just so you know, I don't want any hand me down vows from the sweaty tongues of church and state. I ask you, does this sound like me? She wants me to be a good little girl, get hitched, move somewhere way out in the suburbs, have a white picket fence driven into a well-groomed lawn and settle down with 2.5 kids, you know, where the unconditionally content, call home.” Ann Marie heaved a slow sigh, “What she really wants is for me to trade living for existence. She’s determined to condition me like a dog at Pavlov’s dinner bell. But I’ve got news, I’ve collapsed her myths and rules. I never belonged in her pictured world. So pardon me if I do not fit neatly into the typical role of a perfect daughter and blend into the exiled landscape of the masses. I asked her, at what sacrifice or what cost should I be satisfied by the stagnancy of that illusion?”
" No you're right. Believe me, I know where you're coming from. Don't listen to her,” I said.
“Do I look like I do? I'll tell my mother and anybody else who wants to know, they're dreaming. I refuse to conform to that image,” Ann Marie snapped back, never moving her eyes from her drink.
A tall, lanky, dark haired bartender with a waxed paper complexion and beady black eyes, set far back in his head, appeared, like a black crow sweeping down to pick up his just desserts.
Looking directly at me, the bartender interrupted, " What can I do you for tonight?”
I placed my order of Scotch. After a few nods coordinated with hand gestures and bringing another round to Ann Marie, in one fluid motion, the fresh drinks were exchanged for two dollars from the pile in an age old ritual of trust.
Sitting cross-legged at the bar, drinking Scotch straight up, was quality time. Like an eternal flame, youth’s invincibility mastered my thoughts, which granted me the option of living forever. As the drink went down, it seemed to warmly coat every vital organ, reminiscent of a niacin rush from a B12 shot, depleted of any nutrients. I sat at the bar toying with the cocktail napkin in front of me, without noticing the night’s subtle slip into oblivion. Several glass ring impressions on the napkin held a genuine interest but soon, I turned my thoughts to the reflection of silhouettes in a Bacchic epiphany of decadence and in a glance, watched the fabric of time begin to disappear. The mirror’s view of the interior behind me was panoramic. There were glimpses of fishnet stockings and ringed wrists with nails tipped with silver polish. Translucent skinned young males, left their territorial markings of empty beer bottles and fast burning butts. Emaciated arms swung by, spruced-up in leather bomber jackets, coordinated with worn-out tight Levis, that covered strengthless limbs and buckled boots with the swagger of defiance that encouraged back alley struts. Brazen metal zippers flashed against the uncompromising textured blackness, where compulsions met. Honoring a sleep a day routine, we kept vampire hours, waking up when the sun went down. Not savage creatures thirsting for the blood of man, it is more of an insatiable thirst to feel the life force of youth coursing through our veins. I met my gaze in the mirror and in the style of my contemporaries, a thick fringe of hair brushed against my dusky eyelids with every blink. Even with this slight annoyance, I could see the drama of shadowy figures, like gypsy children of their own birth, fill my view. Gone was the muzzled dialogue of self- compromise spoon fed from the majority. Off the grid was where we lived. In these moments, we had created a fertile ground on which we had become the very culture we defined. It was the corruption of innocence, where nothing remained sacred.
A major lure of the downtown club scene was the bar section beyond the brass rails and on the shelves, directly in front of the mirror. Innumerable glass bottles adorned with elaborate labels of ducks, flowers and grapes flickered like votive candles. A chosen few cobalt or magenta bottles had a sweet, sticky, steel beak of a spout, that easily poured essences from glass decanters. The duplicated imagery in the mirror, reflected the hypnotic kaleidoscope of liquid euphoria, an intriguing illusion in contrast to the darkness behind me. A judicially placed muted blaze of golden light, haloed above the almighty cast register.
“Can I cop a drag?”, asked a voice behind us. Daniel reached over Ann Marie’s shoulder, without receiving an answer from Ann Marie, took a drag of her cigarette and handed it back to her. Daniel, a mutual friend from college was a "Foodie", whose Major at Pratt Institute was Restaurateur, Entrepreneur and Food Management. He was one of those over-educated, out-of-work characters who made a career out of collecting his unemployment checks. Now that he had graduated, there wasn't much call for an experienced swan ice sculptor, especially since Daniel would only consider working as a part-time temp. After college, he was disillusioned when he sought after this type of work and was offered a busboy position with the possibilities of someday moving up to chef. Basically, Daniel thought he would buy a restaurant, with what cash, I do not know, and he would show up at the restaurant twice a year to check up on the staff and see if there was any skimming on the profits. It's ironic that he chose the culinary arts as his life's work. Daniel had the physique of deliberate starvation. He despised food, eating and everything associated with this human function. The whole process tired him, going to the store, picking out, buying, carrying the groceries home, putting them away, cooking and finally consumption. Seeing Daniel standing there wearing a flimsy Junior Miss mini dress over Wranglers and long wavy hair that hung past an insinuating grin, everyone knew, for him applicable work would never materialize.
Ann Marie proceeded to tell Daniel about her mother’s pedestrian plans for her daughter’s future and how Ann Marie would never conform and be part of a community where lives are neatly fitted, as a peg into a hole.
“What's up with that? You tell her sister! Give ‘em hell,” Daniel responded nodding his head the appropriate number of times, to display just enough sympathy.
“Do you want the dirt on what really goes on? I picked up the newspaper today. But you know, no one ever reads the fine print. How are they ever going to see the light?” Daniel said, subtlety redirecting the conversation from it’s course,
"It’s the way it is. Last thing the powers-that-be, want for us to know is the truth, therefore broadening our horizons. Once you see the world in the liberating light of your own unwavering truth, you never see it any other way,” said Ann Marie.
“You know it. Along with the familiar guise of hope, we're being tricked by rituals and misled by superstition. But I'm healed from the wounded logic of appeasing someone else's beliefs,” Daniel responded. And with a wave of his hand he ordered a drink for himself.
After the Psychedelic Fur’s first-set, Joe arrived and wrapped his arms around me from behind and leaned his face towards mine. Responding to his affection I turned on my bar stool, to lick his eyelids.
“You’re a cat alright,” Joe said.
Joe was one of the few people I had met who actually was born in Manhattan and still lived there. A bonafide New Yorker, who knew the guts of the city. Sensitive to my evolutionary needs, Joe and his city delivered. Our compatible sense of timing was impeccable. Keeping it light was never part of our time together of which we were determined to spend every minute. We were the, male - female version of each other. Being artists we couldn't commit to reality. Nor would we.
Joe & I had met on the dance floor in a New York club, back in the 60s. As I recall, he wrote my phone number on the palm of his hand with a Rapidograph pen, that he had handy in his pocket from art class. At the time, it appeared that Joe was inflicting himself with an intriguing ritualistic tattoo. The pen had a chrome needle point and his actions seemed painful and permanent. Strangely different, show me more, I said under my breath. We first met when I was fourteen and he was eighteen years old. When Joe, my perspective beau, had asked me my age, I did the most unlikely thing, I told the truth. Fourteen, I responded. He shook his head and said no really, and continued to pursue this line of questioning further. I was on the spot. I remember, I tried to think up a believable age. According to all responsible accounts, okay eighteen, I blurted out, saying it without looking directly into his eyes. That seemed to do the trick. Being quick-witted, Joe deduced my real age long before he acknowledged the fact that I graduated high school and he graduated college at the same time.
Even though my glass wasn’t totally empty, Joe ordered a drink for both of us. Then Joe took my hand and kissed it.
“Hm, you smell nice. What's that sent?”
“Patchouli oil,” I responded.
“The way you walk on floating feet like Morticia Addams, that's another thing I love about you,” Joe said.
Playfully I said, “Listen to you. Knock it off. My heart had skipped a beat. Aren't you the Casanova? Oh, I almost forgot. I have something for you.”
“For me?”
“Yeah for you, silly boy.”
“What is it?” asked Joe.
“You'll see,” I said, as I felt inside the back pocket of my pants and then handed Joe his gift.
“Hey, a braid of your hair. How cool is that!”
After all, it was a meager attempt to reciprocate for all the thoughtful gifts I had received from Joe. It surely was no contest. yet the most outstanding gift that I have earmarked the memory to share and without a doubt, widened the perimeters of my budding artistic world, was an acrylic paint set. As if that wasn't enough, Joe also gave me the book, No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre. Joe had no intention of me, the recipient of his affection, thanking him in a high-pitch, girlish giggle. My boyfriend, had been listening but not in that annoying obvious people pleasing way. Joe knew of my love of painting and my newfound interest in Existentialism. The paints were a top of the line brand. He had to go to an authentic art supply store in NYC, located obscurely on a second-floor walk-up. One always felt you needed a secret password to actually purchase art supplies in that establishment. You have to be worthy. I found myself in by association. Once Joe gave me a low-cut, skin-tight silver lame’ evening gown, with a thigh high slit up one side. On the hanger this get up, was dripping with sex appeal. I adored that swanky dress. The decadent times we had together left this once glimmering metallic garment, with pure attitude sewn every stitch, stained, ripped, and burned with cigarette holes but still it remained for years in my closet. It was, in fact, my old friend. Always a struggle, being swayed by sentiment, I assumed if I could discard that dress in the trash, and I eventually did, I can throw anything out. I was cured.
In the bar’s mirror, I saw Eddie approaching me from behind, about to cover my eyes and play that dumb Guess Who game. Joe stopped him. Eddie, the failed prankster, was another one of our "Pratt Brat" alumni cronies. Eddie told me, earlier that night, he tried to steal a Clash album, from Korvettes, the department store in Brooklyn. He was smoking a Marlboro cigarette and with his free fingers, Eddie began feverishly combing his Buster Brown haircut, in front of a cracked section of the bar’s mirror. His face had the chiseled features of a Halloween Batman mask. From the look in his manic eyes, I could tell he intended to dominate the conversation. In Eddie's hyper condition, saliva would accumulate in the corners of his mouth, making him appear not unlike a ranting, rabid heathen hound loose from his chain ready to prowl the night. He had me in a verbal stranglehold. Once he would get on a roll, Eddie would curse excessively with full frontal ferocity, spewing nasty four letter words in one sentence, using them as an adjective, noun, verb and possibly an adverb. Eddie's loose language and stumbling Keith Richards entrances, were part of his “get me” persona. At these time, he seemed filled with rage, bearing a load all too heavy for his years. Eddie went on and on. Even though I didn't always agree with him, I recognized his validity. If anyone could pull off the “what comes around, goes around “, theory, it was Eddie. I remember one time, while in college, Eddie worked in a book store. He never showed up for work, forging the forms to be paid. Getting caught stealing from the book store, you would assume got him into big trouble. Disciplinarian charges were brought up at a hearing, which he didn’t attend. “If you paid me enough at the book store, I wouldn't have to resort to stealing”, was Eddie's brilliant defense. His superiors dismissed the charges and actually gave him a raise for a job he didn't go to. Angrily, Eddie continued to speak and told me of the time, he was bound with his own Venetian blind cord and robbed at gunpoint in his Bedford-Stuyvesant apartment. All the while he spoke, he stared into the space around me, only breaking the trance once, when he nodded to the bartender.
Almost in a tone of a question, Eddie said "Hey barkeep, White Russian?”
After telling me these things without comment from me, he asked, “So how are you?"
I snatched the chance to speak, "Fine", I quickly answered. I decided I would catch up with him later. Besides by then, that was all I could muster up and willingly handed the floor back to Eddie. He didn't take it. Instead of guzzling down his drink, towards obscurity, his usual approach, if drinks are on the house, he took a savoring sip of his White Russian. His devotion was intense, as if the expensive drink was one of the high heeled big deals, as Eddie referred to the evasive women who worked in the offices, he delivered packages to on his route as bike messenger, who finally said yes to his advances. Eddie was surely a footnote to history.
Eddie turned to Daniel, “Hey Daniel, remember what we were talking about last night? I tell you one thing, liars, they're all liars. They strip you of your emotions, then tell you how to feel.”
“Sure, I know what you’re saying,” said Daniel
“Don't they see, it’s easy enough to explain, the reality of truth is burdened by displaced sentiment and fear,” Joe chimed in.
"Yeah, without a doubt, truth is overrated in a house of make-believe. To their policy of lies, they’re such pet slaves. They’re like manipulated puppets buried under the rubble of delusion, where out lived dreams and weird luck settle,” Eddie said.
“You nailed it. Our manhandled morality is a crosshatching of lies. I'm just saying, sometimes I feel caged. Am I right Eddie? You get it, don’t you?“, asked Daniel.
"Eddy said, “Don't get me started. Just look at them, daily driven, selling out to some boring 9 to 5 job. Imprisoned in that shadow cast by the weight of promise, always waiting for what never comes. Clueless in a world, desensitized to the really important issues in life. Their minds clouded from hopes and dreams, they fall into the trap door of social order, turning solid ground into quicksand. I know, I say this all the time but in perfect circles they stagger, for only those who know little, master confusion.”
“Still the hierarchy of social order, Joe said, “with it’s power to charm, continue to recruit new enthusiasts, filling their heads with lies, sprinkling their poisons, allowing ignorance and hypocrisy to collaborate.”
Daniel folded his arms and said, “And for them, it's become a huge challenge, to silence our overly defiant voices. To them, we are considered pests, nothing more.”
“Damn straight", Joe said, then he took a swig from his beer bottle.
None of us questioned the tone from which our dialogue sprung. There was a clear driving force among us. We had developed a hard edge, out of grace movement, with a raw brand of beauty, bubbling up from the underground. We were designed for the night. Suspending the clockwork of reality, through detached dimensions of space, together, in a summoning odyssey that reigned nightly, is where we tended to linger. Serendipity had wound about the darkness. There would never be another time like that. As if in slow motion time ceased to meddle.
I made a bathroom call and worked my way to the end of the dance floor. There was a sign on one door that said, “Gents”. A door exactly like that one on the opposite side, had no sign. The signless Ladies Room may not have merited historical treatment like the Paleolithic cave paintings at Lascaux but someday archaeologist might uncover the distinct scratched obscenities and doodled icons that covered the toilet stalls. In a way, this was a lair inhabited by post-modern rebels of an underground society. As I retraced my steps back to the bar, the hour came around at last, it was time to go. The five of us gathered our belongings, we walked out onto East 15th Street and were met head-on by the cold air of night. It was raining lightly, painting the streets gloss black. At the entrance to the club, a group of new arrivals fumbled around in their pockets preparing to pay for admittance. It was well worth the meager fee, if only for a few timeless hours. Some of them were in pairs, some single, some hand-in-hand. A systematic line formation emerged. An obviously cold, blonde stick of a guy, was at the head of the line. He was clutching his jacket at the neck and coughing like a devoted filterless smoker of fifty years. Through the darkness, I vaguely saw the last person on line, an echo of those before him. It was comforting to know the torch was being passed on to a new crew of night lifers. To know they would continue, where we left off, to partake in the insurrection beyond the door. In the early morning streets of the city, getting a cab was easier on the main strip, so we started walking from Irving Place to East 14th Street, checking out the sparse passing traffic for a stray cab heading Uptown. Eddie, as ever, just followed. The pounding base along with Eddie followed us to 14th Street. Stepping off the curb, I tried to avoid the pigeon pecked French fries and a face up Sister Mary psychic fair flier, wading in the puddle. City clutter was streaming downward in a gush of rainwater destined to be held hostage by the teeth of the sewer. As in a daydream, I played mind games with the street, silently taking Rorschach tests with ever-changing iridescent patterns that were formed in the puddles of oil and water. Faint street lights illuminated my wet reflection in a store window. Like a weary ghost, I clutched my black wrap which mingled with my dark hair, that had the shimmer of seaweed, caused by the drizzling rain falling on New York City. Up ahead against the slick darkness, huge 15 ft steam fed pipes from an underground Con Ed worksite, released an ethereal mist, appearing as a crewless ship, fog bound. An image where the conscious became an uncertainty. Three inky eyed girls mercilessly sang a lingering hook line from the club. They flitted past us. Remaining true to my obsession with extremes, I know I read too much into the scenario but when they reached the site, a momentous thing happen. All three urbanize Sirens turned towards the Con Ed ship as if to catch a glimpse of the jeopardized captain. Somewhere between the Sirens and Eddie bending down to pick up a folded $20 bill con, a cab pulled up to us. The other side of the unfolded, phony bill was usually just a piece of paper with some sort of work at home ad. But one could never tell if it was real, until you picked it up. In Eddie's case the bill was always fake. Our taxi was one of those over-sized Checker Cabs that seated five passengers. There were two folding seats up near the plastic partition. Eddy, all hair and superhero clench made a lunge for his predetermined folding seat in the cab with the subtlety of a derail train. Daniel, Ann Marie, Joe and I slid passively into the leftover seats. Eddie began regaling the driver, on everything from the forbidden subjects, politics to religion. He was in his element. You could smell it in the air, along with the pine tree air freshener that was dangling from the cabs rear view mirror.
The night, so rudely interrupted by denied appetites, was drawing to an end. At one time or another during the cab ride home, someone shouted, I'm hungry, let's eat. For the remainder of the night we spoke in loud voices, a result of the amp’s synthesizer hum, still trapped in our tortured ears. We made our odyssey to Apollo's on 29th and 3rd Avenue. Apollo's, an all-night diner, was a place, where detached diners could eat totally unnoticed. Strangers statistically sitting at a secure distance. Too late to be night people, too early to be morning people. They were the beasts of both worlds. Our stomachs abandoned to neglect growled. Hunger had overcome us. After all my dinner that evening, had simply consisted of smoked oysters on a snack cracker. I crawled into a large booth with the slackness of a Slinky moving down a staircase. Jamming together, everyone spoke at once. It was reminiscent of a Robert Altman movie with the exception of an All-Star cast. A smileless waitress with a mussed up French twist and the graveyard shift in her step, approached our booth. We were reduced to, “hon”, in space of seconds. Extensive menus were handed out. In chalk there were handwritten specials on a blackboard, which were much too heavy to consume, envisioning a gastronomical nightmare. The waitress finally, took our orders and tossed the slip of paper from her memo pad onto a spike. Our coinciding dialogue included the revelations this early morning time period graciously allows. Thrown into the mix of faulty ears and hunger, I heard Daniel try to pawn off some story about having Sea Monkeys, as a kid. Sea Monkeys, I remember, became those mysteriously instant critters, when you simply added water. At that time, you could find the ad to purchase them, in the back of a trendy magazine. Nobody ever really knew what they were, let alone spend money on them. Food was served and after devouring my spinach pie, the guys plopped down a bill and some loose change on the speckled Formica table. We made vague plans for the next weekend. My thoughts about going to Mr. Snow's shop during the week kept cropping up. Mr. Snow was the owner of a vintage clothing boutique. He would hold articles of black lace and spandex clothing for me. He never knew my name. I liked it that way, making me feel like in an anonymous movie star. We had a one-dimensional relationship. In my mind, he was always in his store, not allowed to roam about. He was a fixture there, waiting for me to arrive. Mr. Snow was cutting-edge, having the fashion sense of an underground Dior.
Joe and I linked together at the arms and said goodbye to our friends, and started up the street. We sashayed home to dream in our beds. There we were back where we started obeying numbly the internal, command to sleep. Before we called it a night, I felt the anticipation of doing it all over again, same time, same place, next week.
In 1972, Joe and I vowed to love each other endlessly. Our souls consented. Shortly after we reached this agreement, we went through the legal formality of getting from the State of New York, the piece of paper to prove it. But it was more than just a license. I would like to believe it was a sacred union, that we had the blessing of divine government. Needless to say, Joe has moved up in rank with the honorable title of husband, of 48 years and counting. Deep down, I still refer to him as, my boyfriend. Joe calls me his beatnik bride. To me we are still both those skinny kids from the city. To think it all started with that brave question from a teenage boy, " Wanna dance?"

Father Time
​
by


Teresa Ann Frazee





You mortals take fatality all too seriously. Time does not care in the end if your actions save or damn your soul. Either way, the future cheats you, with the most ultimate restriction, of earthly rights. Only Fools fuss with plans. One can never decipher how far, I, Father Time, will go to claim your existence or demise. Practically speaking, my job description is that all living creatures are expendable and to be obliterated and therefore, I am encouraged to move the process of mortality along. The seal is set and reserved for my design of keeping balance between beauty and decay. Uncompromisingly, Father Time, has, does and will continue, with very laborious calculations, to keep time for every single living creature, yet does not pass judgment. I make no boast about having to fulfill my duty and you do not know me if you think I relish this in secret triumph. To ignore my side of things is to see only a partial story that will fail to lead to conclusions and fall short of the truth.
In the beginning, from the moment when I was appointed Father Time and began my career, I understood the necessity of disengaging myself from sentimentality. I have gone to great lengths to guard myself to remain impersonal. That being said, amid all my refusal to be hampered by emotional strain, there is this distinguishing mark of a pathetic sense of guilt. Ultimately, it has guilefully burrowed deep into the tiniest crack in my subconscious, then took up residence, which is an infinite burden. There are those who may claim, it is hypersensitivity on my part and perhaps, I should be made of stronger stuff. Your sympathies, of course, I understand should not lie upon my shame. But I must confess, it seems as if an enormous wedge has been thrust between my belief system of right and wrong. See that fly? Who is to say, after a desperate struggle, when his end will come and he shall fall prey to my persistence, or when a termite, professor, tax collector, soldier, rock star, spider, rat, king, or when I tragically carry off a child into the wrinkled arms of mortality or when a hardworking doting father will meet their demise? I do. The permanently doomed, those frightened souls with survival ever on the mind, their trembling, expiring limbs of flesh and bone, always anticipating miracles but on their fateful day they shall pay a dear price. My superior remains in the role of master, absolved of this task, networks responsibilities, while he takes on the heavy burden of pretending single-handedly to rule the world. Even though, he alone receives the blame, when the numbers add up to my murderous math, I should be grateful for my anonymity. Perhaps, it is a consolation, some may find it to be a perk of the job. But it is not. Quite frankly, I have grown weary pretending everything is alright with anonymity’s wasted skill.
Forgive me but my work is dreadfully tedious. Obviously, this is troubling as it causes such inner conflict. I am torn between my duty to precisely cease a life and my boredom. I guide them into the inescapable afterlife, as I come to grips with the agonies of my unexpressed guilt with dreadful intimacy. It is the power of time which is the sole business of Father Time. This endless journey towards obliterating the living must and will take precedence over any compassion, including pity or mercy. You see, time is intolerant of bargaining claims, pledged vows and resolutions made by the morbidly obese, chain smokers, heavy drinkers, pill popping, mainlining addicts, the bedridden, downtrodden and the poor as sin, who are forced to withdraw from society. Their requests, which are not made lightly, for an extension of time, when theirs has expired, as they swear on their word, to do good, be better and heal themselves, to become upstanding citizens and pillars of their community are all denied. The persuasive tone of their wishes and demands bear no weight on the final outcome. Surely, my job does not entail exerting much devotion to answering their pleas. Even those who are the picture of health, who practice good clean living, they too fail to understand, it matters little, for nothing protects anyone from the unavoidable. Nevertheless, there are times, when I applaud those daring creatures, who step up and attempt to resist the inevitable. It is worth giving due recognition. The elemental principles of the human spirit to persevere cannot be overlooked. With such a display of naivety, these beings feel they have some form of validation, a birthright to push back time, yet their sheer determination, I find commendable. They are reminiscent of the hardheadedness of one coming of age, with a false identification, who believe they are endowed with the attributes of a messiah, who controls the sequence of events and have conjured up the fabrication that they somehow are invincible. I must admit, this attitude causes both admiration and exasperation in me. Then of course, there are those who are forced to look at the over all harsh demands of their lives, are consoled by the thought of their time being over and rather long for the end. They have come to terms with this natural predicament, embrace it and stumble headlong into whatever awaits them. Rest assured, including those determined not to go down without an admirable fight, all will be considered losers when the light goes out in their eyes. It is virtually impossible and certainly meaningless to believe time can be outwitted.
By and large, I have no right to complain that not for even an instance, I cannot entertain the idea of simply unrolling the darkness of a hundred nights and lose myself in rest with the lax muscles of profound sleep. That fantasy would bring me even more despair. I confess, like the daydream of a mentally slow to develop, innocent schoolboy, I momentarily lose all my powers of conception and have this vague hope that perhaps in my incomprehensible hypothesis, time has stopped for a split second. However, reality hits me hard. This position that I hold, has been uninterrupted from day one. Let it be stated, I never asked for the responsibility. It is a huge undertaking which has left me overwrought with restlessness and fatigue. Also, It is a mistake to believe that my existence as Father Time was my ambition or career choice, that would clearly be an inadequate assumption. Oh to make a fresh start! As you can easily imagine, the change no doubt would indeed be drastic. You may very well ask, what then, do I aspire to be? What is my passion? I could simply respond, that I have a longing to escape into a picturesque scene, resonant of Romantic Painters, where a warm breeze wafts the most delicate scent of honeysuckle, as reflective, summer, yellow sunlight pours onto a balcony. I envision myself sitting there, utterly satisfied, slowly rocking in a worn chair. Far off, are scarcely visible majestic mountains with a panoramic view of an exquisite verdure of the meadow below. The past fades into the haze of the horizon, then vanishes into a cloudless blue sky. I certainly understand how this scenario would seem fitting to yearn for, after all, I could use the well deserved rest. But that would be someone else’s flight of fancy. Most likely, a typical dream of the majority but as enchanting as the imaginary gratification is, it is not my dream. I do not consider myself the idle sort or someone who builds sandcastles in the air. My passion is much dearer to me. In all actuality, my desire was and I anticipate will always be, to cultivate and nurture Bonsai trees. This Japanese tradition, has been practiced by both nobility and scholars. History states, it is the oldest horticultural pursuit, which dates back over a thousand years. I remember it very well. There would have to be an infinite number of sunrises before I lose the memory of when I first discovered this living art form. There is a certain personal satisfaction to be gained by adhering to the principles and techniques that are required. For instance, Bonsai trees require long term care and maintenance to properly grow and thrive. They can live for a hundred years, perhaps centuries. It is the art of patience that I find appealing. Harmony, calmness, tranquility and a spiritual mind at peace, is what I seek. But I digress. I accept the stone cold truth of my situation and do not indulge in the comfort of a maddening dream. I am resolved and have succumbed to that fact and shall never speak of my passion again. It is a whim and not entirely conducive to my work. My superior would settle for no less.
I have not yet found any solution to my dilemma, dare I estimate the danger which I run, except perhaps by negotiation with my superior, to hire a young apprentice to assist me. At a cost, I could defy my superior's orders, simply leave my post and abort my mission. Lest we forget, dear reader, as we all know, that would be unadvisedly sound to draw attention to being a disgruntled employee, for there is that wrath of his to contend with. The ramifications are dire. So, I continue as an unauthenticated representative of moral bankruptcy to eradicate the living, day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute. I ask you, which of us is the victim?

Space Station Borvan

   By K. A. Williams



The doctor looked at the smoking TARDIS console with dismay.

"What's wrong with it now, Doctor?" asked Tegan.

"I'm sure the Doctor can handle it," Turlough said uncertainly as the TARDIS spun around and he hung on to the console for support. The Doctor examined the instrument panel, then frowned, his blue eyes darkening. "A stabilizer is broken and I don't have a replacement."

"Where can we find one?" asked Tegan who also clung to the console.

***

The TARDIS made an ungraceful but firm landing on Space Station Borvan. Tegan and Turlough followed the Doctor outside where he set his Panama hat down on his blond hair and adjusted the stalk of celery on the lapel of his cricketer's outfit. 
He was ready to shut the door of the blue police box when a passing Vineryn leered at Tegan, his antennae swirling in a mating ritual. "Maybe you should wait in the TARDIS," said the Doctor. "I won't be long."

"You always say that," complained Tegan.

The Doctor smiled innocently. "Why don't you keep her company, Turlough." 

The Doctor watched Tegan and Turlough reenter the TARDIS before proceeding through the teeming humanoid and non-humanoid species toward the electronics store. He barely missed colliding with a short Liptoid who had a huge container of yellow bunquale sauce balanced on her head.

A blue-haired Brantnodide with pink eyes rolled all four of them when the Doctor approached the steel gate surrounding his wares. He wanted to duck down out of view behind some appliances but he was just too tall.

"Ah, Cegrist, just the Brantnodide I wanted to see."

Cegrist mumbled a few words and the Doctor laughed. "Don't worry, I have something better to trade this time. If you have one of these." The Doctor pulled the stabilizer from his pocket and handed it to the Brantnodide who clutched it in a six-fingered hand, studying it, before nodding.

He went deep into his electronic maze while the Doctor waited, hands in pockets, scanning the crowd for his companions. If they weren't in the TARDIS when he returned, he'd have a hard time finding them in this swarm of people. His compact ship didn't attract much attention here. He watched an entire family of Doluts, fifty in all, enter and depart in a craft much smaller on the outside than his own. And Doluts were twice as tall as humans.

The Brantnodide returned finally, the new component in hand. The Doctor took it from him and smiled brightly. "Thank you. I think you'll like this." He pulled a multi-colored cube from his coat pocket. "The object is to get all the squares on each side the same color."

Cegrist took the cube in one of his four hands and smiled, a frightful sight because of his many sharp teeth, something he had never done after one of their  trades. The Doctor pocketed the new stabilizer and hurried back to the TARDIS.

From the pool of yellow liquid near the door, he could tell that the Liptoid had spilled her precious sauce. The Doctor went inside and was relieved to see both companions there.

"Have fun outside?" he asked. 

"What makes you think we went back out?" Tegan asked, not meeting his gaze.

"Oh, nothing really." He had noticed the yellow tracks that led from the outer door to where Tegan was standing.

The Doctor handed the stabilizer to Turlough, headed toward the inner door, and paused. "Tegan?"

"What?"

"While Turlough's installing the new stabilizer, why don't you go hunt for a mop."

Tegan looked at the yellow tracks with embarressment while Turlough laughed.

                                               

Sunshine and Superman

By

Gerald Arthur Winter


Before his teens Tommy feared he’d been adopted because his older brother Billy’s blunt insinuations that he’d been dropped on his parents’ doorstep didn’t bolster any confidence that his fear of disconnection from his family could be merely his vivid imagination.
Billy would often whisper aside to his friends that Tommy was his adopted little brother, just loud enough for Tommy to hear. Billy’s pretending to keep their blood separation a secret gave more validity to Tommy’s fear. They’d be playing football in the empty lot up the street, and Billy would foster the idea of Tommy’s detachment from his own preferred genes in his younger brother’s head as he handed him the football for an end run. 
Tommy can’t run as fast as I can because he’s adopted. His real parents were trolls. Tommy thought he’d heard Billy say aside to the other older boys, which gave him an inordinate fear of goats in the neighbor’s pasture, from Little Billy Goat’s Gruff to Big Billy Goat’s Gruff. Tommy often peaked under the bridge that crossed the creek in the meadow to see if any of his kindred trolls were dwelling beneath the wooden blanks.
The tackle football was dangerous enough to life and limb with teams of five players on each side, just a few helmets of the 1950’s vintage with no face guards, or cushioned chin straps, but rather just a thin strap with a snap or buckle to tighten around a player’s head with no protection from concussions. Often during contact the helmet would caused even greater injury in a pile-up than no helmet at all. 
Shoulder pads under a sweatshirt were the only other equipment used for protection, but only half the kids could afford them, so they had sixteen-year-old boys with helmets and shoulder pads playing full contact against ten-year-olds with no protection other than fleeing avoidance or true grit against the odds of survival. For the most part, Tommy fit into the latter with a short stature his dad referred to as “built like a brick shithouse.”
Tommy wasn’t sure if the doubts Billy put in his head were to make him falter or to make him try harder when playing with the older boys. Tommy was blond and Billy had black hair, but they still had many facial similarities and gesturing mannerism that could be attributable to both their parents. Tommy didn’t dare ask his parents if he’d been adopted for fear Bobby had told him the truth that troll blood flowed through his veins.  
Billy was three years older then Tommy, and was born two days before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Not until they were teenagers had Tommy heard the story from his mom that his dad thought Billy, with his straight black hair as an infant, might be have been mixed up with some Japanese woman’s baby. His dad had wondered if a Japanese woman had taken his real blond, curly-headed son home from St. Albans Hospital and had switched the baby’s as part of some yellow-peril plot to invade America.  
Without his mom’s recounting that story for his reassurance, Tommy suffered from doubts through his adolescence about his true family connection. He never realized back then how the three-year difference in their ages, made him a drag on Billy’s ill-perceived social life at school. Tommy’s acceptance among Billy’s older friends bugged Billy no end.
They lived off the Belt Parkway near Springfield Boulevard in Laurelton, Queens at a time when Idlewild Airport had just two hangers with only a few daily commercial flights. Rockaway Playland and the best beach north of Coney Island were a short train ride on the El from home. By car with his parents and Billy, it was just fifteen minutes across Jamaica Bay. 
Pat Behner was a seventeen-year-old neighbor who often took Tommy to Rockaway Beach on the train when Billy was at summer day camp. Tommy was five and Pat was his babysitter, though she was careful never to use that dreaded term. 
From the first day she’d clasped his little hand in hers and sat beside him on the wicker train seat, Tommy was in pre-pubescent love. A light brushing kiss and brief hug of affection from Pat were exciting to Tommy’s unhatched libido.  
After a day with Pat at the beach, lying in bed at night, feverish from sunburn, and the scent of Pat’s suntan lotion redolent in his memory, Tommy felt certain he could jump out his window and fly to her bedroom window. Even peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with gritty chomps of sand didn’t matter to Tommy, always longing to return to Rockaway Beach with Pat. She was the quiet studious type, but like a caterpillar fresh out of her cocoon waving her colorful wings in the salty sea breeze. Lying face down on the blanket beside her, Tommy wondered if it was the surf or his heart that was pounding so loud against the sand beneath their shared beach blanket.  
Tommy saw that Pat was also his protector. Serene and spread out on the blanket, she suddenly looked up from the book she was reading, Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, and jumped up to smack a strange kid bigger than Tommy when he tried to steal his pail and shovel. With her shoulder-length black hair swishing, Pat looked like Wonder Woman in her two-piece bathing suit. That’s when Tommy knew he had to become a man. He couldn’t be like the runt in the Charles Atlas ads on the back Page of comic books, the skinny guy with his ribs showing who gets sand kicked in his face by a muscle-bound lug stealing his girlfriend.
Tommy kept it a secret and didn’t let Billy know he was conditioning himself 
with “dynamic tension” exercises under the covers on the top bunk in their shared bedroom—no dead weights or apparatus, just one arm against the other like an irresistible force against an immovable object.    
Pat took Tommy to Rockaway Playland after they left the beach to go on the rides and venture through Davy Jones’s Locker, a fun house with spiraling barrels, distorting mirrors, and traps that made you lose your balance. Rolling around together in the turning barrel, Tommy could smell Pat’s scent. He was in heaven. Wanting Pat, made Tommy’s mind soar from the sunshine of Rockaway Beach to becoming Superman, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound. 
Tommy thought maybe he was adopted, just like Clark Kent, and his real parents died on Krypton and left him to fend for himself, an alien among earthlings who were inferior to his inner strength. But Tommy’s foster family must have decided that he’d have a better chance of survival on this foreign planet if they moved to north Jersey where he and Billy had less chance of becoming juvenile delinquents in Queens. Even though Tommy had to say good-bye to Pat Behner, he vowed to fly back across the Hudson River to make her his life-long sweetheart.

* * * 

There was little opportunity for Tommy to fly in Bergen County in 1954, other than vicariously from the swooshing sound on a black-and-white 12-inch TV when actor George Reeves shed his suit and tie in a phone booth and sprang with his fluttering cape into the sky. Tommy was nine years old having similar feelings toward Janet Daniel's, his same age, as he had for Pat Behner. His affection; for Pat had faded like snowflakes falling on a sizzling volcanic lava. The flakes may have melted, but the lava continued to flow. That’s when Tommy’s mom asked him what he wanted most for Christmas that year. 
“A genuine Superman suit,” he told her without hesitation. “But you have to make it for me from scratch, just like Ma Kent did for Clark.”
“I’ve seen them on sale at the five-and-ten for Halloween. I’ll get you one if you do well on your next report card from school..” 
“School? Superman doesn’t need school. He’s smarter than everyone.”
“Not when he’s Clark Kent,” his mom retorted.
“Those outfits are junk, Ma. If you make it for me, it’ll be bulletproof and with my red cape I could fly.” 
She gave Tommy the kind of look you get from the librarian when you fart in the library, but maybe Billy was right that their mom thought of Tommy as her Golden Boy. He wished his hair was black like Billy’s and Superman’s with blue highlights just like in the comics.


 * * * 
       
Billy received everything he wrote on his Christmas list, and Tommy got many toys and games he’d asked for, too. Then his mom told Tommy he’d better put on his bathrobe because the heat hadn’t come up high enough in the house yet on that chill Christmas morning. Snow was in the air. 
When Tommy opened his wardrobe, there it was, just like in DC’s World’s Finest comic book last month with Superman, Batman, and Robin fighting crime together on the same cover. The Superman suit was blue with a red “S” and a yellow background on the chest. The red cape had a yellow “S” on the back. The stretchy blue pants and red tights had a yellow belt, and on the wardrobe’s floor was a pair of knee-high, red boots. Just with the brush of his hand across the “S” on the chest, Tommy could tell his suit was bulletproof and he could hardly wait to put on his red cape and fly. Now he could be sure Janet Daniels would be his girlfriend forever. He was prettier than Lois Lane or Lana Lang, and she was real and smelled like Juicy Fruit gum.

* * * 

Fortunately it was cold that January when Tommy went back to school, so he wasn’t that uncomfortable wearing his Superman suit under his regular clothes. 
“You’ve gained a lot of weight over Christmas vacation,” Janet Daniels said in the hallway by his locker. 
He closed the locker in time before Janet could see his red cape hanging insider, just in case he had to stop a robbery after school. He’d wait until the corridor was empty before catching his bus home, so he could fold up the cape to fit in his book bag.
Fortunately for those robbers, he couldn’t take out his cape on the bus ride home, because that would give away his secret identity. He couldn’t tell Janet until they were in high school. She’d be more serious and mature at seventeen, just like Pat Behner, now twenty-one. She was practically a grandmother.
Billy teased him about wearing the Superman suit under his clothes at school.  
He was in junior high now, so he couldn’t bother Tommy at middle school, not until they got home from school. Clark Kent was lucky he didn’t have an older brother to keep reminding him that, with that blond wavy hair, he probably was adopted.

* * * 

In May a new kid moved next store. Tommy turned ten and Eric was only seven, so Tommy figured he’d take him into his confidence and reveal his secret identity to him. 
A next door neighbor was almost like family, so he figured Eric wouldn’t give him all that negative jive Billy showered him with every day. Eric was a chubby kid with an odd manner of expression. When he had to pee, he’d say: “I have to make “tiddlelizz.” 
When he had to poop, he’d: “I’ve got to make a “whoorsht.” Tommy later learned that Eric was referring to a wurst, as in liverwurst—a graphic image that left little to the imagination. 
Disney’s animated feature Peter Pan was in theaters that summer, so the fantasy of flying overtook Tommy again. With summer vacation from school for three months Tommy had cultivated Eric’s belief that he was Superboy. Apparently Eric wasn’t as gullible as Tommy thought, so it shattered his confidence when Eric called him a liar—a harsh word for a kid with a dream to fly. There was only one way out. 
He’d have to fake it, but not just with words. Tommy had to make this odd, but stubborn little kid believe him, certain that was the only way to redeem himself.
Tommy planned his strategy for weeks, and finally took his wizened brother Billy into his confidence to help him with some of the details. He brought Billy into their daily games played in late July, so Billy could observe Eric’s temperament first hand. Watching Looney Tunes on TV everyday, Tommy and Billy convinced Eric to play a game they called “Fudd Pesters.”
“He’s only seven,” Billy reminded him. “Should be a cinch. What does Eric like most? Maybe he isn’t such a Superman fan like you and has to be shown what your super powers can do.”
“He’s more into Peter Pan, “Tommy said. “You know, the pixie dust and flying out your window to fight pirates and Indians on an island called Never Land with mermaids and pixies. Little kids’ stuff.”
Billy smirked maliciously. “Let’s see what we can make him fall for.”
“How?”
“I’ll show you tonight.”
Billy and Tommy shared a second-story bedroom above Eric’s first-floor bedroom window with only ten feet between the houses. They could look down from their high window and see into his bedroom. When it was dark, they turned off their bedroom lights and watched from their window until Eric’s light turned out. Billy took one of his marbles, pushed up the screen in their window, and bounced the cat’s-eye marble off Eric’s window sill with a loud—clink! They held their pillows to their mouths to muffle their laughter.
“Eric!” his father shouted. “Stop fooling around in there and go to sleep!”
“It wasn’t me, Daddy!”
“You heard me! Knock it off or I’ll give you a lickin’!”
They waited a minute then Tommy threw a marble that made a boing sound off Eric’s screen, not loud enough for his father to hear from the other room, but enough to bring Eric to the window.
“E-e-e-ric,” Billy chanted softly, but loud enough for Eric to hear. “It’s Peter Pan. Time to fly away with me to Never Never Land.”
We stayed below our window sill in case Eric looked up toward us. 
“Where are you, Peter?” Eric whispered loudly. “Where’s Tinkerbell? I can’t see her pixie dust flashing in the dark.”
Tommy and Billy were about to burst with laughter when Eric’s dad came into his room.
“What did I tell you? Get back in bed and go to sleep! Now!”
We waited about five minutes and Billy found a sparkler left over from The Fourth of July and lit it with a match from a book in his desk drawer. About to start eighth grade, Bobby had already started smoking with his friends in the woods behind Valley School. He nodded for Tommy to lift the screen then he tossed the sputtering sparkler out the window. It landed in a bush outside Eric’s window.
“E-e-e-ric, it’s Peter Pan. Tinkerbell is with me. She’s in the bush, but she’s dying because she thinks you don’t believe in fairies. Clap your hands loud so she knows you believe. She’ll be OK if you shout loud enough for her to hear. Tell her you believe in fairies and clap your hands.”
Eric came to his window and pushed up his screen. The sparker was fizzling out.
“I do believe in fairies!” he shouted and clapped his hands loudly.
Tommy and Billy were hysterical, but Eric’s father burst into his room, pulled down Eric’s pajamas and began spanking him on his bare backside. 
Eric wailed, “It was Peter Pan, Daddy! I have to save Tinkerbell!”
“No more movies for you!” his father shouted. “Now get to sleep before I take a strap to you!”
Tommy felt kind of sick inside about Eric getting a spanking, but Billy gave him a smirk and said, “Just wait. Now you can convince him your Superboy. Here’s how. . . .”

* * * 
    
Billy gave Tommy some ideas how to prove to Eric that he had super powers. 
Billy had to go to Boy Scout summer camp, so he couldn’t be around and Tommy was on my own—just him and his super powers.
He didn’t want to be obvious, so Tommy tried to act cool even though he was visibly sweating in his Superman suit under his clothes in the August heat. He’d never shown Eric his suit before. In his pocket Tommy had two nails. Both were four inches long, but he’d bent one in half in his dad’s vice on his workbench in the basement. 
“Hey, Eric! Tommy called to him in his yard where he was playing with some toy trucks in his sandbox. “Come here and I’ll prove to you that I’m Superboy!”
Curious, Eric got to his feet and waddled toward him.
“Oh, yeah. How?”
The bent nail was inside Tommy’s sleeve. He took the straight nail from his shirt pocket. 
“Do you think you can bend this nail in half?” he asked handing it to Eric.
Eric grunted so hard trying to bend it with his little hands that he farted. He was stubborn for a little kid, so he tried again, so hard and with his face turning red that he pooped his pants. He let out a howl and his mom came out to their back porch.
“What are you boys doing out there?” she shouted. 
Tommy grabbed the nail from Eric and said,” Watch this. I’m Superboy.” He put the straight nail in one hand and covered it with his fist then shook his sleeve and dropped the bent nail into his hand and tucked the straight nail back up his sleeve. He’d practiced that maneuver after watching Bonomo the Magic Clown on TV. “See! I have super strength. I’m Superboy.”
“Nah! That’s not the same nail,” Eric huffed with a frown. 
I dropped the straight nail behind my back.
“No. See, that’s the only nail,” I said.
“Your not Superboy,” he grimaced. “That’s just a comic book. My dad said so. Just like Peter Pan is fake and so is Santa Claus.”
Now this little creep was treading on sacred ground. Tommy pulled his shirt open to show him the super suit with its big red “S” on his chest. 
“That’s just a Halloween costume. I saw ’m in Woolworth’s. You not Superboy.”
“Oh, yeah,” Tommy challenged. “Try and punch me in the chest.”
Eric was little so he punched Tommy at the bottom tip of the red “S” right in the solar plexus. Caught off guard, Tommy could hardly breathe and his face turned red. 
When he got enough